Remembering We Were Once Junior: Empathy, Mentorship, and Retention in Practice
This article reflects on how empathy and everyday mentorship shape the early experience of junior lawyers. Written from the perspective of a practitioner called to the Bar not long ago in 2023, it considers the steep learning curve of practice and the uncertainty that often accompanies the first few years at the Bar. While structural issues such as workload and expectations are often discussed in relation to attrition, the day-to-day interactions between juniors and those slightly more senior can also play a meaningful role. Remembering what it felt like to be junior can encourage patience, clearer guidance, and informal mentorship that supports development while maintaining the high standards expected in legal practice.
Conversations about attrition among junior lawyers come up from time to time within the profession. They often centre on familiar themes such as workload, expectations and the steep learning curve of practice. Those are all real issues. But I have also been thinking about something smaller and more ordinary, which is how much the day-to-day experience of practice is shaped by the people immediately around us.
I am still relatively early in my own career. I graduated in 2022 and was called to the Bar in 2023. I do not write from the perspective of someone who has seen decades of change in the profession. I write as someone still junior, but junior enough now to have worked with interns, trainees and younger juniors, and to have thought a little about what makes those early days in practice more manageable, or much harder than they need to be.
As we gain seniority, many of us begin to find ourselves supervising someone more junior than ourselves. Interns, trainees and newly called associates begin to work with us. In those moments, I think it is worth remembering something simple. Not very long ago, we were exactly where they are now.
The early learning curve
The transition from law school to practice can be abrupt. Law school teaches legal knowledge. Practice demands something more. A junior is suddenly expected to manage deadlines, draft documents that carry real legal consequences, communicate with clients, and navigate unfamiliar procedural terrain. Matters move quickly and the margin for error can feel small.
For many juniors, the experience can be disorienting at first. Tasks that may seem routine to a more experienced lawyer can feel overwhelming to someone encountering them for the first time. Even knowing where to begin can sometimes be the hardest part. A task may sound straightforward when it is assigned, but once the junior sits down to do it, all sorts of questions arise. What is the actual issue I am trying to answer? How much background do I need? Is this meant to be a quick research note, a polished draft, or a first attempt that someone more senior will reshape? What level of detail is expected? The answers to these questions are obvious only after one has had enough exposure to how legal work is really done.
Estimating how long a task will take is another challenge. Research that might take a more experienced lawyer an hour can take a junior several hours. Drafts often go through multiple iterations before they reach their final form. Understanding how different parts of a matter fit together takes time and exposure. A junior may be perfectly hardworking and conscientious but still slow simply because the task requires several layers of thinking that are not yet instinctive.
None of this is unusual. It is simply part of the learning curve of practice. But in the speed of everyday work, it can be easy to forget that this learning curve exists.
Remembering what it felt like
One of the most helpful things we can do as we become more senior is remember what it felt like to be junior.
Most of us will remember moments early in practice when things were not entirely clear. Instructions may not have been fully understood. Research may have gone down the wrong path. Drafts may have required significant revision. Oh, the horror of seeing a draft returned covered in red lines…
Like many juniors, I also remember moments of staring at a blank document wondering where exactly to begin. At the time it felt like I should have had the answer immediately. Looking back, it was part of learning how to build a process for legal research and then translate that research into a clear piece of drafting. That process feels more natural only with time. These experiences are not signs of incompetence. They are usually just part of learning how to practise law.
Remembering this can change how we approach supervision. When a junior underestimates how long a task will take, it may simply reflect unfamiliarity. When a junior struggles to begin a piece of work, it may be because they have not yet learned how to identify the right starting point, narrow the issue, or work out how the research should feed into the final draft. When a junior produces something that misses the mark, it may not be for lack of effort, but because they are still learning how to connect legal analysis with practical output.
That is why a little patience matters. Not indulgence, and certainly not low standards, but patience. The kind that recognises that a junior can be capable, hardworking and serious, and still need guidance with process.
Empathy does not mean lowering standards
I suspect some may hear a call for empathy and assume it means asking seniors to expect less. I do not think that follows.
High standards are an essential part of legal practice. Clients rely on lawyers to exercise careful judgment, maintain accuracy, and communicate clearly. Deadlines are real. Mistakes can matter. We need to learn that quickly.
