Judy Hensley
former associate
My mentoring experience played a pivotal role in adjusting to life at Paul, Weiss. I was assigned a mentor right after I joined, a woman one year senior to me. We became good friends, and she was close enough to my experience as a first year that I felt comfortable asking her any work-related question or raising any issue I faced about adjusting to the firm. She didn’t always necessarily have a better answer than I did, but she would sit down with me and help me think it through. And sometimes that’s really what you want—to vet a question with someone on your level, to make sure that it’s an intelligently posed question before you bring it to a partner.
My associate mentor once mentioned to me that I was as much a mentor to her as I was a mentee. I think that shows the success of our relationship. It was a real give and take. We became colleagues, and when you have that mutual support it’s incredibly enriching.
I’ve developed other informal mentoring relationships outside of my assigned mentor within my group. Many partners and senior associates are very generous with their time and give me advice and share their thoughts with me about our work.