Are Mentors the Key to Unlocking Professional Development?
Swainson Miki Peskett LLP Partners, Jordan W. Smith, Ryan C. Kemp, & Graeme R. Swainson discuss how to maximize your professional development with a mentoring relationship that will help you progress in your career. Discover the impact of mentors and why it is an important part of businesses of all shapes and sizes, especially the legal industry.
SMP | A Legal Podcast is a business first legal podcast discussing trending legal topics with the occasional help of top industry professionals. SMP | A Legal Podcast is hosted by 3 of Swainson Miki Peskett LLP’s partner, Jordan W. Smith, Ryan C. Kemp, and Graeme R. Swainson.
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Transcription
Ryan C. Kemp
“Welcome back everybody to SMP | A Legal Podcast. I am hosting this week, Ryan Kemp, partner with Swainson Miki Peskett. I’m joined as always with my partner, Graeme Swainson, and my partner, Jordan Smith.”
Graeme R. Swainson
“Ryan, you’re doing a great job hosting so far.”
Ryan C. Kemp
“Well, we got it off the ground. We’ll see if we can bring it in for a landing at the end.Today, we are going to chat about a topic that is near and dear to our hearts. An important piece of businesses, all shapes and sizes, not the least of which is for the legal industry, and that is mentorship and development of people. So, just to give everybody, I guess, our non-legal listeners, a little bit of a peek behind the curtain for lawyers in Alberta to become licensed you have a couple of components to your education profile once you are out of law school. Number one is completing your CPLED program, and number two is completing your articles. And as part of your articles when you’re a student, you will be matched with a principal at your firm. That principal is tasked with sort of your mentorship and development throughout the year and assessing your progress throughout that year. So, it is a mandated relationship, I guess, for lack of a better word, that all juniors go through. But the impacts of that not only in your year are hugely important. Not only in your year, but as you become more senior and progress as a senior practitioner. So, it is a really important topic. It’s something that all of us have gone through and know well. So, I’ll start. For me, personally, I felt very fortunate in my junior years to have fantastic mentorship. People that were prepared to be patient with me, take time, bring me along, and it’s been hugely beneficial. And I suspect, you know, Jordan talking to you about this, I suspect your personal experience has been much the same.”
Jordan W. Smith
“No, I’ve had very good mentorship and I think if you don’t have good mentorship as a lawyer, it’s probably pretty hard to be a good lawyer, frankly. And my view of it is most of the learning happens on the job, and most of it comes through, I mean, obviously comes through experience that you have yourself, but I mean it’s probably possible to be a good lawyer without having good mentorship. Maybe, certainly I’m not sure I could have ever done it. When I look back and think about all of the help that I received, there’s some boy wonders out there, girl wonders that figured out on their own. I think there probably are. I don’t think that’s very common.”
Ryan C. Kemp
“Well, and the deck is stacked against them, quite frankly.”
Jordan W. Smith
“Well, you know, I’ve had many mentors, right? So, I’m sure it’s the same with all of us. I can’t point to one and that’s how spoiled I’ve been and I had a great principal. I’m very indebted. I realize now that I am a principal, this is my first time at it. So, this year I have a student, our current student, of course, I’m the principal to him and I really now living, and it’s like you realize, if you’re a parent, you know realize what your parents maybe went through when you were a kids, so to speak, as an analogy. And I realize it’s a big responsibility.”
Ryan C. Kemp
“Yeah, no, it’s interesting like looking back on my because, my principal was not a practitioner in the practice area that I ultimately ended up at. So, I had this sort of student principal relationship in my articling year and once I was finished, I sort of transitioned to being mentored by practitioners in my practice area. Again, you take lessons, both good and bad from it. And like you said, this is your, your currently principal to your first student. And I am going through the process starting in July. So again, trying to pull all of this collective experience and hopefully figure out a way to help bring my student along the best I can. So, it is, it feels like I feel the weight of it.”
