January is National Mentorship Month, and to speak on the importance of mentorship in the workplace, we have asked Parente & Norem's Law Clerk, Matthew Korcek, to share his thoughts on his experience here at our firm.
Why Mentorship at Parente & Norem is Important to Me | Matthew Korcek
Over the course of the past 2 years I have had the privilege of working as a law clerk at the Law Offices of Parente and Norem. This has been an extremely rewarding experience and has come to provide me so much more than merely a wage. Here at Parente and Norem, I have been honored to receive mentorship from some truly excellent attorneys, paralegals, marketing specialists, operations management, and all other members of the team. As a first year law student the mentorship I have received here has proven invaluable to me not only in a professional and academic context, but also for my development as a person. My mentors have all been patient and have gone above and beyond in teaching me the ins and outs of practicing law, functioning in an office, and crucial professional skills and habits I have no doubt will aid me in every facet of my career.
Law school teaches you substantive law, but I have come to realize that where you learn how to truly BE a lawyer is in where you work and the attorneys you learn from, and I can confidently say that the attorneys at Parente and Norem are some of the finest I have encountered. Working here, every assignment has felt like an opportunity to learn and that undoubtedly a result of the mentors here who go out of their way to ensure that what I do is not merely a box to be checked and is a relevant learning experience. Everyone at Parente and Norem has always been willing to guide me towards accomplishing what I need to accomplish, and giving me chances to learn, observe, and improve as a law student and person. From writing memos, to calling providers and clients, sitting in on depositions and court proceedings, and even delivering or picking up documents, every single thing I’ve been given the opportunity to do here has been a privilege and has felt like an opportunity to gain skills and knowledge that have been vital to giving me an advantage and law school and will undoubtedly give me an advantage in my future career. Through all this one thing my mentors have taught me that was, perhaps, outside of the scope of what they knowingly intended to teach was mentorship itself. That feeling surrounding working that have described is what I have come to believe mentorship really is… the skill of making working and learning feel like an opportunity and something to be eager and excited for, to lead by example, to be patient and willing to demonstrate the proper method, and being able to bridge the gaps between uncertainty and knowledge is what Parente and Norem has taught me mentorship means through the am.
I am deeply grateful to have received such mentorship here at Parente and Norem. The skills provided, the knowledge, the experience, the chances to observe, and be a part of the legal process have given me such an edge in law school and in life. I am so thankful to everyone here at Parente and Norem for being patient with me and giving me these opportunities to better myself as a student of the law and young man. I hope to one day use the skills and experience I have gained here to live up to the example that has been given to me by the attorneys here and to be able to mentor the next generation as well as I have had the privilege of being mentored here.
