A mentor is the advantage most students start with none of. This is the one programme where ALSA's whole purpose, closing the gap between capability and access, becomes literal.
Two students can have the same marks and the same ability and still end up in very different places, because one of them knew someone.
That is the quiet inequality law school does not fix. The students who move with confidence into clerkships and good roles are often the ones who had someone in the profession to ask: what is this actually like, what should I be doing now, is this normal. For many Asian law students, with no family or friends already in the profession, that person simply does not exist.
Mentoring is how ALSA closes that gap on purpose. It puts a practising lawyer or recent graduate in your corner for the length of Semester 2, so the guidance that used to depend on who you knew becomes something you can apply for instead.
You do not need to have it figured out. You need someone who already has, in your corner early enough for it to count.
What a clerkship is really like, how to choose an area, what matters and what does not. The questions you cannot ask a careers fair, answered by someone who has lived them.
Capability that no one in the profession sees does not translate into a career. A mentor is a first professional relationship, and the start of being known.
One genuine relationship with a practitioner is worth more than a hundred cold connections. It is the door that opens other doors.
Every match is supported by ALSA's mentoring team, and all participants are covered by ALSA's Code of Conduct.
A few hours across a semester is a small thing to give. To the student on the other side of it, it is the thing that was missing.
Roughly one conversation a month from July to October, on your terms. For you it is an hour. For your mentee it can change how the whole year goes.
Asian lawyers make up a strong share of new entrants but a far smaller share higher up. Helping capable students convert entry-level strength into lasting careers is exactly the work the profession says it wants done.
Most lawyers can name the conversation that changed their direction, or the one they wish they had had. This is your chance to be that for someone coming up behind you.
The need is documented. The NZ Law Society's 2024 snapshot records Asian lawyers at 11.9% of the profession overall but 19.4% of those in their first seven years, and falling: strong at entry, thinning higher up. Mai Chen's report on culturally and linguistically diverse parties in the courts recommended cross-cultural training for lawyers and the judiciary. Mentoring is how the next generation is supported to close that gap. See the sources →
Whether you are looking for guidance or ready to give it, applications are open ahead of the Semester 2 launch.