The Experience Gap

by Frits Verhoeven

I’ve often thought about how fortunate I am to be working in a profession that rewards experience as much as the practice of law. Experience makes us better lawyers. The public knows this and is generally prepared to pay more for a more experienced lawyer. This is of great comfort as our personal legal odometers pack on the miles.

By definition, lawyers newly called to the Bar don’t have experience. The experience gap between junior and senior lawyers results in a natural collaboration between them. This doesn’t only apply to newly called lawyers. Even after many years at the bar, we benefit from the advice and assistance of others more experienced generally or in relation to the specific matter at hand.

Lawyers have always been very generous to each other in terms of providing advice and guidance to colleagues. CBABC’s Practice Advisory Panels are an example of that. So are CLE courses and CLE’s wonderful practice manuals. In my own experience, whenever I have called a lawyer for assistance, time was freely and generously given, even if I did not know the lawyer I was calling beforehand. It is ironic and amazing that most lawyers readily give away the very commodity that they make their living by selling. Collegiality in the legal profession may be threatened, but it is far from gone.

Whether formalized or not, mentoring has always been a vital part of the practice of law.

We usually think about mentoring from the point of view of the benefits to the mentee. But in fact everybody benefits from mentoring: the mentor, the mentee, the law firm, the public, and the profession.

It makes perfect sense to become a mentor even for purely selfish reasons. Here are some advantages for the mentor:

1. The ability to delegate work, leading to the capacity to take on more work, including more interesting or remunerative work;
2. Practising collaboratively, leading to greater satisfaction with practice, and better quality of work;
3. Backup for vacations, or for spending time on other endeavours, such as Bar or community activities;
4. Enhanced associate retention;
5. Revitalization of practice;
6. The inherent satisfaction that comes from teaching.

There is plenty of written material on the topic of mentoring. There are several good articles on CBA Practice Link: www.cba.org/practicelink. Just type in the word “mentor” and several articles will appear. Other articles are available on the website of the American Bar Association Law Practice Management Section: www.abanet.org/lpm.

CBABC’s Women Lawyers Forum has an active mentoring program. Over the course of the past three years, it has matched approximately 238 women. Information about this mentoring program is available on the CBABC website in the Women Lawyers Forum area.

The Branch also has mentoring programs in conjunction with both the UBC and UVIC Faculties of Law. Information about these programs is available on the Branch website.

However, the Branch does not presently operate a mentoring program for all members. Please let me know if you think we should.

This article was published in the December 2006 issue of BarTalk and is subject to the copyright by the British Columbia Branch of the Canadian Bar Association, 2006, all rights reserved.