Hi, this might seem a very personal and specific question but I really need some guidance. Due to the pandemic and me being an introvert, I haven’t really connected to a lot of alumni. I have saved some money in the pandemic and was wondering if there are any tier 1 associates offering paid mentorship. I would need guidance with internships, career and any other help that a mentor can provide.

I really need help because I have zero insights on law firm work culture. I have no internships. I know my CV is not drafted correctly. I know my cover letter is too wrong. I know applying to the wrong people and wrong firms. But I don’t have any clue as to how to fix these shortcomings. Sounds really creepy but I need someone to hold my hand and walk me through it.

There are some paid mentorship agencies on LinkedIn but either they have ho vacancies for mentees or they are a clear scam. From what I understand is that you might not want to post your personal details on LI comments section and LI might not allow it either. But if there’s any leads to any credible services or if you have a proxy account where we can talk about it, please mention it here.

I hope there’s a lot of volunteers and it helps other law students like me too

Thanks 😊

I understand that you're a young college kid, but understand this:

a. No associate working at a tier 1 firm needs a college going kid to supplement their income. It doesn't make financial sense.

b. In my experience, reaching out to your seniors/people you know through internships would result in a much more useful mentor-mentee relationship than seeking out random people you would have to pay.

c. The internet is littered with useful advice about CV and cover letter drafting. As long as you do the bare minimum, you'll stand out. I speak from my experience of last week, where I sorted through 100+ CVs to find seven useful candidates.

d. Nobody can provide you with a one-size-fits-all technique for CV/Cover letter drafting. People generally go through multiple iterations until something seems to stick. General idea is to research the firm you're applying to, and make personalized cover letters that will stick out.

Good luck. You'll be fine. Everyone is fine at the end as long as they care enough to make an effort.

I would be happy to help and you can keep your money. I have been working for over 8 years now and last thing I need is to charge money from someone just looking at starting out. I also have a hunch, there would be loads of such people where so long as their time is not wasted (i.e. the person seeking help is willing to put in the requisite efforts and not just free load on the mentors time and connects), they would be more than willing to spend a few hours. I unfortunately do not have a proxy account not the inclination to make one. If anybody has suggestions on how my time can be used for the benefit of the original poster, please help, you can possibly also make a start up idea out of it.

Kian maybe there should be some way for you to make sure it's actually the person in question posting their email address and not someone randomly putting out women's email addresses in a public forum. Maybe OP and Mentor could reach out to you via the tip box and you can put them in touch or something

Hi OP and others reading this who want to be mentored and those willing to mentor, please mail at connectingmentors@gmail.com. This is just to connect people, no fees or interference from my end. But if you could specify a subject area or any other requirement that you have, I could connect you with mentors/mentees with similar interests.

No one will take your money - if they want to help you, they will do it for free to help a young student. But the reality is that they will be doing it out of the goodness of their hearts - can work up to a point, but if you have specific targets in upskilling, learning and generally networking you have to get professional help. Courses run by outfits like WorldWise seem to do this - they have exactly what you're looking for: (ex) associates from top firms who run a small cohort, with individual attention and mentoring. Its better to pay for something like this, then you dont' need to feel guilty at all in demanding their time when they've committed (despite best intentions, someone doing pro bono assistance might have other pressing concerns).