COACHING & MENTORSHIP FOR LAWYERS
I Am a Lawyer, and I Am Aware of My Needs
Today, as in many industries, coaching has evolved into highly specialized niche areas. People seeking coaching support often look for professionals using titles such as leadership coach, executive coach, life coach, and many others depending on their needs.
Abroad, particularly in the United States, niche coaching areas have expanded almost without limits. There are coaches specializing in parenting, astrology based coaching, wellness coaching, sales coaching, ADHD coaching, financial coaching, and many other highly specific areas.
However, to the best of my knowledge, coaching specifically tailored to a particular professional group has not yet been formally defined or widely introduced as a distinct niche.
The reason I wanted to write this article is that I have personally been working on the topic of Coaching & Mentorship for Lawyers for some time now, while also researching it academically and professionally.(1)
After sixteen years of practicing law and legal consultancy myself, I transitioned over the past decade into working as a leadership and executive coach, mentor, and trainer, carrying all of those years of experience and insight with me.
Before anything else, I would briefly like to emphasize that beyond all coaching niches and titles, coaching itself is fundamentally a process in which the coach and client engage in a deep and comprehensive partnership. Together, they identify areas related to the client’s personal and professional development and work through them using a structured roadmap designed to increase awareness, improve performance, and help the client reach meaningful goals.
When viewed from this perspective, the themes explored in coaching such as developing communication and leadership skills, coping with fear, stress, and anxiety, strengthening emotional intelligence, building self confidence, and creating work life balance are not fundamentally different for an executive in another sector compared to a lawyer or manager working in the legal profession.
At the same time, however, the legal profession carries its own unique journey.
The questions that begin with entering law school and continue after graduation such as:
Should I establish my own practice?
Should I work as in house counsel?
Should I join a law firm?
Or pursue a judicial path as a judge, prosecutor, or notary?
And then, after making one of those choices, the processes, struggles, inner conflicts, and unique developmental needs that emerge along each path are subjects I know intimately because I personally lived through them.
When combined with my later coaching practice, these experiences became areas where I realized I could contribute in a deeper and more meaningful way.
Many lawyers begin their careers believing that being technically competent is enough. But as responsibilities increase and workloads become heavier, people can begin experiencing the profession they once loved as an unbearable burden.
Beyond that, many of the traits naturally embedded within legal practice such as perfectionism, excessive caution, constant questioning, skepticism, and over analysis often begin extending into the way lawyers work and interact with their teams.
The difficulties created by these patterns, and the role coaching and mentorship can play in overcoming them, will be the focus of this and future articles.
In short, being crushed under these pressures or, for female leaders in particular, repeatedly hitting invisible glass ceilings often stems from lacking the set of skills and competencies we commonly refer to as “soft skills,” such as communication and self management, but which today many leadership experts in Europe and the United States, including Simon Sinek and others, increasingly define as hard skills.
The most comprehensive, and perhaps only, major resource focused specifically on coaching and mentorship for lawyers is the book Coaching and Mentoring for Lawyers: Building Partnerships for Success, published by Globe Law & Business in 2014 and edited for the International Bar Association by Rebecca Normand-Hochman.(2)
From this point forward, I will refer to it as the “Source Book.”
In its introductory sections, the Source Book argues that law schools, law firms, and Bar Associations should develop stronger initiatives encouraging mentorship, because building a stronger talent pool within law firms depends not only on traditional education, but even more so on developmental professional relationships and mentorship within the profession itself.(3)
At the same time, the book emphasizes that successful internal mentorship depends on several key factors:
• Clearly defining the goals of the process and its beginning and ending conditions from the outset
• Establishing a mutually beneficial relationship between mentor and mentee
• Revising the structure and content of the mentorship process when necessary(4)
The book also specifically emphasizes that senior lawyers and partners acting as mentors should adopt a non directive approach.(5)
The senior lawyers reading this article will probably immediately recognize this tendency in themselves because many lawyers are accustomed to giving instructions or directly telling others what to do rather than asking thoughtful questions.
Yet an effective mentor should increase awareness by asking questions that activate and guide the thinking process instead of simply giving advice.
In my opinion, this is precisely where mentorship and coaching begin to walk hand in hand.
At this point, it may also be useful to briefly clarify the core differences between coaching and mentorship.
From a process perspective:
• Coaching is structured and consists of a defined number of sessions
• Mentorship is more flexible and may last anywhere from a short period to many years
From a purpose perspective:
• Coaching focuses on unlocking a person’s potential and helping them reach their goals
• Mentorship focuses more directly on supporting professional development through the sharing of knowledge and experience
From a methodological perspective:
• Coaching relies on powerful questioning, reflection, and feedback
• Mentorship allows room for direct advice and recommendations
That said, as mentioned earlier, even the Source Book emphasizes that mentors who ask questions that stimulate thinking rather than simply giving directives often create more valuable developmental outcomes.
This alone suggests that approaches to mentorship may also vary culturally.
If we also consider the definitions provided by EMCC, the European Mentoring and Coaching Council,(6) we see that it similarly acknowledges significant overlap between coaching and mentorship while recognizing both directive approaches, more common in the American tradition, and non directive approaches rooted more heavily in coaching skills.
EMCC therefore offers a broader and more hybrid definition of mentorship.
According to EMCC, mentoring is:
“A learning relationship involving the sharing of skills, knowledge, and expertise.”(7)
If we summarize both the literature and practical applications:
• Mentorship includes guidance, advice, content, and experience sharing
• Coaching focuses on unlocking internal capacity and helping individuals learn how to use and manage that capacity effectively
Questions such as whether coaching and mentorship in law firms should come from internal or external sources, the different developmental needs of lawyers at different career levels, the leverage effect of coaching and mentorship, and the challenges and benefits of mentorship during hiring and onboarding processes for lawyers will be explored in future articles.
With the hope that this article may contribute to all legal professionals who are passionate about their profession and open to personal growth, goodbye for now.
Attorney Pınar Aydemir Başaran, ACC
The Coaching Company
[1] I would especially like to thank dear Naci Demiral, founder of The Coaching Company, and my former partner dear Serdar Paksoy, both of whom have encouraged and supported my work in this area for a long time.
[2] Rebecca Normand-Hochman, Mentoring and Coaching for Lawyers: Building Partnerships for Success (Globe Law & Business/IBA, 2015)
[3] Ibid, 14
[4] Ibid, 15
[5] Ibid, 12
[6] European Mentoring & Coaching Council
[7] EMCC website