Mentorship is beneficial for any new professionals starting their careers. With a wide range of practice settings and areas of law, this is particularly meaningful for lawyers.

As a new lawyer, mentoring relationships can encourage and empower your professional development, help you identify and achieve career goals, and increase your confidence. By engaging in a mentoring relationship, you can identify gaps in your knowledge or skills and address them early in your career.

Law school focuses on substantive law issues and the legal system, but practical knowledge such as how to run a practice, build a reputation and manage client relationships comes from experience. A mentoring relationship can help leverage the experience of others to develop key competencies and help you choose between the various career paths available to you.

Yes, you may choose to opt out of the Mentor Express program, but we encourage you to build a mentoring relationship in another capacity, such as within your firm, organization or another mentoring program. Mentor Express is an excellent opportunity to meet with experienced lawyers in the profession and develop useful relationships early in your career. As a new lawyer, we highly encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity.

Mentor Express is a non-traditional mentorship program. It is like online shopping, except mentees are shopping to gain from mentors’ experience and insight.

Mentees browse an online listing of mentors and choose one-hour sessions with mentors they are interested in meeting. The self-match system allows mentees to seek guidance and insight relevant to their own career development with a variety of mentors in different work settings.

To learn more about what participation in Mentor Express looks like as a mentor or mentee, visit our website.

Space has been reserved in Mentor Express for all Alberta lawyers called or scheduled to be called to the bar in 2024 and entering their first year of practice. This does not apply to lawyers who are transferring to Alberta from another jurisdiction.

The 2024–2025 Mentor Express program runs from October 2024 to March 2025.

Yes. If you have already participated in Mentor Express, there will still be a spot reserved for you upon your bar call.

Yes, all Alberta lawyers and articling students are welcome to join the Mentor Express program as a mentee at any time. Mentorship is a valuable investment at any point in a lawyer’s career. Visit our website to register as a mentee.

Yes, current mentors or mentees who want to participate in the following year’s program are welcome to contact our Mentorship team by email. We value returning participants who have built relationships through the program.

The Mentor Express program facilitates one-time one-hour meetings between experienced lawyers as mentors and less-experienced lawyers, articling students or CPLED students as mentees. Each mentor meets with a cross section of mentees over the course of the year. Each mentee meets with multiple mentors.

The Law Society of Alberta has four distinct mentorship programs for its members. Since each program offers unique benefits to mentors and mentees, you can register for as many as your time permits.

In addition to Mentor Express, we offer:

• Mentor Connect, which matches mentors and mentees for a traditional one-on-one mentoring relationship. The Law Society does the matching based on areas of practice, location, personal experience and similar interests. We ask for an initial commitment of at least three months, but if the relationship is working the program continues for six months.
• Indigenous Mentorship Program, which provides an opportunity for Indigenous law students and articling students to meet and connect with experienced Indigenous counsel. Mentees meet one-on-one with their mentor for advice, guidance and connections. Mentors and mentees are paired by Law Society staff based on similar interests and backgrounds.
• AdvisorLink, which connects lawyers or articling students with volunteer lawyer advisors to answer one-off substantive law questions. Requests are made to the Law Society by phone or through an online form.

Mentors and mentees participate for free in Mentor Express.

One of the key features of this program is that scheduling is completely up to you. We recommend booking an average of one mentorship session every two or three weeks. We advise against booking all mentorship sessions for a single day or week as this may not provide the best experience for you or your counterparts.

Yes. There is nothing preventing you from participating in the program even though you practise and live elsewhere. This applies to both mentors and mentees.

If anyone needs to re-schedule a meeting, they should contact their counterpart directly to make alternative arrangements.

The goal of Mentor Express is to facilitate one-time meetings between multiple mentors and mentees. If both of you are willing, you are more than welcome to arrange additional meetings, but within the program you are limited to only one meeting with each other.

Yes. You need to repeat the orientation regardless of previous participation. This ensures you are up to date on any mentoring rule, policy or procedure changes.

The provisions of the Code of Conduct will always apply. Take care to avoid disclosing confidential information. Be aware of the potential for conflicts of interest. There is no solicitor-client privilege for communications between a mentor and a mentee.

Mentors may share information about mentees with the Law Society to provide them with additional support for their professionalism and conduct as a lawyer. Mentors are obligated to report serious ethical violations concerning a lawyer’s violation of the Code of Professional Conduct that raise a substantial question about the lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer. Rules 3.03(3) to 3.03(7) and 7.01(3) in the Code of Conduct provide guidance on this matter. When in doubt, you are encouraged to contact the Office of the Practice Advisor at the Law Society of Alberta for confidential assistance.

Mentor Express is different from other mentoring programs that require mentors to devote significant amounts of time and energy to getting to know a single mentee. In Mentor Express, a mentor’s time commitment is limited to one-hour meetings spread over several months with multiple mentees. To sign up as a mentor:

• Complete an online application to serve as a mentor in Mentor Express.
• Once approved, fill out a short online profile about yourself with a photo and provide placeholders for dates when you would be available to meet mentees. We ask mentors to make themselves available for ten sessions.
• As part of your profile, you also choose specific tags to better describe the perspectives you can offer (personal attributes, discussion topics, geographical area).
• Mentees can book meetings with their preferred mentors on a first come, first served basis. They do this by going to the Mentor Express website and simply clicking on the meeting dates listed on mentors’ profiles.
• Mentors can see who booked their sessions by logging in and viewing their “My Sessions” page.
• There are no assignments, tasks or deadlines. Conversations and topics are driven by the mentees.

