Partnerships for Cultural Change: Reverse Mentoring in higher education and the legal profession

Rachael O’Connor recently embarked on a collaborative research venture with LawCare (mental health charity for the legal profession – bio below), funded by the Michael Beverley Innovation scheme at the University of Leeds.

The project has seen aspiring law students and current trainees/junior lawyers from a range of minoritised and under-represented backgrounds mentoring those responsible for trainee recruitment and organisational wellbeing within participant law firms. This is one of the first research projects to empirically explore the impact of reverse mentoring in this context.

Impact

A key aim of the pilot project was to spark meaningful conversation in the profession around the connections between diversity, inclusion and wellbeing. We intended its outcomes to support the development of training for junior lawyers to better embed positive wellness and inclusion practices, addressing challenges such as turnover rates, lawyers’ mental health and supporting firms to develop their ‘USP’ for trainees and future employees. We also intended for the pilot project to impact the sector beyond the firms involved through the publication of our research findings and a reverse mentoring toolkit for the profession.

In November and December 2022, Rachael ran a series of roundtables with students, junior lawyers and senior leaders in the profession to discuss issues relating to wellbeing, inclusion and reverse mentoring in order to further develop the project design.

Publications and outputs

Toolkit

LawCare and the University of Leeds have created a reverse mentoring toolkit to help law firms and legal organisations become more inclusive, supportive, and fair places to work. The reverse mentoring toolkit and supporting resources are available to download here.

Reverse Mentoring in the Legal Profession: LawCare Toolkit DOWNLOAD HERE. 

Reverse Mentoring in the Legal Profession Toolkit Handbook DOWNLOAD HERE.

Reverse Mentoring in the Legal Profession Toolkit Reflective Diary Template DOWNLOAD HERE.

Reverse Mentoring in the Legal Profession Toolkit Agreement Template DOWNLOAD HERE.

Articles

10 Tips for Impactful Reverse Mentoring. Rachael O’Connor. LawCare

Presentations

The Power of Reverse Mentoring. Rachael O’Connor. TEDxUniversityofLeeds

Conferences

What’s really working for inclusion and wellbeing in law? In-Person Event, Thursday 26 June 2025