Law 360 Quotes Huse on Mentoring for Senior Partners

How Mentors For Senior Partners Could Benefit BigLawBy Aebra Coe

Law360 (February 23, 2018, 11:12 AM EST) -- Large law firms have long offered mentorship programs in which senior partners bestow pearls of wisdom upon junior attorneys, but at least one law firm is shaking up that traditional model in what some say could be a game-changer for the legal industry.

Linklaters LLP recently announced that it will pilot a program in which junior attorneys and staff members mentor senior partners who sit on the law firm's partnership board, sharing experiences, ideas, concerns and advice one-on-one. The program is aimed at improving the law firm's diversity and inclusion, matching members of underrepresented minority groups with people in power.

The pilot program at Linklaters, unveiled at the end of January, matches members of the law firm's leadership with associates and staff who are members of underrepresented groups with regard to race, social mobility and sexuality... Some of the most important lessons law firm associates can teach more senior attorneys, according to Jill Huse, co-founder of consulting firm Society 54, are adaptability and communication.

In corporate America, more and more millennials occupy the workforce, making it important for law firms to be able to communicate with those professionals who work within the corporations the firms represent and understand what it is they value, Huse said.

"If senior attorneys are relationship partners for junior corporate counterparts, adapting communication styles and norms will be imperative into sustaining client relationships," she said.

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