Today, the New Zealand Law Society | Te Kāhui Ture o Aotearoa launched its National Mentoring Programme to provide professional support and guidance to lawyers as they navigate fast-paced changes.
Now, more than ever, a unifying and collegial path is needed to help us step each other through the impact COVID-19 has had on New Zealand and the law; a path that has professional wellbeing and improvement as its driver.
What is mentoring?
Mentoring is an informal and voluntary way of networking and learning; your own personal professional sounding board where you and your mentor, or mentee, get to shape the agenda and choose what is important to you both.
At some point, many of us have sought guidance either to help find new ways of looking at things or to provide direction on career issues. Whether you are looking for support, or want to give back, our national programme provides the perfect opportunity wherever you are in New Zealand.
We welcome and encourage as many participants to the programme as possible and encourage you to spread the word about this initiative with your colleagues.
The Law Society’s national mentoring programme is all inclusive, free and will be conducted virtually. Your participation may also count towards your CPD hours. Click here for more information.
How to participate
1. If you hold a current practising certificate, you will have received an email with a link from our President Tiana Epati. To sign up from the email, click on the Register here for Mentorloop button. If you did not get this email, please contact mentoring@lawsociety.org.nz
2. Once on Mentorloop, you will have to confirm you are happy to commit to the terms and conditions and Code of Conduct, then you will answer a series of questions so that the software matching programme can create a profile for you.
3. Every fortnight, the data pool is updated with new participants to help with matching. You will be notified when you have been matched with a mentor or mentee. Please note, this process might happen quickly for some of you and for others it may take more time. Once a match is made you both have an opportunity to see if it’s the right match for both of you.