Graeme R. Swainson
“So, but I think at the end of the day, we’ve talked about this before, like it takes a village to raise a lawyer. We all benefit from the different experiences that we get and the different exposures that we get from different practitioners and mentors. Whether you’re, they’re your principal or not. Again, we were kind of talking about this before we came ‘on air’, the whole principal student thing again, I think it’s fantastic. It is a little bit weird in that you’re just kind of, as a student, you have this one person that’s responsible for you, and you can have a lot of good luck there and have this amazing lifelong relationship. But we’ve also, you know, hearkening back to our previous episode heard a lot of horror stories about people’s experience. So again, it can be very good and very bad depending on who you have, But again, I think it’s a great system because I mean, the alternative is, as you guys know, I went to law school in the US where you graduate from law school and you have a few months to study for the bar. You take a bar exam, it’s pass/fail and if you pass the bar exam, you’re a lawyer and you can go hang your own shingle. Go practice law. And that terrifies me. It always has, because again, I think the articling year is a good system that we have and what it does, it almost forces us as an industry to be responsible for the collective mentorship and the upbringing of these recent graduates and help that transition from law school to practice, which as we’ve talked about before, is not exactly intuitive or anything like that. And so it’s a huge thing in our industry, but just like it is in every industry. So, guys, what are your memories from when you were just starting out? What are your, what are the, what were the good things that mentors did and what were the maybe not so good things?”
Jordan W. Smith
“Well, I’ll jump on that. So, I think, you know, again, I had a fantastic principal also for what it’s worth was in my practice area. He was very regimented, and that’s one of the reasons I think he was successful in his own practice, you know, he’d meet on a frequent basis. He had me keep a list of the tasks. He had weekly meetings. Weekly meetings, yes. And he, I had a list of tasks that I was working on, so he’d kind of take a look and get a sense and there’d be times where he’d look and rightfully, he’d say, you know what? You need a little bit of this, or a little bit of that. I don’t see you’ve had this, you know, these kind of files that I think you ought to. To have, he was very proactive in ensuring I got that work and exposure. He would take me to meetings, you know, I’d sit and just listen to him on the phone. Sometimes he’d, hey I got a phone call. Why don’t you sit and give me a little background? And again, at that time, Graeme and Ryan, I had no clue how much he was really investing. Like it’s just, I was very naive, I think to it, to it all and how busy he really was and what and it paid off in speeds. Like I can say that, and again, in that case, I didn’t even go in his practice area, so I wasn’t an associate that worked with him. He knew that. And it’s not like the tap turned off either, so I’m very indebted to him.”
Graeme R. Swainson
“Well, and it sounds again simple, but yeah, it takes time to put the time in. Yes, and again, we talk about this a lot too. The thing we’re always seemingly short on in this job is time and the fact that, yeah, like if you see some senior person giving that time up to train a junior, like that’s incredible and that should be commended and we should all be doing that.”
Ryan C. Kemp
“Well, and I think for the three of us sitting around this table. I think we’d all agree that, you know, we’ve all benefited greatly from having good mentors early on in our years of practice. And I think having that, you feel the weight or the onus to give a similar experience to somebody that is coming up. Pay it forward. Yeah, it’s coming up along the way, it is interesting. You said something before, Graeme, that you know this line of work that we’re in law school, I think tries to prepare lawyers as best they can, but the reality is, so much of this, you learn on the job and because of this, like you said, I’m inclined to agree that, I do like the articling process, the on the job training that you get. But again, that all speaks to, or that all I think props up the importance of having good mentors early on because again, you’re on the job, you’re learning so much to have like a, to have a good example to learn from. And that can be both positive, negative and negative examples. It just, it makes it even more instrumental I think, given how we bring lawyers up and train them.”
Jordan W. Smith
“I agree. So one of, one of the things that I was thinking of this particular topic, and of course we’re talking about the principal student dynamic, but as we all know, you know, it doesn’t end there. And, you know, as you suggested in the path, in the US you passed the bar and your lawyer here, you finish CPLED, you complete your articles, and you get called and you’re a lawyer. Well, as we all know, it’s not a switch that turns on and now all of a sudden you’re just good at everything. And you know, I remember again, I looked ahead when I started as a student and I looked ahead at the associates that were a year or two ahead of me. And I had this expectation that they were way further along than they were because lawyers being what they are, they project that confidence notwithstanding how they might really feel. And then you kind of get to that similar stage. You’re like, wow, I still don’t, there’s a lot I don’t know. And anyway, so what I’m getting at, I’m taking it outside the box of the student principal dynamic is this is a real, lifelong thing. This is a career, kind of dynamic that I still have mentors. I mean, I still, there’s some counsel at the firm. I’ve got friends and other firms that our colleagues that I work with that I’ve worked with in the past. That I’ll still bounce ideas off of. And it’s hugely important. Sometimes it’s problem solving. Sometimes again, it’s just running it up the flag pole and kind of going, I got this. You know, sometimes it’s not even when you’re running a law firm, it’s not always even legal things, it can be business things. Like it’s, again, so to me those relationships are huge. Right. Through your career”
Graeme R. Swainson
“Yeah. And I think, you know, I want to get back to, you know, talking as, from the mentor point of view because that’s what kind of triggered this episode. Again, Jordan, you’re wrapping up your first year being a principal, Ryan, you got a student incoming this summer. But I think just as important some advice to, and not only again, article students or young lawyers, but again, anyone in any profession or any job, again, as an article student, you have one principal. Do not have that be your only mentor. Do not limit yourself to one person. Find as many people as you can, and to your point, Jordan, whether they be colleagues, people at other firms or other businesses or what have you. Again, friends and family because it is one of those things where, you know, I think, as I said, it takes a village to raise a lawyer and I think you take different skill sets and different kind of tips and tricks from different lawyers and that’s how people build thier own practice and you learn, okay, this is going to work for me. Uh, because I think about this in a similar way to Jordan or something like that. Or, you know, this isn’t going to work for me because, you know, I am not as organized as Ryan and the system that Ryan has isn’t going to work for me. And so again, you’re not going to learn everything from everyone, but you’re going to learn little kind of drips and drabs from different people. And so keep your eyes open because you never know, again, who could be a mentor, a mentor to you could be someone who’s a couple years junior to you that just happens to be better at something than you.”
