Utah to start mentor program for new lawyers

It happened years ago, but Douglas Ashworth vividly remembers being a new lawyer in Georgia at his first local bar association meeting.

"I introduced myself and gave my business card to one member. He said, 'Oh, great, more competition!' handed it back to me and walked away. Another lawyer took my card and said, 'How about if we have lunch together?' He answered all my questions and was as nice as he could be."

Ashworth remembered this incident and many others, both good and bad, when he applied to become director of the Transition Into Law Practice Program for the State Bar of Georgia, which started the first mandatory mentoring program for new attorneys. "I said, 'I'm interested in the program because I've lived out the need for it.' "

Utah soon will become the third state in the nation (after Georgia and Delaware) to require people new to practicing law to take part in a yearlong mentoring program intended to teach professionalism, ethics and civility, along with a lot of practical advice.

The Utah Supreme Court already has approved the New Lawyer Training Program, and now anyone applying to the Utah State Bar must participate. Each new lawyer will be paired with a court-approved, experienced attorney who can provide one-on-one guidance for the newcomer.

Utah State Bar President Nate Alder said the idea makes sense on many levels and also fits the current demographics of Utah's emerging attorneys who, a recent study showed, tend to be younger and not practicing in a big firm.

"If you're a young, solo practitioner just out of law school and you have an office in South Jordan, or you work out of home or Starbucks, you really need to find a relationship with someone who can work with you through that early developmental experience," said Alder.

The program was sparked by many things, including an American Bar Association study that shows a substantial number of attorneys leaving the profession after a few years. In addition, leaders in Utah's legal community began discussing ideas found in a paper co-authored by Salt Lake attorney Alan Sullivan that suggested lawyers are not properly prepared to begin work fresh from school. The paper was co-written with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and Deanell Tacha, former chief judge of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Utah Supreme Court asked the Utah State Bar Commission to examine a mentoring program, and the resulting New Lawyer Training Committee, headed by lawyers Rodney Snow and Margaret Plane, studied the concept in-depth.