Creating Pathways

The Creating Pathways mentoring and sponsorship scheme was conceived in 2014, and is considered to be the first initiative of its kind in the profession for Black lawyers working in private practice and in-house. In response to research studies that demonstrated that Black lawyers were likely to suffer higher attrition rates than their non-Black colleagues, the programme was designed to develop and promote cross-firm mentoring relationships between senior and mid-level Black lawyers both in private practice and in-house as a meaningful way to address this concern.

The programme matches high-performing mid-level Black associate mentees with senior lawyers, most of whom are partners or counsel in private practice or senior in-house counsel. The mentors are responsible for providing tailored mentoring and career coaching to their mentees. Progress on the course is evaluated against planned objectives during the programme term, and both mentors and mentees are provided with on-going support throughout. The programme runs for 12 months.

The workshops and training sessions include guidance on leadership and professional ‘soft’ skills that serve to supplement the one-to-one mentoring/coaching that mentees receive and build career capital.

Seminar/workshops for the previous mentee cohort covered topics like “The Importance of Networking” and “Pathways to the Top: Make it to Partner or GC”.

Feedback from both mentors and mentees on the Creating Pathways programme has been overwhelmingly positive. Mentees, in particular, reported feeling more empowered to create and nurture better mentoring and sponsorship relationships within their firms/organisations and, in a significant number of cases, we assisted them to make timely and important strategic career decisions.