Law Department Management Blog
At 3M, the law department of 92 lawyers has a mentoring program for newcomers. “All new legal employees are assigned a mentor to provide specific advice on work and networking, as well as encouragement to help ensure retention.” This quote comes from Diversity & The Bar, Nov./Dec. 2011 at 37.
Typically mentoring programs aim at minority counsel (See my post of Aug. 12, 2008: General Motors and pairing of in-house lawyers with minority lawyers outside; Dec. 11, 2008: Pfizer and its diversity team include mentoring; March 11, 2009: US Postal Service and its mentoring program; May 13, 2009: Exelon’s mentoring committee and use of Mentium by Ford Motor Credit; July 19, 2010: strive for transparency regarding the mentoring program; Oct. 18, 2010: GCs can mentor; Nov. 27, 2010: diverse lawyers at your department “mentor” a minority lawyer at a law firm; Jan. 24, 2011: Morgan Stanley provides mentors for diverse attorneys; and May 25, 2011: general counsel should seek out a mentor outside the company.). Still, as demonstrated by 3M, they have broader reach beyond support for diversity lawyers.