But empathy and rigour are not opposites. If anything, empathy often makes rigour more effective. A senior who explains why a draft has been restructured, or why a line of research was unhelpful, is not lowering standards. That senior is showing the junior how to meet them. A senior who takes a few minutes to identify the real issue in a task, or to explain what a good first cut should look like, is not spoon feeding. That senior is teaching the junior how to think about the task properly.
By contrast, a junior who receives only irritation may become hesitant to ask questions or clarify instructions. That hesitation can lead to avoidable mistakes, duplicated work, and a slower learning curve. In that sense, impatience is not always the more efficient approach.
The seniors who helped me most were not the ones who expected nothing. They were the ones who expected a lot but still remembered what it felt like to be a junior.
Mentorship in everyday practice
Mentorship is often discussed in formal terms. Many organisations now have structured mentorship programmes or assigned mentors to support younger lawyers. Those programmes can be useful, and there is obvious value in creating formal spaces for guidance.
But much of the mentorship that shapes a junior lawyer’s development happens much more informally, in the ordinary course of daily work.
It may be a senior taking a few minutes to explain why a particular argument was framed in a certain way. It may be showing how a piece of research fits into the broader strategy of a matter. It may be explaining why certain changes were made to a draft instead of simply sending back a marked-up document. It may even just be giving clearer instructions at the outset, so the junior has a better sense of what the task really is.
These moments are easy to underestimate because they are small. But they are often where the most practical learning happens. They teach juniors not only what to do, but how lawyers think. Over time, juniors begin to internalise those patterns of thought. They get better at spotting the real issues, distinguishing between useful and not-so-useful research, and shaping analysis into writing that is actually helpful. That is the kind of development that no template can fully teach.
Importantly, mentorship does not need to be elaborate or time consuming. Often it is simply a matter of making implicit reasoning visible.
The role of lawyers only slightly more senior
Conversations about mentorship often focus on partners or very senior lawyers. They do matter, of course. They set the tone of a team and often shape its culture in lasting ways.
But the day-to-day experience of junior lawyers is often shaped just as much by lawyers who are only a few years ahead of them. In many practice settings, it is the associate who works most closely with interns, trainees or newly called lawyers. Instructions, feedback and guidance frequently come from someone who was in the same position not very long ago.
That proximity creates an opportunity. Those of us who are only slightly more senior often remember quite vividly what the early years of practice felt like. We remember the uncertainty, the occasional overthinking, the difficulty of knowing where to begin, and the embarrassment of getting something wrong that now seems obvious. That perspective can make us more effective mentors if we let it.
It also means culture is not shaped only from the top. It can be shaped in smaller, quieter ways by people not very far removed from junior life themselves. A lawyer does not need to be particularly senior to make a meaningful difference to someone else’s experience of practice.
Retention and the human element
Attrition within the profession is a complex issue with no single solution. Structural factors such as workload, remuneration, career expectations and the realities of practice will always play a role.
At the same time, the human element should not be overlooked. In Singapore, the practice training period and the first couple of years after being called are when many of us develop our habits, confidence and professional instincts. Those years are formative. They often shape how we feel about the profession and whether there is still a place for us in it.
A junior who feels supported while learning the craft of law is more likely to remain engaged with practice. That does not mean they need constant reassurance or protection from difficult work. It means they need room to learn, some patience when they are still building method and judgment, and seniors who understand that early uncertainty is part of the process.
Conversely, a junior who consistently feels discouraged may begin to question whether the profession is the right fit. Sometimes that conclusion may have many causes. Sometimes it is reinforced by repeated everyday experiences that make the work feel harsher and lonelier than it needs to be.
Small gestures of understanding can therefore have larger consequences than they might initially appear.
Remembering where we started
Professional culture rarely changes through a single initiative or policy. More often, it develops gradually through everyday behaviour.
As we progress in our careers, even by a few years, we inevitably become part of the professional environment that shapes those who come after us. That can sound grand, but often it is very simple in practice. It is in how we assign work, how we respond to questions, how we correct mistakes, and whether we take the extra minute to explain what would otherwise remain unspoken.
Remembering what it felt like to be junior is a simple but meaningful starting point. It encourages patience, thoughtful mentorship and constructive feedback without requiring us to become sentimental or unrealistic about the demands of practice.
Legal practice will always involve pressure and high expectations. That is part of the job. But alongside those expectations, there is also room for understanding.
Sometimes the difference between a difficult learning experience and a formative one is simply having someone slightly more senior who remembers what it was like to be a junior.
