Counsel's growing season: mentoring helps transition from law school to practice.

• Author: Mischel, Marie
• Position: Focus

Putting theory into practice poses a problem for many new attorneys who pass the bar exam. Approximately 500 new lawyers enter Utah's legal system each year and many of them open their own practice, says Utah State Bar President Stephen Owens. But they may not know even the simplest practical legal procedures, such as how to take a deposition. New lawyers hired by firms also face difficulties in real-world situations. To combat this problem, the Utah State Bar created the New Lawyer Training Program (NLTP) last December. The program offers one-on-one mentoring to new attorneys.

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"Law school doesn't teach you the practical realities of practicing law: how to file an appearance of counsel, what an adequate discovery request should contain, what to do if a client can't make a court date, etc.," says Susanne Gustin, a criminal defense attorney who is serving as an NLTP mentor.

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As a new attorney in the public defender's office, Gustin says she was lucky to have experienced lawyers to ask for help, but not every law school graduate has a mentor readily available. Margaret Plane, now a senior city attorney in Salt Lake City Attorney's Office and co-chair of the bar's NLTP committee, finished her clerkship and then took a position as the only lawyer working for a non-profit organization.

"There were a lot of things that I needed to do that I had never learned about, that aren't taught to you in law school," Plane says. "Some of them, quite frankly, are based on Utah practice ratherthan what's in the rule book, for example. I think something like the NLTP would have helped me learn a lot of those practical aspects of the practice of law because I wasn't taught them and I didn't have colleagues that I could walk down the hall and chat with."

The year-long NLTP program is required for all new attorneys who pass the bar exam, as well as those who have practiced for less than two years and have moved to Utah. It replaces the first year of the required new lawyer continuing legal education; the second year of the New Lawyer Continuing Legal Education (NLCLE) requirements remain the same. The program is intended not only to teach new lawyers the practical demands of a law practice, but also professionalism and civility, and it gives them a friend to help them balance the demands of life, Owens says. "Some new lawyers have those things already, but there's a whole group that doesn't, including the folks in rural...