Don’t Let the Waterfall Halt Your Legal Career: Utilizing Effective Coaching and Mentoring

September 23, 2024

Key Points:

·         Coaching and Mentoring are instrumental in helping attorneys successfully navigate the legal profession.

·         A successful Mentor Relationship is defined by key attributes, including a capacity to listen and trust.

Approximately 500 miles off the eastern coast of Africa sits the tropical island of Mauritius. On the island’s southwest, Mauritius offers a spectacular sight from the proper perspective (from the air looking toward the island): an enormous underwater waterfall, which appears to be draining all the sand and water away from the island into the unknowable depths of the ocean.

This phenomenon is seen in the striking photograph on our home page. The photograph also captures a boat that, from the audience’s vantage point, seems to be trying desperately to motor its way to the top of the waterfall, lest it too be dragged below.   

The entire spectacle, however, is an illusion created by the movement of silt due to underwater currents and Mauritius’ location at the top of a submarine plateau. In fact, there is no waterfall, and the boat is in no danger, it is streaming unencumbered across the water, its occupants no doubt soaking in the stunning vista.

To me, this photograph parallels how young attorneys often come to view their path in the legal profession. Without the proper support, they feel like they are battling their way up a raging waterfall of doubt and anxiety. This feeling of drowning in the surf is further exacerbated by mantras like “learn by doing,” “drink from the firehouse,” and “sink or swim,” which abound in the legal profession and at law firms and are seen as a way of separating the chaff from the wheat.

The reality, however, is that the “waterfall,” against which young attorneys are rowing, is illusory and need not exist. It is an unnecessary and false construct. Too many good attorneys have been “weeded out” through a lack of coaching and mentoring. This despite the fact that it is widely accepted that coaching and mentoring provide many benefits, including:

·         the development of new skills;

·         the avoidance of mistakes that come early in one’s legal career;

·         an increased ability to navigate the firm culture;

·         greater associate loyalty to the firm (and thus retention); and

·         the building of connections, both internal and external.

The reasons vary for why this support structure is missing. For lawyers outside the law firm setting, they may not know who to go to. For those within a law firm, the firm may not have a mentorship program. And even for those well-meaning law firms that recognize the importance of mentorship, their best intentions often cannot override the inescapable realities that partners are unavoidably distracted by business development, client management, and their day-to-day case work and might not be comfortable being a mentor, and associates may be paired with the wrong person and are never going to be fully comfortable being fully candid with someone in-house.

This is where an outside perspective can help. Regardless of whether you look externally or internally, attorneys should look for a mentoring program or mentor who:

·         has developed a well thought-out process;

·         has significant experience;

·         is available and wants to listen;

·         is as candid about their missteps as their successes;

·         is trustworthy and someone you can be candid with;

·         motivated to help you create a short-term and long-term plan for career development; and

·         motivated to help you follow through on that plan and adapt to changing circumstances.

You don’t have to fight the waterfall alone and, with the proper support, you may realize there is, in fact, no waterfall.