Lynn Murray explains why mentors shouldn't create clones, and how lawyers can find their own style
While much is said about what young lawyers should and shouldn’t do to build a strong legal career, far less attention is paid to the mistakes their mentors might be making.
Lynn Murray, senior partner at Key Murray Law in Charlottetown, says one of the most common is trying to shape juniors into younger versions of themselves.
“I can’t mentor people to be me. They have to be taught to be themselves, with their own boundaries and their own style.”
Finding your own style is risky, Murray admits – and lawyers, by nature, tend to be risk-averse. However, she believes developing an authentic courtroom presence is essential for the lawyer’s long-term credibility.
Murray learned this firsthand early in her career, working alongside two senior male lawyers with different styles. One took a cautious, measured approach, always ensuring key arguments were preserved on the record for potential appeals. The other was bold and persuasive, often attempting to sway the court through more assertive language.
“Neither was going to work for me. I had to figure it out myself.”
For Murray, becoming an effective advocate meant deciding how she wanted to be perceived by the court, not copying someone else’s tone, but finding her own.
“It has to be you, and it has to be sincere.”
That’s why she sees mentorship not as cloning but as guiding young lawyers to find their voice. She says that even identical phrases delivered by different people land differently because the court or client senses whether the message is authentic.
Murray tackles mentorship from day one. During orientation at her firm, she leads a session on ethics and discipline where she encourages new lawyers to observe how others communicate – both with clients and the court – but not mimic them.
She often supports junior lawyers through tough conversations with clients, especially those she initially brought in, because seeing those exchanges unfold is the best way to learn.
“You have to be a sponge and absorb everything around you,” she says.
By shadowing their mentors and senior lawyers on both sides of a file, junior lawyers can collect and combine beneficial habits to shape their approach.
“If you sat down and analyzed a young lawyer later down the road, I’m sure you would see pieces of all those senior partners. That’s how people develop their own brand.”
Beyond observing and learning, Murray emphasizes the importance of work ethic, especially early on.
Even with AI and emerging legal tech tools, she says there’s no shortcut to gaining experience or building skills, adding that young lawyers need to work harder and longer than they would usually want to.
Looking back on her own career, Murray credits two mentors – one female and one male – with encouraging her to take chances and find her footing in what was then a male-dominated profession.
While law school graduation rates are more balanced today, she says client biases persist – such as those who prefer to be represented by male lawyers out of habit.
She tells younger colleagues not to waste energy trying to change every mind, saying, “There are some battles you’re not going to win.”
What lawyers can control, she says, is how they present themselves. Her own goal, she adds, was always to be seen not as a “great female lawyer, but simply as a great lawyer.”
Murray says the pace and structure of today’s legal environment – shaped partly by technology and the isolation of the COVID-19 era – have transformed mentorship. The one-on-one, in-person guidance she experienced early in her career is more difficult to replicate now.
She also sees a shift in how feedback is received. In her early years, no news was good news, or as she put it, “If no one was yelling, it meant you were doing fine.” However, younger lawyers today often need more direct and positive reinforcement to build confidence, which is something Murray actively promotes within her firm.
She notes that many lawyers who studied or trained during the pandemic may not have developed the same verbal communication skills as their peers who learned in person. As a result, they may need more time and support to strengthen those abilities in practice.
