60-Minute Mentoring for Lawyers and Law Students

Book excerpt: A Perfect Resource for Both Mentees and Mentors You can call it "speed mentoring" or "60-minute" mentoring. Just keep this in mind: Momentous things can happen in a moment and episodic mentoring sessions create such moments. In 60-Minute Mentoring for Lawyers and Law Students, a timely and readable guide, you will learn how to use 60-minute mentoring--with its focus on professionalism and life-long learning--to be a better lawyer and colleague. Small Commitments, Big Results Amy Timmer, Associate Dean of Students and Professionalism at WMU-Cooley Law School, and attorney Matthew Cristiano describe how lawyers, law firms, law students and bar associations can successfully use 60-minute mentoring in place of (or alongside) traditional matched-pair mentoring programs. Packed with sample questions, anecdotes and checklists, the book's four parts and 19 chapters explain everything mentors and mentees need to know about episodic mentoring, including: Questions young lawyers and law students should ask How to find, plan for and maximize mentoring sessions Mentee personality types What a 60-minute mentoring session looks like Episodic mentoring for bar association member development, new member orientation, and attorney development Partnering with law schools Why teaching professionalism matters In the past six years, more states have looked to mentoring to ease the introduction of new lawyers into the practice of law. At the same time, many affinity, local, and specialty bar associations have looked for ways to recruit and integrate new members into their existing membership using mentoring. The advantages are obvious: new attorneys need mentors not just to help them with legal issues, but to build a referral network, to become engaged with the legal community, to experience the values and customs of the local bar, to be exposed to continuing legal education and pro bono opportunities ... and on and on. The book is divided into 19 chapters: Chapter 1: What Is Mentoring? Chapter 2: Types of Mentoring Chapter 3: Understanding Episodic Mentoring Chapter 4: Perspectives on Diversity in Episodic Mentoring Chapter 5: The Focus on Ethics and Professionalism: The Common Bond Chapter 6: Find, Plan for, and Maximize Mentoring Episodes Chapter 7: Mentee Personality Types Chapter 8: The Episodic Mentoring Session Chapter 9: Feedback from the Episodic Mentoring Study Chapter 10: When Mentoring Goes Bad Chapter 11: Keeping in Touch with Mentors Chapter 12: How to Become a Mentor Chapter 13: Mentor Personalities and Approaches Chapter 14: A Template for Professionalism Mentoring Chapter 15: What Mentees Bring to the Relationship Chapter 16: Episodic Mentoring for Membership Development Chapter 17: Episodic Mentoring for New Members Chapter 18: Episodic Mentoring for Attorney Development Chapter 19: Partnering with a Local Law School