Being a mentee

Mentoring is having someone fully invested in your career growth.

There's no single point in your career when mentoring becomes relevant. Growth looks different for everyone. Our mentoring scheme is open to you throughout your career, regardless of your employment stage.

Your mentor will offer personalised support by listening, challenging, and helping you move towards your goals. For example...

• Branching out into a new area of law
• Securing a traineeship
• Getting a promotion

You can also get support with skills-based development, such as....

• Taking on management responsibilities
• Managing change
• Presenting and public-speaking
• Networking 

Like any professional relationship, mentoring works best when there is firm commitment from both mentor and mentee. To gain the most from the experience, you'll have to be proactive, motivated, and genuinely invested in your own growth.

Mentors are generous but busy, so respect and flexibility are important when scheduling meetings. This might mean meeting at lunch, or outside of working hours if that's the arrangement which works best.

Mentoring is a partnership where you, as the mentee, take the initiative. Prepare for your meetings, take note of your agreed actions, work towards your goals, and reflect on what you've learned.

A mandatory requirement for a mentee is having a goal in mind that you want to work towards. It's your responsibility to know ultimately what you want to achieve, although your mentor can certainly help you get there. Even if you don't have a perfectly clear aim in mind, your mentor can help tease it out and create a workable action plan.

The only other requirement to be eligible for our mentoring scheme is that you must be either:

• a current trainee, accredited paralegal or solicitor
• a former Scottish solicitor keen to return to a career in the legal profession
• or, an LLB or Diploma student/graduate 

Once you create a profile on our online mentoring platform, you will be able to access tools and resources that will help you manage your career development alongside your mentor. It's important that you plan your sessions in advance and work on your progress in between sessions, as this is how you'll make real progress.

Your mentor must attend a training session before they can access the mentoring platform and match with you. They will be able to guide you through the mentoring process, but you can always contact a member of our team if you need extra help at [email protected].

Please note that once you sign up to the platform, you might see potential mentor matches immediately. For others, it might be a case of checking back over the course of several months as we get new mentors trained. Particularly if you have niche interests or are located in an outlying area, it can take a little longer to get a successful match.