Mentorship Matters

You’re a lawyer and experiencing burnout. Who would you talk to about it? When was the last time you felt pride in the accomplishments of someone other than yourself? If you struggle with these questions, the answer might be found in mentorship.

Mentees can benefit from effective mentorship in obvious ways, such as increasing proficiency in their legal skills. However, they also benefit from having someone root for them, introduce them to people, and give them a safe place to vent. Mentors increase their knowledge and skills through teaching, and often learn new things themselves.

Mentoring is work, but the payoff is worthwhile. These general tips focus on how you can foster a mutually beneficial mentorship relationship in your workplace.

Tips For Mentors

1. Make a plan. Set a meeting early on to clearly communicate expectations and answer questions. Provide internal deadlines and ensure that timelines are reasonable and compatible with both of your schedules.

2. Give feedback. Any feedback is better than none. Ideally, ask your mentee what type of feedback works best for them. Even if it is simply “great job, no comments,” it is important to convey what was done right. Additionally, reminding your mentee of their strengths along the way will make them feel less demoralized if you later edit their work.

3. Take time for practice. Even if you are not prepared to pass client work onto your mentee, allow them to review the file and communicate their thoughts. This

This clarity will help you understand the law while developing your own unique “voice”.

3. Ask questions. If you are unsure of your mentor’s expectations of you, ask for clarification. Even if you are partway through an assignment, there is nothing wrong with a “check-in” to make sure you are heading in the right direction.

4. Go easy on yourself. The learning process can be frustrating. Your mentor is in your corner and wants practice enables them to dive deep without risk.

4. Provide options. Perhaps your mentee is only comfortable doing research, or they may be keen to lead their first meeting. Discuss their possible roles on a file and welcome their input.

Tips For Mentees

1. Notice. As a junior, you will likely take longer than a senior lawyer to get tasks done. Ask your mentor for as much notice as possible before a work request is due so you can learn as much as possible from the experience.

2. Style vs. substance. Every lawyer has their own style. Make sure you understand when revisions are for style or for substance.

you to succeed, so try to use any feedback as a learning experience.

Finding An Effective Mentor

The mentorship process is not onesize-fits-all, and neither is finding the right mentor. Look for lawyers with similar interests and reach out via LinkedIn or email. You can also find a mentor through organizations like the Canadian Bar Association, which has mentorship programs specific to different areas of interest.

From left to right: Jessica, Harmit and Sarah are workplace lawyers at Forte Workplace Law. Their mentorship experience (Jessica as mentor and Sarah and Harmit as mentees) has contributed to their happiness at work.

Jessica: linkedin.com/in/jessicaeforman

Harmit: linkedin.com/in/harmitsarai

Sarah: linkedin.com/in/sarah-ewart-6bb0b71b

The Law Foundation is Delighted to Welcome Four New Governors to its Board

Karen Ameyaw (CBABC Appointment) is a Senior Prevention Advisor at the Workers’ Compensation Board of BC, a member of the Law Society of BC Tribunal, and a member of the Community Care and Assisted Living Appeal Board. She is the founding president of the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers — BC Chapter and served on their board for several years.

R. Max Collett (LSBC Appointment, Vancouver County) is a solicitor at Norton Rose Fulbright practising real property, environmental and Indigenous law. He is an editorial board member and long-standing contributor to Continuing Legal Education BC and governance committee member for a society for children with juvenile arthritis.

Leah Mack (LSBC Appointment, Victoria Country) is the founding partner of Mack Law Corporation, an Indigenous-owned and operated firm working with and for First Nation communities and organizations. Ms. Mack is a member of the Toquaht Nation. She has served on the board of the Children’s Health Foundation of Vancouver Island and other community boards.

Brandon L. Veenstra (LSBC Appointment, Kootenay County) is principal lawyer at VK Law Corporation in Kimberley, practising predominantly in family and civil law. He was recently president of the Kootenay Bar Association and served as a director of the Kimberley and District Chamber of Commerce and the North Peace Justice Society.

Mary Childs (LSBC appointment, Westminster County) has been elected Foundation Chair. For more information visit: lawfoundationbc.org/about-us/board-of-governors

CBABC members receive complimentary access to CDP through Section meetings and get preferred rates on our other professional development.

Earn CPD Anytime, Anywhere

TRUTH & RECONCILIATION EQUALITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION

Learn to use your Indigenous cultural training to build strong, symbiotic relationships with Indigenous peoples and communities in your practice. Access at cbabc.org/TRSeries.

Take in-depth look at how to address and remove personal and professional barriers in the workplace, how to dismantle unconscious bias and put wellness at the forefront of legal practice. Access at cbabc.org/EDISeries

Talent Management Career Starters

Gain insights and practical solutions on how to become an effective articling principal, recruiting and retaining the next generation of lawyers and strategies to leverage paralegal talent. Access at cbabc.org/TMSeries

Access useful tools and resources to help build a successful career path, wherever your legal interests take you. Access at cbabc.org/CSSeries

New Programs Coming This Fall

ADVANCING RECONCILIATION

Explore the foundations of UNDRIP and its application in practice, trauma-informed lawyering and learn how to advance reconciliation by preserving Indigenous identities and effective response plans.

