A mentor is usually someone within your firm who can show you how the organisation really works. A mentor can help with your career development from day one as a newly qualified, showing you the realities of the partnership role and how to get there. Mentoring can help you think about what’s actually best for you, both for your career and your personal life, rather than automatically moving up the ladder because it’s expected.
In particular, being mentored by a partner helps you get a sense of whether you actually want to become a partner. Being a partner is very different from being a senior associate. It includes more of a management and business development role and can take you away from the things you liked about being a solicitor, such as reading cases and drafting advice. It also involves a lot of admin!
A good mentor will also be able to reassure you that just because you’ve been promoted and the partnership have faith in your potential, that doesn’t mean they expect you to know everything immediately. They can explain that the first six months as a partner can be the most terrifying of your career, because you essentially learn how to be a partner on the job.
It is also incredibly useful to have access to somebody who’s well connected within the firm who will speak honestly and openly to you about your career prospects, both before and after promotion.
But is this enough?
In addition to the advisory role of a mentor, there is another important role they can play. A champion, or a sponsor, is someone who advocates for you and actively promotes you and your career ambition, both internally and with clients. This can increase your visibility within the firm, particularly for those who are not in the central office of an international firm; you are never going to be promoted if the senior partners don’t know who you are.
Mentors can also increase that visibility externally, by putting you forward for speaking engagements and in front of clients, and help you be seen in the partnership role.
Of course, the role of mentor and champion may be fulfilled by the same person, but the real benefit in a mentor/champion relationship is in the active steps that can be taken to support your career progression, on top of the advisory role of a more traditional mentor of someone for you to learn from and bounce ideas off.
For example, people are no longer promoted to partner simply because they are brilliant lawyers; that is taken as read. These days, it’s also about building your business case, showing you can network and build relationships, and ultimately, that you can bring in business for the firm.
Business development is not the focus of associate training for many firms, which naturally, prioritise client work. But a mentor can help you with this, by reviewing your plan, helping to build key client relationships, and by letting you see the way they manage client relationships and internal relationships with other partners.
Ideally, and with the right mentor, you will bring, or at least show you have the potential to bring, some new business into the firm before you make partner and during your first year as partner, which will greatly strengthen your case.
If you want to be promoted, it is important that other people know what you know, and what your ambitions are. The firm wants to see that you will be a team player within the partnership. Clients want to get to know you, so they have confidence in sending work to you. You’re never too junior to take that initiative or show your career aspirations, and having someone champion you can help channel that energy and enthusiasm, as well as advise you on building your own personal brand within the firm and promoting your unique selling points to the partnership.
In terms of the promotion process itself, a mentor, or champion, can help you speak up, as well as advise you on when to speak up, and to whom. They can tell you to knock on doors, rather than wait for busy people to notice what a great lawyer you are. They can suggest a lunch in the diary with an influential partner from another office that might lead to an opportunity for you. They can introduce you to clients and help you be seen fulfilling a partner’s role.
If your firm doesn’t have a formal mentoring scheme or official support for the partnership track, consider asking someone who you think might have useful advice for their thoughts and help in getting to where you want to go. Such approaches may even be more beneficial than a formal mentoring programme: being paired with someone the firm thinks would be a good mentor may not suit you, or your style, and mentor relationships take time, both within and outside work hours, to develop. It is much easier to build this relationship with someone you get on with.
It is also worth having a few mentors, within and outside your firm, as each person will provide you with a different perspective for you to learn from, and have advice about different aspects of your life and career.
Your mentor doesn’t need to be someone who is the exact replica of where you see your life going – that person is unlikely to exist, particularly when more junior lawyers are looking to forge their own path for partnership, or for underrepresented groups where there are fewer similar people in leadership positions for you to approach.
Instead, you should draw on all of your circle and take advice wherever it is given. Pick the pieces of advice that resonate with you, and find a way to make that work for you. You never know where the next piece of work will come from, or where your career will take you.
And remember, a mentor isn’t a magic bullet. You also need to have faith in yourself and your abilities. If you have confidence in yourself, potential mentors will have confidence in you. But sometimes you just need a little help to get you over the line and to keep you on track in the early years of partnership.
Jackie Mulryne is a life sciences partner at Arnold & Porter. She was promoted to the partnership in February 2019.
