Hampshire Law Society

Hampshire Law Society Mentoring

Are you the ideal solicitor? Do you inspire colleagues? Delight your clients? Impress your boss? Win new work for your firm?

Are you invariably:

Or is the reality sometimes different?

What solicitor has not occasionally been tested by one of the following situations:

Having an unpleasant, overbearing boss
Feeling overwhelmed by the pressure of your job
At the beginning of your legal career, being unsure which specialism to develop
Returning to the law after a career break, and finding things have changed dramatically
Finding that your area of legal specialism is under threat
Having a line manager who takes the credit for all your work
Practising in a firm that is taken over, and disliking the new corporate culture
Wondering whether to leave legal practice altogether, and start a new career
Being the victim of racism, bullying, sexism or low-level harassment
Losing a major work referrer, and having to make others redundant
Finding that the law is no longer as enjoyable as it once was
Coming back to your job after maternity leave, only to be treated as a "second-class citizen"

At one time or another, who has not pondered on the sometimes stark dissonance between our public persona as solicitors, and our private experience?

At Hampshire Law Society, we have started a mentoring scheme. We believe it is healthy to discuss such concerns, and unhealthy to ignore them.

Not for one instant do we pretend to be able to resolve your particular problems. However we do believe:

Discussing matters openly and confidentially makes the mentee feel less alone
Given a safe and non-judgemental space in which to speak, the mentee will probably find their own solution
We cannot give advice. All we can do is explore the options, and finding the solution is up to the mentee
All employees deserve to be treated with dignity at work, and this applies to solicitors too

We welcome warmly new applicants. Any potential new mentor or mentee wishing to join our scheme must be a member of Hampshire Law Society.

Read more about the scheme by clicking the link to our Mentoring Guidelines *