Developing Legal Talent: Becoming More Effective as a Mentor or as a Young Attorney

• Citation: Vol. 38 No. 3 Pg. 46
• Year: 2025
• Pages: 46

Developing Legal Talent: Becoming More Effective as a Mentor or as a Young Attorney Vol. 38 No. 3 Pg. 46 Utah Bar Journal May 2025

by Andrew M. Morse

In these competitive times it is critical that young lawyers develop as quickly as possible. This article offers advice to young lawyers and mentors alike that will hopefully advance that development.

HOW TO BE A GOOD MENTOR

Every law firm and legal office needs good mentors. Young lawyers need to learn a lot in order to become effective and profitable. They need to be trained as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. Although some firms have decent mentor programs, most do not. This note outlines the contours of a good mentor.

Be a Coach

A mentor is a coach who wants to teach young lawyers. Mentors must be kind, approachable and supportive, and genuinely interested in a mentee's professional life.

To do this, get to know him or her well. Make yourself available both within the office and without. Develop mutual trust with the goal to develop a long productive professional relationship.

Promote flexible schedules and realistic requirements for your charge, especially if she or he is a parent of a youngster. Anticipate the constant demands on mothers of babies under two years old.

Meet regularly with your mentee to review assignments and progress and to answer questions. Use these half-hour interludes to learn more about his or her struggles, successes, and interests.

Have a Plan

You must have a plan. For litigation associates the plan should stretch over three to four years. Start with objectives. One potential objective would be for the young litigation lawyer to be able to second-chair a substantial trial and first-chair a minor trial. By the end of the three years, the young associate should be able to completely handle many matters with only occasional direction and guidance from senior lawyers.

The plan needs to be detailed and contoured to your practice. Discuss the plan with your mentee before it is initiated. If your mentee is going to handle a hearing, have her watch a good advocate in action. Go over proper courtroom dress, decorum, and process. Review every way the hearing could be lost. A lawyer needs to understand how she is going to lose before she has the best chance of winning.

Before assigning any depositions to a mentee, be sure the mentee understands the rules of how depositions can be used, the fundamentals of how they proceed, and especially deposition objections. Discuss what could go wrong and how to respond.

Have your mentee attend depositions with you, particularly with skillfill trial lawyers taking the deposition. Give your mentee transcripts of a well-conducted depositions. The mentee also needs a lot of coaching on how to handle different types of lawyers. All this needs to be firmly implanted before a discussion of the facts to be developed at any deposition. Have your mentee outline the deposition and run it past you a day or two before to make sure the mentee understands how the exhibits are to be used and the like. Review the deposition with your mentee...