What Junior Lawyers, Summers May Already Know: In-Person Mentoring Isn't Solid Argument for RTO

 The power structure, including the clients of law firms, have continually contended that RTO is necessary for junior lawyers because of the need for mentoring. Essentially the line of argument goes: It takes being in-person to absorb everything from strategy to the culture. That is, of course, the mentoring issue.

Now, RTO has bled into where summers will be in 2022. Most law firms have pulled them back into brick-and-mortar. Interestingly many of them knew exactly where to go for insight about the career-make or career-break question of what to wear. Reuters Legal reports on the subject.

In that coverage, Reuters Legal notes that those future interns have already sought information and guidance on the Subreddit for Big Law (www.reddit.com/r/biglaw).

That subreddit resource could make so many of the pontifications about the need to be in the physical office to really understand what's going on sound quite foolish. After all, Quinn Emanuel has already instituted a permanent WFH. And in the UK, in a RollonFriday survey, clients of law firms indicate that they essentially have no objections to the lawyers operating remotely. 

On that subreddit there are both knowledge and caring. The point of view isn't that of the partners who filter the whatever through their own needs and preferences and those of the law firm.

Recently on the subreddit a two-year corporate associate requested input on a possible career move in-house. The advice which came came in covered all bases - objectively. There was no agenda. 

The associate put it out there:

"I’ve got an offer to move in house wia media company as a junior attorney. Sounds like it would be a cool job doing what I like to do, but am I moving out of big law too soon? I feel like I’m just barely starting to grasp the ins and outs of M&A work and I’m worried I might be missing out on valuable firm experience that I wouldn’t otherwise get, and that my options going forward will be more limited by moving in house now."

One detailed thoughtful comment summed up the situation as this: You already have BigLaw on your resume. You learn a lot during the first two years as an associate. Less so in the next two years as compared to what can be learned in-house. So, the timing is right for a move.

TWO WARNINGS

However in the aggregrate of comments, there had been a two-part warning to the associate. Yes, energy had been put into the analysis.

1) Do due dilgence on the new opportunity that you will learn enough to be able to market yourself to the next in-house job. In this there is the assumption that the first in-house job represents just a start in that game. However, it is noted that lucrative career paths can be followed by staying with one in-house department.

2) It is unlikely that those departing from private practice will be able to return from in-house. 

Other issues dealt with on the subreddit range from how to orchestrate a lateral to the realities if parenting is possible on the path to partnership.

In addition, there is the possibility that the mentoring process will sour. Many do, as I explain in the career book I published "The Critical First Years of Your Professional Life." Very soon the mentee can outgrow the mentor. The typical pattern is that the mentor's career had peaked. There is resentment of the rise of the new star. Retaliation is not atypical. Instrusiveness is common. It took me several years to shake off my mentor from my early career years in corporate.

Connect with Editor-in-Chief Jane Genova at janegenova374@gmail.com. She is available to law firms and their vendors for communications assignments. Complimentary consultation. No selling.