Last night, I attended an alumni mentorship meeting at Western New England College School of Law. An event that I last attended 8 years ago when I was a 1L.
The event began with some mingling. Then we sat at tables and did “speed networked”. Every 10 minutes a group of 1Ls would sit at my table and when time was up they moved on to another table. This worked well. I got to speak with about 40 students.
I was paired with an older alum. He kept firing the question that I hated to hear when I was a 1L at students “what kind of law do you want to practice?” I hated that question when I was asked it about 10,000 times when I was a student.
But as a mentor, I enjoyed hearing their responses. Some of them wanted to “save the world”. Some students were older. The older students tended to have a much better idea of what they wanted to do. For example, an accountant wanted to practice tax law. That makes sense. It also makes sense that a 22 year old wouldn’t have a clue what he wanted to do.
Many of the students were concerned about the bar exam (that they’ll be taking 2.5 years from now).
Listening to their stories, dreams, and concerns was inspiring. The practice of law is a day to day grind involving lots of mundane information. The job is technical. Good lawyers make their living in the details.
Stepping back for an evening and thinking about the big picture made the evening perhaps more valuable to me than the students.
If you’re not an involved alum, you’re missing out.