AIPLA Committee Report
DATE:October 19, 2012MEETING: Annual
COMMITTEE NAME: Mentoring Committee
COMMITTEE LEADERSHIP: Daphne C. Lainson (Chair); Hetal Kushwaha (Vice-Chair)
SUBCOMMITTEES:
-Pairings Subcommittee: Diana Luo
- Mentor/Mentee Pre-Screening: Jenae Gureff
-Evaluations Subcommittee (includes reviewing applicants for Mentor of the Year Award): Lisa Jorgensen; Allison Strickland
-Klitzman Award Selection Subcommittee: Rakesh Mehta
-Technology Subcommittee: Jack Abid
DISCUSS THE OVERALL MISSION OF THE COMMITTEE AS IT RELATES TO AIPLA’s VISION, MISSION, and VALUES:
The Mentoring Committee facilitates mentoring relationships within the AIPLA to assist members to achieve their goals within the AIPLA. Professional mentoring may also be an aspect of the mentoring relationship.
DISCUSS THE COMMITTEES ACTIVITIES RELATED TO ADVOCACY, PLEASE ALSO INCLUDE COOPERATION WITH OTHER COMMITTEES TO SUPPORT THESE ACTIVITIES, if any:
The Mentoring Committee does not have a formal role with respect to advocacy. However, through pairings, our mentors introduce their mentees to substantive committees which have a role in advocacy.
DISCUSS THE COMMITTEES ACTIVITIES RELATED TO PUBLIC EDUCATION, PLEASE ALSO INCLUDE COOPERATION WITH OTHER COMMITTEES TO SUPPORT THESE ACTIVITIES, if any:
The Mentoring Committee contributes to public education by supporting committees like the Education Committee. Our pairings can also increase to AIPLA members becoming more involved in public education, with interested mentees being introduced to AIPLA leadership tasked with this objective.
DISCUSS THE COMMITTEES ACTIVITIES RELATED TO MEMBER SERVICE, PLEASE ALSO INCLUDE COOPERATION WITH OTHER COMMITTEES TO SUPPORT THESE ACTIVITIES, if any:
We believe that the Mentoring Committee draws in new members interested in becoming more involved in AIPLA and who may want professional mentoring. We also contribute to Member Services with the Klitzman Award. One objective of the Award is to assist junior corporate counsel in becoming more involved in the AIPLA.
We have implemented a mentor/mentee pre-pairing interview in order to improve the mentoring experience. Jenae Gureff contacts each mentor and mentee pair to confirm that the pairing is appropriate.
We also ran a pilot program at the Spring meeting to provide greater mentoring at each stated meeting. We paired AIPLA leadership with more junior members who want to become more involved in AIPLA. We plan on running another on-site mentoring program at one or both of the Mid-Winter and Spring meetings.
At the Annual meeting, Mentoring and Membership are holding a joint meeting relating to getting the most out of AIPLA membership. We will be proving information on getting involved in committees, the networking events AIPLA hosts, advocacy opportunities, mentoring programs and innovative programming, including road shows across America. Our speakers will be: Jacques Etkowicz to discuss participating in the Professional Programs Committee; Shannon Beech to discuss participating in the On-line Programming Committee; Kevin Tottis to discuss participating in other AIPLA committees and other opportunities like advocacy; Missy Sikorski to discuss networking opportunities, with a focus on the New Lawyers Committee; and Hetal Kushwaha to discuss the opportunities in the Mentoring Committee.
DISCUSS THE COMMITTEES ACTIVITIES RELATED TO GLOBAL OUTREACH, PLEASE ALSO INCLUDE COOPERATION WITH OTHER COMMITTEES TO SUPPORT THESE ACTIVITIES, if any:
Our committee has and will continue to improve ways for our members to become more involved outside of stated meetings. This allows members who are not able to travel to meetings to become involved in and learn more about AIPLA.
We are a global committee: foreign members are involved in the mentoring program at the leadership level and within the mentoring program as mentors and mentees.
We provided an on-line program to assist mentors and mentees in getting the most out of their mentoring relationship, increasing our global outreach. Our program ran on March 15, 2012. It was chaired by the former chair, Elizabeth Burke, and included last year’s Mentor of the Year, Mike Martinez, and Rakesh Mehta, a mentee.
We are also developing new ways to reach out to our members using our committee microsite, twitter and Facebook. Goals are to provide additional resources for mentors and mentees outside of and at stated meetings. We are also considering ways to provide local mentoring opportunities, building on what the Young Lawyers and the Women in IP Law Committees have achieved through community events.