Mentoring is a hot topic in legal circles today, but it is important to realize how much new lawyers can benefit from having both an internal and an external mentor.

Firms have started internal mentoring programs to help their new lawyers make the difficult transition from law school to law practice. The irony, of course, is that before formal legal education existed, lawyers qualified for the profession exclusively by mentoring from senior lawyers. Today, new lawyers can avail themselves of the same advantage – jump-starting their own careers by using mentors to their own personal advantage.

The benefits of good mentoring should be obvious. Navigating the processes and procedures of a particular court cannot be taught in law school. Developing and handling clients can be taught at a theoretical level, but individual client personalities and desires are not theoretical. Producing legal work for different partners can be confusing, as each has different standards and quirks. A firm’s culture and expectations may seem quite different from the perspective of a new associate than it did when that same associate worked as a summer clerk. Firms want new associates to develop into effective, profitable lawyers, but each firm has its own definition of what that means. A good mentor within the firm can take the mystery out of these concerns and accelerate the associate’s professional development.

With the plethora of digital information available today, the new lawyer may well think the secrets of career advancement and success can be found online. Indeed, the web does contain many resources. But these are no substitute for learning from a lawyer familiar with your own unique abilities and challenges. Developing ethical judgment and strategic thinking are best learned in person. Each firm has its own style for how to write a bill that will be collected and how to use firm resources most efficiently. Good in-office mentors will offer their own experience – including both successes and failures – on how they became competent lawyers.

Effective, internal firm mentors can advise the new lawyer about which bar associations offer activities to best advance their careers. They can introduce the associate to their own personal network and broaden the new lawyer’s access to referral sources. They can provide constructive feedback on the associate’s legal work and approach to solving client problems. They can advocate the associate’s gifts to other partners. They can offer friendship and support, sharing how they managed their own workloads. Within a firm, an effective mentor can be a valued guide to producing good legal work that is recognized and appreciated within that firm.

The challenge is finding an effective mentor. Some firms with formal mentoring programs assign mentors. This can work if the firm takes the relationship seriously and analyzes why an assigned pairing meets the associate’s needs. But this only works as well as the insight put into the process. The relationship is usually more fulfilling when associates seek a mentor with the personal and professional qualities they want to emulate. Making time to shadow a senior lawyer at a deposition, in court or in a client meeting presents an invaluable learning experience.

Sometimes it’s helpful to identify your own mentor who is an example of good practice. My most important personal experience during a clerkship was just observing how one partner answered the telephone. His voice was animated and welcoming. He made every client feel as if their call had made his day. His tone sent a message: not only was the caller’s agenda important to him, but the caller as a person was even more important to him. Although he was not my assigned mentor, I learned more from time spent with him than from anyone else.

One word of caution about internal firm mentors. They tend to be loyal to the firm. While the firm’s mentoring guidelines may suggest that the mentoring relationship is not evaluative, it can be. A partner dissatisfied with an associate’s work may approach the mentor about it, seeking improvement, so that what was intended to be a conversation benefiting the associate can morph, unintentionally, into an evaluation session. Ultimately, partners are more concerned about their firm than they are about any one associate.

Therefore, it’s crucial to seek a second mentor outside the firm. While the internal mentor guides the new lawyer through the firm’s unique culture, the external mentor is most useful in providing advice about opportunities in the larger legal community. The most helpful advice I got from a lawyer outside my first firm was a blunt reminder that my firm didn’t own me. He reminded me that I was a member of the bar and a free agent. There was nothing stopping me from looking around and discovering what kind of practice would suit me better than the one I was in. Sharing your dissatisfaction with firm partners about their firm, or even about the legal profession, can be a career-limiting move. External mentors offer us the freedom to think outside the firm’s box.

You must choose an exterior mentor carefully. The key to a successful mentor relationship is, of course, personal compatibility. Good mentors are not just approachable and accessible, but they are transparent and willing to share their own professional life. They accept the new lawyer as a trusted colleague. They are lawyers who want to help develop the next generation of great lawyers. But they are also people who are willing to spend the time that takes and who have the insight to appreciate those special qualities the new lawyer offers this evolving profession. They are both brutally honest and relentlessly encouraging. They keep confidences and suggest opportunities.

And why do busy lawyers take on this responsibility? Because they get as much from this relationship as the new lawyers. They gain a first-hand introduction into how the new generation works. They learn ways of doing legal work they never previously imagined. They come to appreciate the difficulty of starting law practice at a time when technological change is resetting everything we believed about how to practice law. It’s a two-way street.

In short, new lawyers need good mentors, and two examples are better than one. So, double the intel, and you’ll double your chance of success.