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                      Selecting a Mentor


                      “Positive Absolutisms”


                       You are going to need someone that you trust so my best advice to you is to not
               latch on to anyone too quickly, get to know someone and let it happen naturally.  The
               way law school is set up, some people may doubt themselves.  But there’s no room for
               doubt- no time for it at all.  You need someone to believe in you; that you can talk with
               openly and honestly.  There are so many mind games going on in law school and in the
               larger  legal  culture  so,  you  need  someone  that  can  help  you  navigate  through  it  all.
               Someone  that  will  be  upfront  and  honest  without  any  personal  benefit,  other  than
               perhaps  your  friendship,  to  giving  you  the  information  they  are  telling  you.  When
               deciding  on  a  mentor,  look  for  someone  who  speaks  in  what  I  call  “positive
               absolutisms”.  You need someone to be doubtless in your abilities...it’s not  if you get
               good grades it’s when you get good grades.   It’s a step above the power of suggestion.
               After a while, you’ll start believing it and naturally taking the necessary steps to make
               the affirmations come true.  Positive absolutisms are not some lofty unattainable goal
               but  something  to  realistically  strive  for.    No  matter  what  doubts  I  had  about  my  own
               abilities, they had unwavering faith that I could accomplish anything.



                      Selecting a Mentor

                      How well did their advice work out for them?


                       There is a natural inclination to seek out advice from those that placed at the top
               of  their  class,  the  assumption  being  that  their  advice  will guarantee  the  beneficiary  a
               4.0.    I  differ  from  that  contention-  I  personally  got  the  best  advice  from  those  in  the
               middle to lower end of their classes. A lot of people that were at the top had absolutely
               no clue why they did well and/or had a vested interest in not telling me the full strategy.
               Class rank may have been influenced by other factors and since one is graded on a
               curve  –  relative  to  the  other  students  in  one’s  class,  it  is  an  arguably  reasonable
               assumption  that  if  the  person  was  in  another  class  (a  year  earlier  or  later,  another
               section,  different  professor,  another  school),  that  same  person  may  have  fared
               differently, for better or worse.    I think the more important thing – more important than
               how they did in their class- is if they used their own advice and how did that lend to their
               understanding of the law.  For instance, if they say something like you must make up
               your own index cards to understand the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure like they did
               but  they  still  don’t  understand  that  a  civil  action  begins  with  the  filing  of  a  complaint
               (Rule  3),  well  then  that’s  something  you  need  to  take  into  account  when  deciding
               whether       to     follow      that     particular     aspect      of     their     advice.





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