Ryan C. Kemp
“And that isi such a good point because when I look back at my experience, I had that exact. And I would, I had two senior practitioners that had generously kind of took me under their wing and spent a lot of time with me and I had a lot of time to work with them. And I could tell they were two stylistically very different practitioners and, to your point, as opposed to sort of identifying one, maybe open that, open your horizon a little bit. And if you have a couple that you’re fortunate enough, like I was to draw on, you can take different things, different aspects, things that maybe fit your skillset a little bit better. Again, like the writing style was the biggest one in this particular example, on every detailed, thorough, you know, just elaborate in a lot of ways. In other words, very concise to the point. And I was able to sort of pick out, okay, this is a situation where I think this will benefit me using this. And then it just, it yeah, it just, I just think it gives you such a much robust, tool belt to pull from if you’ve got a few different mentors that you can latch onto.”
Jordan W. Smith
“Yeah. So, one of the things that I’ll kind of share and then you guys can maybe chime in if you have any thoughts on this, but to kind of specific about the types of aspects of mentorship that most benefited you when you’re, you know, so for me, you know, when I think of the relationship I had with my principal and other mentors, I think one of the things that was very helpful is, I was fortunate enough to have mentors that were just very honest with me. You know, and some were very forthright and honest, but not, not in a negative way to make me feel bad, but that they took the time to kind of dig in and number one, be honest about, you know, the work product where it’s, which takes time because you’re sitting there and you’re wanting some feedback and it’s not just, well I fixed, it’s quicker to fix something, move on, and not ever mention it. But in that way, but also, frankly and probably more importantly, in their own failures or weaknesses in the things that they’ve struggled with either in the past or even currently. And I think as, and that’s as a student ongoing, uh, having those types of relationships where in this case, you know, and I’ve tried to pass it on now to my student is, you know, look, I remember being in your shoes. Uh, I’ve been there. Here’s what it was like for me because it can be pretty daunting. So, if you’re acting as a mentor to another person and they’re quite a bit more junior because as you point out, Graeme, it’s not always the case. But if they are, you know, I think having an expectation that, you know what, well, I can’t get there. Right or and an understanding, and that’s part of building the trust where it’s like, well, I’ve been in your shoes, I’ve been through this and that. And even sharing, you know, frankly, in some cases, probably some embarrassing stories about getting some work from a partner and not knowing what the heck I was doing and everything else. And so for me, again, I’ll say, I’ll call it honesty and transparency was very helpful. Was there, I don’t for either of you, is there anything specific you can think of that was helpful to you guys?”
Ryan C. Kemp
“Oh, so I do, I definitely think, if we’re talking about things that, you know, cause I think we can kid of hit on things that are helpful, both when you’re in the mentor chair and then you’re in the apprentice chair. And I think what you’re saying is honesty, maybe some empathy, maybe even showing that you’re vulnerable again. Like, and that does provide, I think, the mentee, a glimpse into their future and a path forward. You know, not to go back onto the mentee side, if we could just sort of divert for a second, but, you know, Graeme suggested that, you know, for when you’re in that mentee’s chair, try and have a wide scope of view. Try and find a couple of different examples that you could that you can pull from. Another one that I would suggest if you’re in that role is. Availability, make sure that you are present. Make sure that you are open to, you know, acknowledge that you’re having an olive branch extended. Take full advantage, leverage it, be there. Soak up as much as you can because, you know, obviously at some point you have to cut the cord. Right. Although we’ve talked about, you know, and it’s true that mentorship can be career long, you know, at a certain point there’s an expectation that of course, you can stand on your own too, even though that mentor might still be there. But, it’s a, you have to take full advantage of the opportunity that you have when you’re sitting in that chair. You’re saying you have to put the work in.”
