Mentoring Program of the Maryland Professionalism Center

photoI am pleased to report a successful year in the Mentoring Program through the Maryland Professionalism Center, Inc., a non-profit organization that works in close coordination with the Maryland Court of Appeals, particularly with the Hon. Lynne Battaglia of Maryland’s highest court. My mentee this year was a young aspiring family law attorney whose prior mentor through the program failed to follow through. Despite a major medical upheaval on my end mid-year and logistical issues, my mentee and I successfully completed the entirety of the program in a timely manner.

The mentoring program requires six meetings between mentor and mentee on topics ranging from, among others, unwritten “customs” about postponement requests, major malpractice and ethics pitfalls, conflicts of interest, time management, legal writing style, ethical and effective client development strategies and, perhaps most importantly, how to select suitable cases (my translation: how to reject flaky, meritless and inefficient cases.)

I encourage any experienced Maryland attorney who has the time and inclination to join the Mentoring Program; it is a great way to discharge part of the hortatory pro bono publico duty.

UPDATE 4 Feb 2014: I thank Ms. Monise Brown, Executive Director of the Maryland Professionalism Center, Inc., for alerting me to potentially misleading language in the title of this post, since corrected.  While the Maryland Professional Center, Inc., serves the interests of the Bar of Maryland in the sense of the collectivity of Maryland attorneys licensed under the supervision of the Court of Appeals, it and its Mentoring Program are not part of the Maryland State Bar Association, Inc. (MSBA), Maryland’s voluntary bar association to which about 1/2 of Maryland attorneys belong (myself included.)  The MSBA may have meritorious mentoring programs of its own.

Posted by Bruce Godfrey

Leave a Reply