MENTORING

Definitely! In fact, as a Part II you will have just experienced Part I Law online and during a pandemic - this is exactly what Part I students this year will be going through. Sharing your experience with them will be invaluable. You aren’t expected to teach your mentee the course content so don’t worry about that, your job is to provide pastoral support - to be a friend.

Your mentor is here to help you navigate the confusing first year of law school. They can help you figure out who to go to if you have questions about your course content, or if you have enrolment issues. They can also provide advice about what the first (and subsequent) years of law school are like. They are also human too - you can chat about your hobbies and interests, you might have more things in common than you think!

Your mentor should reach out to you within the first week of being paired up. They should let you know the best way to contact them - email, phone, Facebook, etc. If they don’t specify a means of contact, you can check with them what they would prefer.

You can contact your mentor as often as you need! It might be helpful to discuss at your first meeting if you would prefer to have regularly scheduled contact, or keep in contact on a more ad hoc basis. While this is up to the two of you and what works best for your circumstances, we recommend a minimum of three meet-ups per semester.

Please reach out to the Education Officers, Claudia and Yogita (uoawomeninlawmentoring@gmail.com) if your mentor has not contacted you within the first week of being paired up. If you are unable to get in contact with your mentor during the semester, please let us know about this too.

Your mentor is here to help you navigate the stressful first year of law school. However, your mentor is not a tutor - if you have questions about your assignments, your first port of call should be to ask your tutors or lecturers. However, your mentor can give you tips and tricks on how to work on your assignments and manage your time effectively.

No. Your mentor is not a tutor. They can give you tips on how to study for your exams, but they cannot run tutorials or teach you the course content. If you are struggling with the content, you should reach out to your tutors or lecturers - your mentor can help you with this if it is a bit daunting.

Communication is key in the mentoring relationship. If your mentee/mentor reaches out to you, make sure you respond in a timely manner. Life is busy - we totally get that - but make sure you don’t leave your partner wondering if you’ve fallen off the edge of the world because you haven’t responded to them in weeks.

We recommend that you meet up with your mentee at least three times each semester. However, your mentee may reach out from time to time with questions, or you might decide between yourselves to meet more often. Before signing up as a mentor, please make sure that you will have enough time to make these meetings and respond promptly when your mentee messages you/check in with your mentee regularly. We don’t want you to be stressed and overloaded, but if you do feel this way partway through the semester please reach out and let us know so we can help.