Graeme R. Swainson
“Well, it’s like everything you get out of it what you put into it. And that’s what we are constantly telling students and junior lawyers that, again, we’re going to give you every opportunity to be as successful as you possibly can, but can’t do everything for you. And so, yeah, I mean, you know, you’re talking about availability. It’s something we have talked about before with the New World and office work, and again, this hybrid model of working from home and all that. And again, I just, I’ll make some people upset by saying this, but it just, it doesn’t work in a collaborative atmosphere to have half people working from home. And so again, we work in a collaborative atmosphere where we’re team members, we’re all there for each other. And to your point, you have to be there. To help people out. And yes, if, again, if I’m handing off work to a junior lawyer, and I’m looking for someone to help me out on a file and I’m walking again, this is how I operate. And again, everyone has different ways of doing things. I’m not an assign tasks by email or inter-office memo kind of guy. I would want to walk down to someone’s office. Have a conversation with them. And then again, that’s how it progresses. If I grab a file, I’m walking down to find an associate, help me out with something, and there’s an empty office there, I am not going to do a bunch of work to go out and find where that person is. I’m walking to the next office and if there’s a body in there, they get a file. And so that’s unfortunately a reality that a lot of people are going to have to face coming up is that if you are not physically present, you are going to be forgotten. And again, the availability thing, if you’re available, if you’re around again, you get out of something, what you put into it. And that’s going to be a big thing moving forward. And again, as much as we’re I think sitting here talking about what mentors can be doing, in order to be good mentors, the onus isn’t all on the mentor. There is an onus on the mentee, and I’m sorry, I have to take an aside, we keep saying mentor/mentee. Does it not just make you think of that Seinfeld episode Daniela and he tells the Ovaltine joke. It’s gold, Jerry. It’s gold. I digress.”
Ryan C. Kemp
“No, but you, you’re absolutely right. Like be available, and don’t be afraid, don’t think you’re going to wear out your welcome. You have this opportunity, the principal, your mentor, whatever has shown a willingness to make themselves available to you, take full opportunity. Because again, you’re not going to have that for throughout the entirety of your career to the same extent that you will when you start out. So yeah, just absolutely make the most of it. You’re not going to wear out your welcome.”
Jordan W. Smith
“I think you talk about the availability, but to broaden that. Again, we’re talking about these mentee side of things, you know there, it’s a bilateral commitment. And the reality is, you have to kind of get in someone’s face, so to speak. You have to get into their office, you have to take initiative. Right. And I think, for me, I remember, you know, and I’ve had this a few different times, especially as a junior lawyer where I kind of feel bad. I want to knock on the door but oh, they’re busy. Are they on the phone right now or not. Right, and you know, frankly, there were some lawyers, there have been lawyers I’ve worked with that were a little grumpy about me interrupting them from time to time. But I had to get past that. For me, I had to overcome that myself because it, you know, I can be a bit of a sensitive person at times, but I did, I realized I had to get over that and I did. Because at the end of the day, and you’re right Ryan, you have to stand on your own two feet for the most part at some point. And in order to get there, you know, you have to take that initiative of saying, you know what, okay, I need to get better in order to get better. I need to learn from people. I’m in this environment now, frankly, if you’re in an environment where you don’t think you’re learning from somebody or the people there and, you know, there aren’t available mentors. Maybe you need a different environment, frankly, you have to take that initiative. And when people take that initiative with me, and I think it’s common amongst a lot of people, you know, you want to give them more, you’re more apt to say they’re a go-getter. You know, they want to learn. And even if you do, to be honest with you, a really poor job at some things, the effort, and it’s to use even sports analogies. It’s like, you know, some players, coaches love and fans will look why, why love them? Because I know what I’m going to get. They’re going to try.”
