Miami Law Women matches UM students with local mentors

South Florida Business Journal April 6, 2007 (from http://southflorida.bizjournals.com/southflorida/stories/2007/04/09/story9.html)
by Julia Neyman

When Jennifer Hochstadt entered University of Miami School of Law last year, female students surrounded her. Yet, the women who had passed the bar and found success in Miami's competitive legal sector - the women Hochstadt wanted to network with and learn from - were nowhere in sight.

"Unless you're naturally in with that crowd, they're not that accessible," Hochstadt said of Miami's female lawyers. "Just to know one attorney can provide you with incredible advice."

Now Hochstadt and her female colleagues at UM have not one but 50 local attorneys to turn to for answers and connections, thanks to Miami Law Women, a mentoring program Hochstadt began in the fall.

The program, which had its first annual meeting April 5, pairs female UM law graduates with current law students. The idea, Hochstadt said, "is to cut out the awkward reason for having a conversation with these really powerful, smart women."

Assistant Dean Georgie Angones, who helped program officers find local alumni, said mentoring is a good way to learn the realities of the profession, as well as an invaluable networking opportunity, especially for young females.

"Women in this profession have broken through the glass ceiling, and it's up to the older generation to lead the younger generation," said Angones, who received an award of appreciation from Miami Law Women on March 31 for helping with the program.

Mentoring is also a good way to guide young lawyers in ethical decisions, said D. Culver Smith, chair of the Florida Bar's Professional Ethics Committee.

"What's really lacking in the profession these days is true mentoring," he said. "If a young lawyer is lucky enough to be assigned to work with a truly ethical paradigm of what a lawyer should be, he or she is quite lucky."

Although Miami Law Women participants are called mentors, they act more as career coaches who can help students determine an area of expertise or choose a job. Hochstadt's own mentor, a commercial litigation attorney with Stearns Weaver Miller Weissler Alhadeff & Sitterson, P.A., just helped her decide between two summer job offers.

"She was so level-headed about it," Hochstadt said of her mentor, Maia Aron. "She was able to tell me the long-term benefits of one firm over the other, whereas I was only seeing the immediate benefits."

Miami Law Women mentor Jodi Page said her mentee, a first-year law student from Seattle, asked questions about learning to live in Miami, deciding which courses to take and adapting to law school life. She has also asked Page about a London summer program that Page, who graduated in 1999, was a part of, and about living and studying abroad in general.

"Our contact has primarily been through e-mail," said Page, a trial attorney with Ricci Leopold, P.A. in Palm Beach Gardens. "When she has a question about something she will e-mail me."

Hochstadt said she generally contacts her mentor via e-mail, but the two have also done lunch and attended networking events together. Aron and Hochstadt's shared heritage as Latin Jews helped them click - something Hochstadt took into account when she matched students to lawyers according to background and interests, as well as professional criteria.

Page said she was glad to sign up as a mentor because she remembered how difficult it was to initially adjust to living in Miami and finding a niche within the legal community. The program's focus on female students is essential because, although more women than ever are graduating law school, their professional legal experience is different than that of their male peers.

"Unfortunately, there is still the stereotype among the private sector of law that women only plan to work long enough to find a husband and get married," she said. "Law firms are not generally willing to allow for paid time off, flexible hours, less hours ... or agreements allowing an attorney to work from home."

"It is helpful for female law students to have knowledge of these things and be thinking of these type of things before they even start getting their initial legal jobs."