Mentorship program eases move from classroom to courtroom

One of the first things many young attorneys learn after law school is that practicing law is very different from studying law.

Law school teaches "how to think like a lawyer as opposed to how to actually be a lawyer," said Chris Moberg, an associate with the Law Firm of O'Reilly & Jensen LLC. "You understand when you're in law school what a motion to dismiss is and why you're trying to do it, but you don't know how to do it."

One way the Springfield Metropolitan Bar Association is bridging the gap between the classroom and the courtroom is through the Mentorship Monday program, now in its third year. The voluntary program typically serves about 10 new attorneys a year.

While the bar association had for many years provided court tours and interaction with judges via a courtroom reception, as the bar expanded, SMBA leadership identified professionalism and collegiality among its top challenges, said SMBA Executive Director Crista Hogan. The Mentorship Monday program was specifically designed to address those challenges.

The program pairs newly minted attorneys with those who, like Moberg, have been in practice for five years or less. Meeting one Monday each month, participants tour county, municipal, federal and appellate courts and the county jail, interact with local judges and learn how each court functions.

"At first, the courthouse is a mystery," Hogan said. "There's about a hundred things you need to know just to go there for the first time."

The basics of where to access legal files, where to go and who to talk to vary from court to court, Hogan said, and most of that information is not written down anywhere.

In addition to learning basic information, Mentorship Monday participants get to see the courts in action.

"One thing that we really love is we go to Municipal Court and Judge (Todd) Thornhill actually does his in-custodies," she said. Thornhill interacts with people who've been incarcerated overnight or over the weekend via the court's closed-circuit television system, and "we actually sit in the courtroom, eat our lunch and watch Judge Thornhill handle these cases," Hogan said.

Bringing new attorneys into the courtroom gives them a leg up, especially associates at large firms who otherwise might not see the inside of a courtroom until their second or third year.

"The great majority of their time for the first year or two is just spent drafting motions, doing discovery, doing research projects and those kinds of things," Moberg said. "If you're at a firm that's got more than 10 lawyers here in town, and you're a first or second year (associate), your chances of spending time in the courtroom are very, very small."

Mentorship Monday also provides educational programs geared to the business of legal practice, targeting such topics as marketing, business development and debt collection.

But participants past and present agree that the greatest benefit of SMBA's mentorship program - and bar association membership itself - is networking.

"I think probably the most important thing it did is it allowed me to develop relationships with other young attorneys. The networking aspect is huge," said Ryan DeBoef, law clerk to U.S. Judge Richard Dorr and Mentorship Mondays graduate who was mentored by Hogan and has served as a mentor himself.

Philip Hopper, an associate at the Squibb Law Firm PC and Moberg's mentorship protégé, agreed.

"Most of all, it's an opportunity to mingle with the younger attorneys," he said.

Hogan noted that networking is more important than ever before in the legal field. When she started her career, she said, the emphasis was on establishing oneself with a good firm and staying there. Now, she said, it's all about agility - being able to move from one firm to another. In that scenario, "networking is extraordinarily important to know what other opportunities are out there," she added.

While the mentoring program has benefited new lawyers, it also has benefited SMBA.

"In the past, these brand-new lawyers, I might not even know they exist for several years," Hogan said. Wrapped up in drafting motions, research and the pursuit of billable hours, it sometimes takes a long time for new attorneys to show up at SMBA meetings or events.

Mentorship Monday participants get involved much more quickly.

"I started to see them at lunches, at the Law Day 5K, a wide variety of things. They really feel part of it," Hogan said. "So not only do they start giving back to the bar, but they start taking advantage of all that the bar has to offer."

The mentoring program also is its own recruitment tool. Hopper said he would definitely like to become a mentor himself, "even if it meant I've got to take the tours again," he said.

Plus, enthusiasm for Mentorship Monday translates into enthusiasm for SMBA.

"We have a little graduation at the end of the term and it is very common for several of them to come up afterward and say, 'I want to stay involved, find something for me to do because I really enjoyed it and I want to stay in touch,'" Hogan said.