Graeme R. Swainson
“Yeah, and so it’s the same thing with this. Yeah. And that like that kind of gets me onto, and I know we’re kind of jumping back and forth here, but again, you know what mentors can do, and this is the story that I have, again, going back to us talking about, you know, what did we benefit from coming up? I remember, again, senior partner at a former firm. Not practicing with us anymore. And I think this goes to patience. You need patience and you need to be able to, again, invest the time and all that kind of stuff. Because I remember this particular partner would not let me leave his office unless I assured him that I actually understood what we talked about. And I guess, you know, expanding on this a little bit, as a junior lawyer, as a junior, anything, you can often just be looking for an answer and as soon as you get the answer that, okay, the lawyer says that, you know, it’s not. And so that’s perfect. I can go back and I can get back to the client or the lawyer on the other side, or whoever I’m dealing with and say the answer is no. But again, going further, you want that person to understand why the answer is no, and you know, it takes more time, it takes more effort. But again, I always appreciated the fact that I wasn’t just leaving that office with an answer was what it was. And it doesn’t sound like, again, it’s a huge thing because that is how you train lawyers. That’s how you train people, again, to do their jobs correctly, because they know not only what they’re doing, but why they’re doing it. And that takes a ton of time and patience and effort of the person training them. And that’s I think something that I think we always talk about in that like it’s hard, like there’s so many times where it’s so much easier for any of us to just do something ourselves than to go and assign it to a junior person and explain to them how to do it. But it is the teach a man to fish analogy, right? And so that’s what you always have to remember is that it’s an investment and that investment takes time and effort and patience.”
Ryan C. Kemp
“Yeah. I’m happy we got back on the mentor side. I didn’t mean to dodge your question. I’m just such a solicitor. It takes me a while to formulate my response. I can hear the hamster wheel from here. It’s just, I’ve got a couple more things to say on the mentor side. And it, and it goes to, I think what you were touching on there, Graeme, and it’s passing that full knowledge on is, I think a goal for every mentor should be that you should want your mentee to be in a better place than you were at that same stage in your career. And in fact, one day hopefully surpass and exceed you when they’re of comparable vintage. Right. I think that’s, that should be the goal. You should not be, you know, proprietary with that knowledge that you have, you should be wanting to pass it down. You should want them to be better. You should want them to, if we’re talking about, you know, old episodes, you know, the South Park episode, take your job. You should want them to one day, take your job. Because I think that’s the only way to do it. Again, if you’re only sort of giving half of the context half of the piece, that’s not how the relationship works.”
Graeme R. Swainson
“That’s such a good point. And honestly, even in this. You know, dinosaur industry that we live in or like it’s, we’ve all been there where senior lawyers said basically has they add attitude where, you know, it was shitty for me and it should be shitty for you, or you’re on a need to know basis. I went through all of this crap and you know, people treated me like garbage when I was starting out and I had to go pick up dry cleaning and wash cars and all that, and so you’re going to have to do it too. Whereas, no, that’s a terrible attitude to have and I agree with Ryan wholeheartedly. The attitude should be, again, let’s leave this place better than we found it.”
Jordan W. Smith
“So, what I was going to mention and kind of piggybacks a little bit of what you said earlier, Graeme, you know, gaining an explanation, not just an answer, but one of the things that, when I was thinking about this, that I think is important is to kind of demonstrate and do the work and roll the sleeves up and do the work together. And, which is very kind of similar to what you’re saying, but just to put a little colour on it, you know, it’s one thing, for example, you know, as a mentor to sit and talk about emotionally about files and you’re doing this and doing that, it’s quite another thing to kind of bury your time in doing it with your mentee, right? Bringing them in the boardroom, having them sit in a client meeting. Afterwards explaining, well, this is why, you know, and frankly me before, just so you know, this is the kind of business they’re in, you know, that I’ve known them for this long. We’re, you know, this is what we’re kind of working on. And I’ve had that happen to me.And I now kind of do that same thing as I, when I mentor other people. And I think it’s so important. Again, takes a lot of time, but it’s so important because again, I think it takes time. But then there’s the context. It’s, you get the full scope of how you run a file, how you engage other people. And to your point, even earlier, Ryan, about having to stand on your own two feet one day is and leaving someone better than, than they, they were, I think a lot of lawyers didn’t get that, and they kind of had to learn. And I’ve worked with lawyers where they got a conversation like, well, I didn’t do the work you’re doing until I was 20 years old and I was 5 years old. Almost resentfully resentful. Yeah. And it’s like, you know what? Well, that isn’t, again, if we’re working in a firm and we’re trying to help each other. I hope that we’re going to be, when you get that mentorship, and again, as a manager, that’s what I aspire to do. Then of course you have a lawyer now who’s, you know, 3, 4, 5, 6 years out that is opposite 20 year counsel and able to hold their own. And why? That’s why, right? You’ve kind of expedited the experience, right?”