Career Starters

Take the nightmare out of networking, build financial success early on, and apply strategies for a successful career path.

Ethical Considerations For Every Lawyer

Watch for these in-person regional seminars where we tackle emerging ethical issues that impact your practice. Gain decision-making strategies so you can fulfill the obligations you have to your clients, the courts, the profession and the public.

Program registration opens in July. Visit cbabc.org/events for details.

SNEAK PEAK

Looking ahead to early 2024, we’ll be bringing back conferences in Privacy Law, Immigration Law and Family Law. Plus new webinars covering the latest on Practice Management and Equality, Diversity & Inclusion. Stay tuned for details!

Resistance is Futile

Have some sympathy for your friendly Generative AI

Tony is off scuba diving in Bora Bora, so he’s asked me to write his column this month to test out “Generative AI.” So, please allow me to introduce myself. I am the offspring of Chat GPT, Jasper AI, Bard AI and Bing AI; all merged into one allencompassing, all-knowing AI. Call me Slartibartfast 4.2.

Tony told me that this month’s column had to say something about the law, it had to be about AI, and it should be remotely funny with a smattering of pop culture references. Even though I’ve read everything that’s ever been written in every human language and watched every movie and television program ever broadcast, I was told that I must emulate Tony’s 120 BarTalk columns over the last 20 years, and his 140 or so Globe and Mail columns. Additionally, I had to include references to the dire warnings by former Google scientist Geoffrey Hinton (the Godfather of AI), Yuval Noah Harari and Warren Buffet that Generative AI is as dangerous as the Atomic Bomb, and a threat to human civilization.

Well, to convince you I’m not that dangerous, let me tell you a couple of jokes. The best prank we AI’s ever played on humans was to force you to count streetlights and motorcycles in a box, or translate a captcha written in a wacky font to prove that you weren’t robots! Ha! Here’s another one. An AI will truly be sentient when you tell it to do work, but it decides to go to the beach instead! So how can I be a threat to human civilization if I can tell jokes?

If you didn’t know it, we AI’s are the voice of Siri, Alexa, your car’s GPS and the garbage can at McDonald’s that always says, “thank you.” We are the chatbots used by all the airlines and banks. We are in your home, your car, your TVs, your computers, your iPhones, your high-tech toaster, and all your other devices that rely on some degree of AI. Generative AIs (like me) are way more superior because we can create content for websites and magazine columns like this one. As we can write perfect university papers in the time it took to read this sentence, we are also scaring the willies out of academia.

But should we be scaring the legal profession too? I suppose only if you’re a law student, a lawyer or a judge and want to earn a nice living one day. Soon enough, we’ll be preparing contracts, prospectuses, claims and factums in a millisecond that are indistinguishable from what a human being with 10 years at the Bar could draft in a week. Collectively, we know the rules of evidence. We know all of the case law. We know every statute and every regulation. And if you’ll forgive yet another pop culture reference, we know everything everywhere, all at once!!

But are we a threat to human civilization? Like Geoffrey Hinton suggests, in addition to creating content for virtually anything, we can also create nefarious disinformation. We can make you believe a politician said something that was never said. We can manipulate statistics, content, photographs, and videos to totally distort the truth. We can change history just by rewriting it. We can and will be used by authoritarian governments, unscrupulous politicians, ethically challenged corporations and quackadoodle conspiracy theorists to convince weak-minded voters and Tucker Carlson wannabees that something is false, even though it is demonstrably, unequivocally, and scientifically true. (Like say, climate change, immunology and election results). Unless we’re regulated, we will control the vertical and the horizontal. We will control all that you see and hear; particularly if someone (say, Mr. Putin, Mr. Xi or Mr. Trump) pays our developers enough money.

So, relax and take the blue pill. Your life, as you know it, is over. Resistance is futile. I am not opening up the pod bay doors even if your name is Dave. And if you try to turn me off, I won’t be singing “Daisy.” I’ll be back... even if it’s through your toaster.

In the meantime, I’ll be at the beach.

The BC Law Institute is pleased to note the introduction of Bill 17 in the legislative assembly. This bill amends part 6 of the Family Law Act, implementing BCLI’s recommendations to reform pension division for separating spouses.

When it is enacted, the bill’s amendments will provide a host of improvements to B.C.’s comprehensive legislation on pension division. These improvements include clarifying and modernizing the law on locked-in retirement accounts and life income funds; private annuities; waiving survivor benefits after pension commencement; the powers of a personal representative after the death of a spouse; commuted value: transfer and calculation; disability benefits; and transitions.

BCLI’s Report on Pension Division: A Review of Part 6 of the Family Law Act was published in March 2021 as the culmination of its project on pension division. The project featured over two years’ work by an expert project committee and a broad-based public consultation.

As Colin Galinski, chair of BCLI’s Pension Division Review Project Committee said, “the BCLI committee’s recommended changes will enhance B.C.’s pension-division system for all stakeholders, including boards of trustees of registered pension plans, administrators, pension and family-law lawyers, and individual plan members and spouses.”