The start of a young lawyer's career is like building a home without a blueprint. Young lawyers have the researching, writing and analytical tools to construct a legal career, yet lack a blueprint showing how to build it. In other words, law school teaches young lawyers how to succeed in practice, but it is up to us to learn how to be lawyers. Given that reality, young lawyers should avoid speculating about what their career blueprint should look like, and instead, seek guidance from mentors to develop it.

Just as executing a blueprint requires the expertise of a plumber, an electrician and an engineer, a young lawyer should enlist the expertise of several professional mentors. While some of these mentors may overlap and serve multiple purposes, a young lawyer should seek out the following three mentors to develop a career blueprint.

The Practice Group Mentor

A practice group mentor is a lawyer in the firm who personifies the experienced specialist within the same concentrated area of law in which the young lawyer practices. Whether the area of law be labor and employment, reinsurance or real estate, a practice group mentor is the type of person that other lawyers with similar levels of experience outside of the practice group call first for questions and for peer advice. This type of mentor is vital in teaching both the foundational elements, as well as the subtleties in handling a case in practice. While a young lawyer will naturally be exposed to a practice group mentor by working in the same practice group, a young lawyer should expand the relationship with respect to case management and strategy. For example, a young lawyer may have been asked to answer a complaint. Rather than drafting the response alone, a young lawyer should engage their mentor and ask questions, such as, "Why didn't the plaintiff raise claim X?" Through this type of active participation in the relationship over time, a young lawyer will learn to anticipate what is needed, what is coming, and how to handle a similar case in the future.

The Book of Business Mentor

The book of business mentor is a lawyer with elevated years of experience in the firm who has built a vast network of clients. This mentor has shown the ability to forge lasting relationships and develop unwavering trust by providing clients with consistent value. The book of business mentor hardly ever takes lunch alone and has an after-hours social schedule geared toward meeting potential clients. This mentor is proactive in apprising existing clients with new legal information, anticipates how that new information may affect daily operations and forecasts potential solutions. In addition to seeking this mentor out, a young lawyer should actively engage this individual with a variety of questions, which inquire on the span of the development of their mentor's professional career. For instance, it is important to know how the mentor landed their first client, but it is equally important to understand how the mentor continues to develop clients and how they maintain relationships between periods of representation. These conversations are essential in projecting the young lawyer's professional development strategy. Through this type of mentorship, young lawyers can learn what works, and what does not work, and look to mirror the successes of the book of business mentor. Further, a book of business mentor can provide a young lawyer with guidance in gaining industry recognition by pointing out potential speaking engagements, writing opportunities, or memberships in bar associations they know can lead to client development opportunities. While the goal of a young lawyers is to bring in and service their own clients, the book of business mentor can streamline that process by advising the young lawyer about where to focus their efforts in securing new clients and strategies in building a long-term, value based relationship with existing ones.

The Peer Mentor

The peer mentor is a lawyer in the firm who has been practicing for between two and three years who meets expectations and has earned the trust of the partners. This mentor has adjusted to full-time lawyer life, manages deadlines accordingly, and understands the practical hurdles of being a young lawyer. A peer mentor does not need to be in the same practice group but should be someone that the young lawyer feels comfortable being vulnerable around. The peer mentor is perfect for answering questions the young lawyer otherwise may feel embarrassed to ask, or for being the first pass at reading a draft before it goes to a partner. This mentor can provide relatable guidance in overcoming the early challenges a young lawyer faces while also protecting the young lawyer from making rookie mistakes.

Managing the first year of practice as a young lawyer is a challenge, but managing it alone is a nightmare. In order to mitigate these first-year challenges, young lawyers should be active in seeking out mentors to develop their career blueprint. With proper guidance from the practice group, book of business, and peer mentors, a young lawyer can develop their skill set to build a career.