Ryan C. Kemp
“So blatantly, again, you’ll interact with lawyers all the time, and you can, you just know. You can almost picture what their formative years as a lawyer were like, and it’s such a varying like, and the unfortunate thing is to a certain degree, it is a little bit luck of the draw, like where you land and who you get. There’s part of that to it. And the unfortunate part is, that it has such a dramatic impact on your career arc that to think it’s kind of luck is maybe an uncomfortable feeling. And one thing I can tell you, I don’t know if you had to go through the course, you may have, you may have gone through before I did, but for new principals now there is a course that is mandated by the law society. That is to educate new principals. I’ve gone through it and what I was left with is thinking, holy smokes, there must be some poor junior lawyers out there because the fact that that is necessary.. The fact that this is a thing that some of these questions on these quizzes need to be asked is..”
Graeme R. Swainson
“So, like give me an example.”
Ryan C. Kemp
“Oh, it’s like, it’s the most basic, it’s like, like conflict resolution things like if there was a performance issue, how do you resolve the conflict? You know, do you yell and scream and pound your fist? It’s basic. It’s like, don’t berate your student, don’t pull them under the bus. It’s like, okay, but clearly because you’re, is this a question that, that somebody didn’t get that from the outset.”
Graeme R. Swainson
“So we should get rid of the cone of shame that we got people to wear, right? Noted.”
Ryan C. Kemp
“The other piece on the mentor side that I wanted to just touch on again. And this is admittedly, I think this is probably the most difficult part of mentoring and doing it correctly, is finding the appropriate balance between autonomy and oversight. It’s easy to be on either end of the spectrum, in other words, to just not be present. Let them. Run off and do their own thing or on the other, like be an absolute micromanager. And I think there are obviously issues, with both sides, of that spectrum. Hopefully you land right in the middle and I think that is the sweet spot knowing how much oversight to give a junior on a file. Knowing how much to let them. Run with it, gain experience it. And it’s admittedly tough and I certainly don’t purport to have all the answers, nor, you know, again, like I’m just starting out in this process, being on the other side of it. But I think that to me is like, as far as mentors are connected, if you can find that balance to motivate and educate, like if you find that right spot on the spectrum, you’re going to motivate and educate better than you will if you’re on either side.”
Graeme R. Swainson
“Yeah. Well, that’s actually a fantastic point, because I don’t know, you guys know more about this than I do, but it’s not that different than parenting, right? There’s helicopter parents and there’s absentee parents. Very good analogy. And you don’t want to be either on of those. But also I think it, it is, you can’t just be right in the middle. Because I think it depends on what the individual needs. Right? For sure So that’s where, and that’s part true that’s part of the skill as well. There’s some, you know, real go-getters that don’t need that much of a push as far as being organized and, you know, being a self-starter, all that kind of stuff. And so, yeah, you might want to take a bit of hands off approach and just kind of let ’em go. And then, there’s some people that struggle a little bit more. That you have to give a little bit more instruction to and quite honestly, I’ve seen go-getters that are amazing as junior lawyers completely flame out. I’ve seen people that are not that great be late bloomers and end up being fantastic lawyers. And so that’s the other thing is like, figure out what your student or your junior lawyer, your mentee needs. Try and give them taht, and again, set them up as well as you can for success because yeah, like that’s I think one of the hardest things is that I think there’s no one size fits all approach to this. Sure. Just like, yeah, raising a kid, right? You have to figure out what the kids needs and try to provide them with that.”
Ryan C. Kemp
“Yeah, no, that’s such a good show. I think if we have the opportunity, hopefully I’ll get an opportunity to be a principal more than once.”
Jordan W. Smith
“We’ll see you pass your course first…”
Ryan C. Kemp
“I got my printed certificate, so I think I’m alright. But, no bar ad goes, that’s it is such a good point. And it makes, it makes eminent sense that like you can’t have the same approach across multiple, like people are different. And again, that informs part of the skillset I think, of being a good principal or mentor again. Regardless of what industry you’re in, is knowing that person that needs your help and sort of tailoring your style to what bets that kind of best serves them and their needs.”
