Attorney Sees LawReady™ Mentorship Program as a Way to Give Back
Liana Nobile didn’t have legal mentors throughout her undergraduate experience. Now, a decade after graduating from law school and beginning her career in law, she’s paying it forward by volunteering as a LawReady mentor, giving her an opportunity to help guide a student through the journey she once completed without a map.
“I found that there were not a lot of people that I could openly and honestly talk to about my own experiences, and I wanted to fill what I saw as a gap in my own life,” she said.
Liana had been considering a career in law since she was a child, but it wasn’t until after completing her undergraduate degree that she took steps toward pursuing a legal career.
Her interest in law was first sparked by her father. Her talkative and argumentative nature made her a good fit for law, according to her dad.
She took a political science class in high school and loved it, so she declared that as her college major, eventually changing it to history. When she graduated, she started working in banking but shortly afterward, she realized that wasn’t a long-term career goal.
It wasn’t until her mom connected her to a person studying for the bar exam that Liana re-examined the idea of pursuing a career in law. After discussing a possible path to a legal education with someone who had recently graduated from law school, Liana decided to take the LSAT and apply. That person ended up mentoring Liana throughout her law school journey.
Liana graduated from law school in 2013 and now works as a trial attorney specializing in insurance defense litigation . After working as an attorney for about a decade, Liana feels that she’s now at a place in her career where she can give back and help students on a similar path.
“I feel like I made a lot of mistakes and stumbled a bunch, so [I hope] to be able to save them from doing that,” Liana said. “They'll make their own mistakes, but at least they don't have to make mine.”
Liana bonded instantly with her LawReady mentee, a ffirst-year student at Methodist University. LawReady mentorship sessions are only designed to last for a half hour, but during their first meeting, they had such a strong connection that they spoke for 80 minutes.
Liana was impressed by how motivated and intelligent her mentee is. When Liana was exploring the idea of a legal education herself, she “went into the whole journey really blind” and was “wildly unprepared” for law school.
Her mentee, on the other hand, already has a five-to-ten-year plan as a first-year college student and knows exactly what he wants to do in his future career. In her role as a LawReady mentor, Liana hopes she can give him advice on how and when to prepare for law school and connect him with resources to guide him throughout his legal education journey.
As she began to meet with her mentee, Liana found the structured nature of the LawReady mentorship program helpful. Each month, her mentee completes an activity such as researching different fields of law or watching informative webinars regarding careers in the legal profession, and they discuss the topic in their once-a-month meetings, with Liana answering any questions her mentee has and sharing her own experiences and insights.
Her advice to others interested in mentoring through LawReady is to be committed and invested in their mentee’s future.
“Make sure that you're ready to do your best by this kid because they're giving you their time, which is just as valuable as yours,” she said.
If you’re interested in LawReady, you can learn more on our website.