Lawyers who have practised at least five years, including inactive and retired lawyers, are eligible to participate as mentors in Mentor Express. Please note that mentor eligibility may be impacted if you have any past or current claims with the Alberta Lawyers Indemnity Association (ALIA) or disciplinary proceedings with the Law Society.

Yes. A mentor’s years of experience in other provinces or jurisdictions (not just Alberta) count cumulatively toward the five-year requirement.

During your practice, you have gained hard-won experience and insight into how best to deal with clients, other lawyers and judges. You have developed office systems that work and may have seen others that do not. You know the importance of organization and developing a strategy, whether it involves running a trial, settlement negotiations or closing a deal. You enjoy practising law without letting it be the only thing in your life.

Your successes and failures have taught you lessons that might benefit others if you are willing to share. You are ready.

No. Mentors are neither required nor expected to do legal research.

Mentors aren’t expected to provide professional advice on personal matters, but those services are available through the Assist Program. The Law Society also maintains contact information for other services available through the community and can assist with any referral that might be required.

Mentor Express offers a unique learning and relationship opportunity that you direct yourself. You match yourself with the mentors you want to meet. Unlike other programs that choose a mentor for you, the self-match system allows you to seek guidance and insight relevant to your own career development and interests.

New lawyers called to the bar are automatically enrolled as mentees in Mentor Express in the year of their bar call, but you can also sign up to participate as a mentee any time. To sign up as a mentee:

• Complete an online application to participate as a mentee in Mentor Express.
• Once approved, the Law Society’s Mentorship team will send you a link to access the Mentor Express platform.
• From there, you can visit the mentor gallery as often as you want to see who is available and the dates you might meet them. You are not restricted to mentors in your own city or town and can meet with any mentor listed.
• You can book meetings with your preferred mentors on a first come, first served basis. You do this by simply clicking on the meeting dates listed on mentors’ profiles. Note: You are limited to one session per mentor but can meet with up to four different mentors.
• You can log in to your “My Sessions” page to see which mentor sessions were successfully booked and your mentors’ contact information.
• Mentees are responsible for contacting their mentors to confirm when and where they will meet and to make any changes if needed.

Any Alberta lawyer is eligible to participate as a mentee, but the programs are particularly beneficial for:

• articling students;
• new lawyers recently called to the bar;
• lawyers in their first years of practice;
• internationally trained lawyers intending to practice in Alberta, even if not yet admitted;
• Canadian Centre for Professional Legal Education (CPLED) students; or,
• any lawyer seeking advice about transitioning to a new practice area or practice setting.

A lawyer can benefit from mentorship at any stage of their career. Your early training and exposure may have been to lawyers with poor practice management skills or who did not share their experience with you when you were a junior. Maybe you have practised in a firm with well-developed support systems and have recently broken away to set up your own shop. Or you are moving into a new practice area, or simply moving to a new office setting.

Having a mentor will help you recognize the hazards and let you learn from other people’s mistakes as well as your own.

No. While we recommend in-person mentorship sessions whenever possible, they aren’t always feasible. Please let the Mentorship team at the Law Society know if you need help with video conference software or any other part of setting up a remote meeting.

Participating mentors are asked to commit to ten mentorship sessions over the program year. If the sessions of your preferred mentor(s) are filled, we ask you to respect their availability and seek other mentors.

No, Mentor Express is not meant for discussing substantive law issues or for getting advice about handling particular files. Mentorship is an excellent opportunity to ask questions about a wide variety of personal and professional development topics, including interpersonal communications, lawyer-client relationships, practice management, time management and much more. For more on why substantive law questions are not permitted in our Mentor Express and Mentor Connect programs, visit this article.  

If you have a substantive law question, please take advantage of AdvisorLink, another program offered by the Law Society where volunteer lawyers can answer your one-off inquiries in a wide range of practice areas.

No, Mentor Express is not meant as a platform to ask for a job. Mentorship is an excellent opportunity to ask questions about a wide variety of personal and professional development topics, including interpersonal communications, lawyer-client relationships, practice management, time management and much more. 

Mentees can discuss job search strategies, alternate career paths, resume building and interview skills, but should not ask mentors for a job or expect a mentor to help them look for one.

Mentees should evaluate the information they receive from their mentors using their professional judgment and provide client advice based on their own professional opinion, research and evaluation. This does not preclude a mentor from providing or suggesting a possible referral to the mentee, but the mentor’s role is not to act as a second counsel.

Mentees, let your mentors know ahead of time what you would like to discuss with them. This lets them prepare better and gather any material they may want to share with you at your meeting. Develop a mentoring plan for yourself that lays out expectations and objectives. You should also review confidentiality issues as soon as possible. Confidential client information should never be discussed, and mentors should not be asked for or provide specific legal advice.

For more ideas on what to talk about, view the Mentor Express Discussion Topics resource.