Me and My Mentor. Norah Breekveldt
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individuals and as team members and enjoy and have fun as part of the team. And yes, celebrating our victories was done robustly. There were fourteen in my TAC team and thirty-six in my VWA team.
Building empowerment means there’s a lot of personal trust both ways. But when you go to the bar you’ve got to develop a relationship in that sphere, and likewise when you go to another firm, even though I’ve built you to go to another firm, if you’re opposed to me, yeah, look out!
Michelle’s story
I met Pat while I was still at law school. I completed a summer clerkship at Dunhill Madden Butler and I spent some time in the group that Pat headed. The following year I started working for Pat as an articled clerk. He was really my first contact with what the law is about and how the law is practiced, and working with him set the scene for where things were going to go.
Try and swim, don’t sink …
Our mentoring relationship evolved naturally. I think mentoring, for a lot of high achieving people, can be about their own egos. For Pat it never was.
The importance of hierarchy in some law firms can mean young lawyers really underestimate themselves, as Pat said. He was different because he believed in us and trusted us to achieve, whilst always being there in the background to pick up the pieces if something went wrong or to gently direct us towards the right answer. And that was huge. For instance, I’d been in the group for about a month and one of the first year solicitors was leaving to travel for twelve months. Pat walked me into the solicitor’s office and said ‘there you go, that’s all yours now.’ I didn’t know where to start or what to do. My head was spinning. But it was the most enormous vote of confidence. And I knew he was there if I needed help. But a lot of it is ‘try and swim, try and swim, don’t sink’.
Pat always encouraged us to trust our instincts. He would say ‘put your opinion at the front of the letter and don’t be scared to have an opinion. You might have an opinion that other people don’t agree with, but that’s your well thought-out opinion and you have to state it’. Of course, it had to be predicated on having a brain and doing the work, but that’s not enough. We were always encouraged to do our own appearance work to the extent that it was appropriate as a solicitor. Get up, do it, have a go.
I remember early on in my time at Dunhill Madden Butler we had a client who was being interviewed by the police in a high profile matter, and the interview had to be conducted on a day that Pat was leaving the country. He left me in charge of getting the client through the interview. I was incredibly nervous, but ringing in my ears was the question ‘what would Pat do now?’ Luckily we’d had enough time together for me to identify those things, but that question was always the guiding light if I ever felt out of my depth. I think I did a good job, although he always managed to carry himself with a lot more ease and humour than I did in those days.
‘Tell him I sent you’
I think this was unusual at the time, but Pat made absolutely no distinction amongst his solicitors based on gender; it was irrelevant to him. If anything he was very supportive when I went off and had children, and accommodated part-time work when I was ready to come back. He had a complete commitment to having the job done well by people who are good at it, rather than any other consideration.
That wasn’t true of everyone. The first couple of times a [male] barrister refused to speak to us as [female] instructing solicitors we’d go back with our eyes all shiny and tears about to pop and say ‘Pat he asked for you, he won’t talk to me.’ And Pat would say ‘no, off you go. Tell him I sent you.’ With the knowledge that Pat trusted us to handle the situation came a growing belief that we actually could. But he did also step in behind the scenes afterwards and say ‘we won’t be briefing people again who don’t behave appropriately to my solicitors.’
‘Play where the ball isn’t’
Our work involved looking at a lot of medical issues, which I had become interested in. Pat would notice any interest that each of us had and would push us in that direction, so he encouraged me to study bio-ethics at the University of Melbourne. He also encouraged us to work hard and play hard, that was a huge emphasis. He had a lot of phrases and one I remember was ‘play where the ball isn’t’. He encouraged us to look other than where everyone else was looking, for the answer to it, or from another angle on the problem, or another direction for the case to take.
Our working relationship was like a constant dialogue about things and it had a huge impact on my decision to go to the bar. We’d always been encouraged to do our own advocacy, and advocacy was always presented as being a very important part of your skill set as a solicitor. We were encouraged to go up to chambers, to express our opinions to barristers and to be part of the conversation, so that confidence was there to think well you know, we can do this. When I decided to go to the bar, Pat was enormously supportive, more than I could have imagined given that I was leaving the firm. He took me out to lunch and said ‘right let’s talk about which clerks you might want to apply to.’ We talked about what I wanted or needed and he’d done some research to find out who would be the best match for me. He organised the firm to buy me my barristerial robes, and he bought me my barristerial jacket. Those gestures showed an enormous loyalty that extended well beyond the boundaries of work.
When I got to the bar a lot of the lessons I learnt from Pat helped me have an opinion and be involved. That meant when I was even a very junior barrister, I always thought I had a seat at the table. So without being pushy about it, a lot of the QCs I would be junior to said they found it very hard to shake me off when they were negotiating with their opponents, because I would always be there listening to understand how it worked. I felt the confidence and entitlement to do that because I’d been given that confidence every day working as a solicitor in Pat’s team.
When I went to the bar I managed not working with Pat very badly I think. There was a long time when we didn’t have daily contact, and while I was still conscious of what he was doing, the contact was a lot less regular than it should have been. But it’s like a friend who you don’t see for a long time, then when you do you just pick up the conversation where it left off.
As a barrister you’re on your own. So you’ve got to have that appetite for exploring the unknown, together with a certain belief that you’ve built the skills to cope with it. When I was appointed Queen’s Counsel in November 2015, Pat’s was one of the first calls I received, and one of the first people whose call I returned. I really see that no matter where my career in the law goes, the genesis of it was with my early days with Pat. It permeates a lot of how I think about the law, and how I conduct myself.
There are an enormous number of people who have worked for and been mentored by Pat, and gone to the bar. He has affected so many people’s careers because he takes an individual interest in each person.
My advice to others wanting a mentor is this—if you’re interested in mentoring you need to seek it out and approach the person you want as a mentor. It doesn’t have to be a formal arrangement, but put yourself in a position to soak up everything you can. You have to be very open to whatever they’ve got to share, whether it’s what you expected or not, or whether you agree with it or not. Just be there to listen and learn and take from it the things that apply to you.
Reflections
For mentors
How can you call out gender bias or discrimination when you see it occurring in your mentee’s experience?
How do you choose the mentoring style appropriate for the situation? In which circumstances would you choose to urge your mentee to take a particular career step versus allowing them to discover their own path?
Where can you find opportunities to throw your mentee in at the deep end but provide safeguards to ensure she swims, not sinks?
How can you encourage your mentee to trust her instincts?
For mentees
Where can you find opportunities to ‘play where the ball isn’t’ in your career?
Which situations make