Jordan W. Smith
“Yeah, good point. And so for, yeah, for me, one of the things to think through here as well as the expectations, you know, what’s expected. So, when you’re suggesting Ryan about go-getter, or you know where people fall on the spectrum. I mean, when you’re starting out, especially as a junior lawyer, you’re not quite sure what you have authority to do. I mean, you know, you have a piece in the file. You just piece in the file and you know, it’s everything is kind of new and you’re not sure can I reach out to the client? Who is the client? What’s the business? You don’t know anything. That’s, you know, it’s an overwhelming position for some people. Again, some go-getters. They almost, you have to pull the reigns back a bit because they want to do too much, and it’s like, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know? But the point isn’t, it goes the expectation and it’s something that I’ve learned that, okay, you know what, setting expectations is important and it’s something that I’ve learned. I can be somewhat of an unstructured person. The principal that I had was a very structured person and I’ve, you know, again, and there’s pros and cons to all these things, but I’ve learned that setting expectations is important and you can’t get frustrated. I don’t naturally anyways. But you can’t get frustrated if someone doesn’t meet an expectation that they don’t understand that’s on you. I mean, you have to set the expectation and that goes for, you know, all the way through, obviously. So for me, if I’m starting out with, or working with a junior lawyer mentoring. That’s one of the things that right from the get go I deal of is, okay, so, you know, this is what we’re doing. This is, I won’t say the scope of authority, but you know, you kind of have to go ABC a little bit at the beginning and you can’t get frustrated with that. And in my own experience, I’ve had times where, and I always thinking about this the other night, knowing this talk was coming up. I had a lawyer I remember, dropped something on my desk as was probably three or fourth year associate. It was very complicated, not in his practice area, and expected me just to know everything. And it was more in his practice area and he spent no time helping me with anybody. And later on I found out that he actually didn’t know it that well either, and that was why he gave it to me and it was a complicated task. Now, I only mentioned that to say it’s one of those. Things I take away as, okay, you know what? You know if, again, if I’m mentoring someone actively on a file, you have to know your work, right? To be able to mentor them. And that’s the part about multiple mentors is that if notwithstanding, say I have a student, if there’s a matter that, you know, somebody else in the firm could help them with, well, you could help your mentee with that too.”
Ryan C. Kemp
“Yeah. I think that just highlights the importance of, again, I don’t think anybody’s, whether it’s your article year, the first few year, like everybody has, you know, pros and cons to what their relationship like was like with their mentors or their principals. It’s a mixed bag for everybody. But take those opportunities to maybe like that experience that you shared Jordan, like you went through that, but you knew right away that okay, if, if I’m, if you know the rules are reversed. That’s not something that I’m going to do because I know I’ll make me fail and it didn’t help my growth and my development. So, I’m going to leverage that experience, albeit a negative one and turn it into a positive.”
Graeme R. Swainson
“Yeah, and I think that’s actually something we probably haven’t actually, you know, we’re a decent amount into this thing and we haven’t talked about enough how important communication is in both being a mentor and receiving mentorship. Again, you kind of touched on it though. It’s again, setting expectations. Again, when you’re assigning work, what are you expectations as far as what’s being done exactly. Timelines, all that kind of stuff. Again, set expectations out very clearly so that there’s no, there’s nothing worse than a junior lawyer sitting in their office not knowing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing, and spinning their wheels and all that kind of stuff, and so, yeah. The better communication as far as expectations go, the better as a junior or the mentee. Again, communicating your workload, how much stuff you have on your plate. I’m still so bad about this. I never say no to work. I never say no to anything, I just figure it out later. But, it’s also a terrible way of doing it because you don’t want everyone thinking that their thing is at the top of your list. And so you end up disappointing people. And so again, people, I think, appreciate when you reach out and say, you know what, I know I said I’d get that to you by Wednesday, but it’s probably going to be more like Thursday or Friday. Like, I could find someone else to cover on it, but I’m just, I’m slammed right now. That’s so much better than just saying you’re going to get something to a senior lawyer by Wednesday and just crickets. The senior lawyer is then having to go and follow up and they get all pissy and you know, it’s not a good scene. And so again, setting expectations on both sides is very important. The other thing that I think we don’t talk about enough, and it just doesn’t get done enough, is feedback. We are terrible at providing feedback, to junior lawyer and junior people when work gets done. Like the rul eis generally no feedback is good feedback. As long as you’re not getting a black line just lit up in corrections or anything like that, general, like I always tell people and it sucks, but the biggest compliment that you can get on your owrk is that the lawyer just flips it to the client or the lawyer on the other side without any kind of changes or commentary. Like, that means it was perfect. Now are they going to always come back to you and say, hey, that was a perfect job, well done. No, I think we’re trying to get better at that because again, that’s going back to pay it forward, you know, leave things better than where you bought it. Like, it’s just something, we’re always so busy and I don’t think this is a legal industry specific thing. I think everyone is just so busy all the time that we’re not good enough at like letting people know, like when they did a great job, when they’re like, when they’re valued kind of thing. And I think that goes a long way.”
