Modern Mentoring for CALL Bulletin

Modern Mentorship

The Mentorship and Leadership Development Committee (MDLC) recently hosted a mentorship brown bag event at Chicago-Kent College of Law on Thursday, January 24, 2019.

With the demands of work, professional development, and our personal lives, it can be challenging to add mentorship to your task list. Because of this, we decided to invite our newer CALL members to an informal mentorship event where we could share our insights and take questions over lunch and cookies.

Mentoring New Members

This approach was successful. Our new members were able to get their questions answered and start forming bonds with some of our CALL leaders. Additionally, they now associate names with faces for the next business meeting.

Some of the questions included revolved around the best committees for new CALL members to ease into involvement, and we encouraged Bulletin writing. Also, there were questions about where to find conferences and how to apply for grants – the MDLC calendar where our members can find this information.

Diversifying Your Mentors

This modern mentorship approach tied in nicely to an article I read. Sallie Krawcheck, CEO and co-founder of Ellevest says, “Modern mentorship isn’t about looking to just one person; it’s about cultivating a group of people.” Leach, Samantha. “Mentorship Rethink The New Way to Get the Get-Ahead Advice You Need.” Glamour. January 2019: 72-74. Print.

I think we need to carry this diverse approach into our own professional development and networking. You might have one mentor you go to for career moves, one for article edits and one for work-life balance. It is important that we pull together the strengths of our entire network to best guide us.

Connecting with Mentors

The Leach article stresses that mentorship does not have to be formal. It can be a professional relationship that develops into friendship, coffee date, or quick phone call.

Keep your mentorship relationship fresh by staying in touch. The methods I use are: sending a quick e-mail when I see a contact has received some exciting news, LinkedIn messages, and Christmas cards.

Future MDLC Events

I hope to have more informal CALL Mentorship and Leadership Development Committee events where we can share our expertise with one another in an informal setting. We are fortunate to have so much experience from our membership, not only in CALL, but our various law librarianship and legal organizations.

We have countless advisers to include in our mentorship circle. The best part about being a law librarian is that not only does everyone have a plethora of knowledge to share – they are willing to do so! Take advantage.