How do you know if partners like you? How do you know if you have adequate mentors in your office?

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I honestly can’t tell if the partner I work for hates me, or just hates life and hates everyone who works for them.

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How do you know if anyone in life likes you? They hit you up just to grab lunch. They generally react positively with a genuine smile when you drop in on them. They drop by your office just to socialize. They consistently give you work because they either like your work product with little feedback necessary or like working with you and want to improve your work product with feedback. Either way, they consistently give work and see if you have bandwidth.

Re: mentoring. I've had partners take me out to lunch to give advice on other cases they are not on. Some that I work with will give me the "here is what I want to accomplish and why. With this big picture in mind, complete this assignment in a way you feel advances that big picture." I think those two things are something you should be on the lookout for as far as mentoring goes. Those willing to chat with you about cases unrelated to them and those willing to give you the big picture strategy considerations behind the work you're doing. If you aren't getting that, you don't have mentors.

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Perfect response

I’m with Associate 2 here. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s unusual. Partners reach out to me only when they need something. Sometimes they will talk further than the immediate task at hand to offer advice if I am in their office for a call or if we’re traveling somewhere together for work.

I am a minority, and so the only mentoring conversations I’ve really had with anyone are diverse partners in our affinity group. I don’t work with any of them because my practice group has no partners who are people of color.

Would be interested to hear if others have a had a similar experience.

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I have had the same experience as an attorney of color. I’ve stopped trying to connect on a personal level and have focused my energy on being a good attorney

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None of the partners I work with ever do anything but give me more work. Maybe one will talk further with me when I pop his office.

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Same, the partner that’s my advocate just gives me work. We keep socializing to a minimum

As an associate, I always could tell which partners liked me. It was obvious, even if not socially. Keep selecting me for your cases over others? Ask for my opinion on strategy?

(Here's a big one) Fight for me in front of the comp committee at raise/bonus time?

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As to the first question, you will never know. As to the second question, I, personally, found mentors in the people I clicked with. I don’t think there is one type of mentor. If I had a specific legal issue, I had one mentor. If I had firm/politics issue, I had another mentor. Work/life balance, different mentor. No one person is good at it all, so find the best person for the different situations.

Also, don’t stress about whether people “like” you. You are you and that isn’t going to change, just be good at what you do and it won’t matter if they like you because they will need you (but be likeable just be chill about it).

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