Ryan C. Kemp
“So that exact point. Talking about specific examples in course that is this they stress that as well. And again, I think we all used to joke, you know, no news is good news.. I still have my name placard on the door. Must be doing all right. But no, there has to be something more because even if, you know, even if you’re not getting a red line, I think, anxiety builds if you’re just kind of working in a vacuum and you don’t have much in the way direction, especially when you’re a junior, just trying to find your way. The one thing that I would say about communication though and I think you alluded to it, but it’s a two-way street, so it’s going to, I’m, it’s going to be on me to provide ongoing feedback. Good, bad, and otherwise on performance, development, all those types of things with my student, it’s going to be incumbent on her. And I’m going to make this clear that, hey, I’m not perfect. You need to tell me areas in which you think I can improve as a mentor. It has to be, I feel like it has to be a two-way street, has to be a constant loop of communication because I may have blind spots that I don’t pick up. I think I’m doing things the right way, but it’s perceived the wrong way and it’s going to help me be better, be not only a better mentor to that student, but the next one and the next one. So, it’s not just me providing feedback to the student. It’s gotta come the other way.”
Ryan C. Kemp
“But in order for that to happen again, you have to foster an environment where they’re comfortable coming and saying all that to you. And they’re howling right now because, you know, Ryan, I know you’re a big teddy bear, but you are an intimidating presence and your student is like a, you know, a quarter of the size of you. Again, and I know you’re going to, but that’s such an important thing to make them feel comfortable. That they can come and say whatever the hell they want and you’re not going to begrudge them or anything like that. It’s a two way street because we’re not perfect. None of us are, we need to get better at stuff. Absolutely, and until we get, you know, it’s nice to get that feedback from people when they’re at that stage and say, you know what? This isn’t working well for me, and this is the reason why. Yeah, we all have blind spots and we don’t see everything. And again, fostering that environment where everyone’s very comfortable speaking up and saying what’s on their mind, knowing that, number one, they’re going to be heard. And number two, that nobody is going to begrudge them for having an opinion. We all have opinions. None of us is a hundred percent right, is going to say something.”
Jordan W. Smith
“Because it’s one of my weaknesses. Spoiler alert, I’m a bit verbose. So, you talk about listening, one of my challenges is, I like to flap my gums so I could sit and have my soliloquy, well, my student or the mentor sitting there goes…”
Graeme R. Swainson
“Back to your drama days, right?”
Jordan W. Smith
“There you go. Right, but anyway, I have to forcibly, like literally I have to, okay. No, just ask some questions. Sit and listen, and you know, let there be air in the room for a response. So, and I frankly have had mentors that I did learn a lot from, that basically talked at me and I did learn a lot from that being said, I’ve learned the most from mentors where it was, you know, where it was engaged and I could share and there was less, it was obviously you talked about the feedback and everything else. And you need to have that space check the ego. Right. Because both sides have to be a bit vulnerable, a bit honest. So, you have to kind of set that aside. You have to set aside the perfectionism. You have to set aside all of that and kind of meet the person at an individual level. But yes, the listening is massive. And again, I’m disclosing that as a weakness of mine. My wife knows that quite well. But yeah, I have to list more.”
Ryan C. Kemp
“Is there anything else that we’ve missed? I know we put together a short list of items that we wanted to hit. I think we hit them all. Or is there anything else that we’ve overlooked?”
Graeme R. Swainson
“No. Do you feel prepared for your upcoming principal duties?”
Ryan C. Kemp
“Manelle, my door is always open. We’ll get through this together.”
Jordan W. Smith
“And don’t worry, I’ll mentor him on being a principal. So, it’s coming full circle.”
Graeme R. Swainson
“I am just really looking forward to you two solicitors going in and doing a bar admission application. And again, we’re going to find the courthouse together. We’re going to get you guys some robes. I know neither one of you own robes.”
Ryan C. Kemp
“I have to find double XL Carhartt robes. Where do they sell these, where can I buy this? It’s going to be great. Okay, well, let’s see if we can bring this in for a soft landing. That’s it for this instalment. We really appreciate everyone listening. If you have not done so already, please subscribe, rate, review, engage with us on our socials. There you go, done, dusted. Until next time, thanks everyone.”
Graeme R. Swainson
“Great job, Ryan.”
Jordan W. Smith
“Good job, Ryan.”
