09/18/2024
Recent events have had me pondering on mentors and mentorship. Mentorship is a crucial part of any lawyer’s development, and a lawyer’s mentors may have as much or more influence over who that lawyer becomes as a parent.
I, myself, have been exceedingly fortunate in the mentors I found, or who found me. I will not name them, but two in particular contributed incalculably to the lawyer I now am. Both are still in my life and as close to my heart as my parents and siblings. Both are brilliant lawyers in their own right among the finest appellate practitioners that my state has produced. But they are each very different from the other, especially with respect to the type of mentor either one is.
The first is a conservative mentor. I don’t intend that term politically, though he is conservative in his politics. I mean that he sees his own mentorship as a gift that he bestowed upon a select few whom he had entrusted to conserve what he believed to be the quality of practice that he set.
The second is a progressive mentor. Again, I do not mean the term politically, though he is progressive in his politics. He never thought of his mentorship as such. He was simply happy to share his experience, perspective, and love of the law with anyone who asked for them. He wanted all of us to be the best lawyers that we were capable of being, and he trusted that the practice would continue to progress through our efforts.
My relationships with each of those mentors is different. I love them both, and I will be forever grateful for the invaluable lessons that they taught me. But my relationship with the first mentor is tinged with resentment. Even now, he he still wants credit for my successes. He wants to be sure that I’m still doing what he taught me to do, that I’m using his gifts appropriately. He will never see me as more of a lawyer or a writer than he gave me the potential to be. And it stings.
My relationship with the second mentor is the opposite. He couldn’t care less whether I credited him for my successes. He cares what I’m up to, and he’s happy when I do well. But his self worth neither rises nor falls because of me. It will forever be a joy to tell others that I learned from him.
Here’s a concrete example to bring it home: I recently argued a big case, the potential consequences of which can’t be overstated. I strove in preparing the briefs to channel everything that each mentor taught me. So of course I share the briefs with each of them. The second mentor was delighted to read the briefs, to ask me questions, and, he said more than once, to see what the Court does with the arguments. The first mentor, however, wanted to argue with me before he lifted the first page. No one had before successfully done what I was trying to do, so clearly, in his mind, I had missed something crucial. Maybe I had, but he wouldn’t do me the courtesy of reading my arguments before trying to prove, yet again, that he knew better. That stings the most.
