I mentor a second year law student as part of our BAME mentoring scheme. The scheme pairs a junior lawyer (in this case, me) and a senior lawyer with a BAME student who is considering a career in law. 

Obviously, I help with general questions about training contracts and daily life as a trainee, but my aim is to go beyond that. I want to offer the sort of support that a more stereotypical candidate might have had in a relative, teacher or friend. It's as much about imparting confidence as it is imparting knowledge.

The shape of our relationship is governed by my mentee, and so it is flexible and dependent on what she is up to. We have had coffees together with the senior lawyer, where we have discussed the future of the profession and career progression. On the other hand, the two of us also catch up more casually - I gave her a quick tour of our office before an open evening, ran through interview tips before her assessment centre, and generally checked in with her during the application process. Emailing 'good luck' before an interview and forwarding on articles about things we've spoken about takes a matter of minutes, but hopefully makes the legal profession feel less distant and alien.

The reason that I decided to become a mentor was partly because of my own sense of imposter syndrome - I'm not from a typical lawyer background and I was acutely aware of that when applying for training contracts. Although the industry is definitely aware of diversity, changing casual assumptions and conversations takes time. I try to be aware of this, and during assessment centres, vacation schemes and law fairs, I try to steer conversations towards a candidate's professional interests rather than their academic pasts or summer plans. There's diversity in what we do, and we need diversity of interests, perspectives and people.

I am absolutely thrilled that my mentee successfully obtained a place on our summer Vacation Scheme.