Mentoring and the legal profession: Developing professionals for real

Purpose - To highlight and explore the reasons behind bad practice in mentoring among law firms, and to suggest how this can be rectified. Design - The article is based on extensive research into mentoring programs in legal firms, which is benchmarked against my leading research into mentoring best...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Development and learning in organizations 2005-01, Vol.19 (1), p.10-12
Main Author: Clutterbuck, David
Format: Article
Language:English
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Purpose - To highlight and explore the reasons behind bad practice in mentoring among law firms, and to suggest how this can be rectified. Design - The article is based on extensive research into mentoring programs in legal firms, which is benchmarked against my leading research into mentoring best practice. Findings - Ineffective mentoring in the legal profession is evident due to lack of clarity of purpose, a lack of understanding of mentoring as a development process, ineffective mentoring dialogue and low emotional intelligence amongst many workers in the industry. All of these barriers need to be overcome for firms to see the real benefits of mentoring. Practical implications - The article suggests key areas in which legal firms must effect change in order for mentoring to have a real effect on development and bring a host of related benefits. Originality/value - The article will be of value to those in the legal profession who wish to develop their employees/themselves through effective mentoring. It is also a little-explored area of mentoring study.
ISSN:1477-7282
DOI:10.1108/14777280510572130