Posted by wlansden |
Filed under general, young associate, mentors, news and comments
By Brian Malcom
Law schools have long been criticized for failing to provide real world training of young lawyers. Too much theory, they say, and not enough practice or practical experience. Well, the State Bar of Oregon may be looking to address this criticism of legal training by requiring law school graduates to participate in a yearlong mentoring program. The ABA Journal has the story here.
Apparently, the Oregon Supreme Court asked the Oregon State Bar to develop the program. According to the ABA Journal, the program is designed to help law grads who can't find jobs upon graduation, but it sounds like it will even be required of those that are lucky enough to have a job offer at graduation. The newbies will be paired up with mentors that have at least five years of experience in practicing law and will likely require at least two hours of mentoring each month. The details are still being ironed out. Utah and Georgia also have bar-mandated mentoring programs.
While this program does not sound overly cumbersome to the participants, is this the beginning of a shift in the way young lawyers are educated and trained? Will law students or grads soon be required to spend weeks or months shadowing a more experienced lawyer before being allowed to practice? How is Oregon going to incentivize lawyers currently practicing to participate as mentors in this program? Will the mentees eventually have to work 80-hour weeks like medical residents often do?
I believe in the practice of mentoring young lawyers. I really do. I have benefited immensely from the advice of experienced attorneys. I appreciate, however, the fact that my mentor-mentee relationships developed naturally with lawyers I know. I anticipate that my mentor-mentee relationships will last far beyond one year, and they are willing to provide far more than two hours of time each month if needed.
I am just not sure I like the idea of making this a requirement for young lawyers. State bars could certainly assist the development of their members by creating and offering such a program to those who are interested, but the mandatory aspect of the program is a bit heavy-handed in my opinion. What do you think?
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