Mentorship and Inclusion

Lawyers can practice allyship in the workplace by creating an inclusive work environment, which can come in the form of networking and mentoring with an equity-lens. While lawyers can engage in trauma-informed lawyering to support clients, lawyers are also in a position of power to support other legal professionals. A common advice given to professionals is to seek out mentors in their career.

Lawyers have the opportunity to not only be mentored, but mentor others in an equitable way to share what they have learned. In fact, law students also have opportunities to mentor after finishing their first year, such as through their school or following a summer placement.

“Equity work requires courage and dedication to affect the type of changes needed to create more inclusive and just organizations and systems. Mentorship programs are a powerful pathway to creating more equitable organizational cultures, when approached and designed with intention, data-driven insight and deeper understanding of equity issues.”

Mentoring has many critical benefits such as increasing access to influential networks. However, the lack of access to mentorship can be a barrier to women and racialized people. Mentorship should not overlook populations that have been historically discriminated against.

Tips for mentoring with historically underrepresented groups include:

1. Reflect on your social identity and privilege.

Self-reflection includes gaining knowledge of who you are and how you are positioned in the world.

As you progress in your career, consider how you can use your privilege as a lawyer and professional to increase inclusion in the workplace through mentorship. Network connections and mentors have a critical role in today’s workplace.

During the externship, students will act as employees guided by the institutional policies, practices and norms. However, individual identity, worldviews and personal values will impact how those practices are interpreted. An externship includes the opportunity for participants to think about their identity as a legal proffessional, including what values are important to them. Students may explore critical questions such as, “Who am I as a member of this profession? What am I like, and what do I want to be like in my professional role? And finally, what place do ethical-social values have in my core sense of professional identity?”.

Furthermore, an externship seminar can be a place to consider social values, identity and privilege in the context of the workplace. Externs may witness the limits of the justice system in their placement. They may learn difficult lessons about race or gender bias, and indifference by lawyers. The externship seminar provides a space for students to discuss areas where the legal profession does not meet the ideal and ways that it can be improved.

2. Recognize that people with intersectional identities disproportionally lack access to professional networks. Legal advocates should consider how the legal system is a tool of colonization and race-based oppression that impacts people with different identities  from coworkers to clients. Intersectionality is the overlap of two or more identities that are grounds for discrimination. Intersectionality redefines socially constructed categories of an individual’s innate characteristics that increase their vulnerability. Shreya Atrey, a professor of law and international human rights explains:“[Intersectionality] helps understand the structural and dynamic consequences of interaction between multiple forms of disadvantage based on race, sex, gender, disability, class, age, caste, religion, sexual orientation, region, etc. In helping to understand this complexity, it opens up ways of addressing the disadvantage associated with it.” Canadian legal scholar Dianne Pothier discusses gender and disability:
   
   “I can never experience gender discrimination other than as a person with a disability; I can never experience disability discrimination other than as a woman. I cannot disaggregate myself nor can anyone who might be discriminating against me. I do not fit into discrete boxes of grounds of discrimination. Even when only one ground of discrimination seems to be relevant, it affects me as a whole person.”Patricia Monture-Angus, a Mohawk lawyer discusses gender and Indigeneity:“I am not just woman. I am a Mohawk woman. It is not solely my gender through which I first experience the world, it is my culture (and/or race) that precedes my gender. Actually, if I am object of some form of discrimination, it is very difficult for me to separate what happens to me because of my gender and what happens to me because of my race and culture. My world is not experienced in a linear and compartmentalized way. I experience the world simultaneously as Mohawk and as woman.”

Furthermore, women of colour are underrepresented in law. When companies implement measures to increase gender diversity, women of colour do not get as many opportunities unless policies focus on both race and gender. Unique challenges faced by people with intersectional identities are often ignored.

3. Mentorship requires anti-racism work.

Research shows that Black women are “less likely to find mentors” who will support their career development. Sometimes this is due to white executives’ lack of familiarity and comfort interacting with Black people. In addition, there could be intentional exclusion leaving people out of key projects and teams. It impacts mobility in career progression and wages.

A mentor’s beliefs and biases could influence how they interact with a mentee. A study showed that leaders provide people of colour and Indigneous peoples advice on how they can “fix” how they are viewed. In contrast, white colleagues would be more likely to receive relevant guidance such as about promotions. When leaders engage in anti-racism work, they can provide more intentional advocacy.

“Anti-racism is the active process of identifying and eliminating racism by changing systems, organizational structures, policies and practices and attitudes, so that power is redistributed and shared equitably.”

Ibram X. Kendi, the director of Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University discusses anti-racism in his book How to be an Antiracist. He highlights that to be an anti-racist, there must be an understanding of colonial history. For instance, racial disparities are caused by racist policies rather than the failure of people of colour.

The externship seminar creates opportunities for self-reflection that tie into the professional obligation to act as a self-directed learner. Lawyers can take initiative to engage in anti-racism work to improve the quality of service offered by the legal profession.

Evidently, lawyers are in a position of privilege regardless of their background. They have an abundance of knowledge to share and have the power to build diverse networks by acting in an inclusive manner.