EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the third installment from Corporate Counsel‘s new blogger, Rich Baer, general counsel and chief administrative officer of Qwest Communications International, Inc. Baer will be posting one-to-two times each week, and will share his experiences at Qwest, as well as his observations on legal departments, outside counsel, and the challenges facing lawyers and their profession today.

A lot of people have gone further than they thought they could because someone else thought they could.

– Unknown


Since ours is one the oldest professions, I have always believed that mentoring is a key to success. Whatever I have achieved was with the help of great mentors.
At each of my legal jobs I had at least one and often several great mentors. For instance, when I was appointed general counsel here at Qwest in 2002, I had the luxury of being under the wing of our CEO and chairman, Dick Notebaert, as well as two of his key team members, Barry Allen, then the head of HR, and, Oren Shaffer, the company’s CFO. Between the three of them, they had over 100 years of leadership experience and without their guidance I would not have succeeded.

My luck with mentors continued even after those three departed the company, as I had the privilege to learn under our next CEO, Ed Mueller, a creative and intuitive leader. He broaden my understanding of the role of a general counsel.

And, early on, I had several other mentors to whom I literally owe my career. Some were lawyers with whom I worked. Some, believe it or not, were clients, and some were colleagues.

I have picked the brains of my mentors on legal issues, management issues, organizational design issues, career development issues, you name it. And, no matter how busy they were, they always took the time to provide wise counsel. Why? Because I asked. Which is the key point to this post: the responsibility for mentorship is as much, if not more, on the mentee, as the mentor. Seek out mentors; it is your career, not theirs’.

Speaking of mentors, the Program on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School is conducting a groundbreaking empirical survey analyzing mentoring practices in the legal profession. Please take their survey– go here to do that. it can help all of us to learn more about effective mentorship in the legal profession and develop a more nuanced perspective than the one I have articulated in this post.
More Recent Posts From Reliance on Counsel

Rich Baer serves as General Counsel and Chief Administrative Officer of Qwest Communications. He refers to himself as an “accidental general counsel,” because he literally fell into this position; it was not one he sought nor, at least initially, one for which he was particularly qualified. However, it has been a challenging, and, at times, enjoyable ride. In addition to leading Qwest’s law department, Baer oversees human resources, corporate communications, risk management and compliance efforts, public policy, federal relations and corporate social responsibility. Prior to joining Qwest in 2001, he served as chairman of the litigation department at the Denver law firm of Sherman & Howard.