Lawyers e-Journal
Thursday, Feb. 9, 2012
Photograph by
Jennifer Rosinski
Hon. Diana L. Maldonado, first justice of the Chelsea District Court (center, nametag) speaks with students at the Feb. 9 Tiered Community Mentoring Program.
Students hear about the importance of networking at MBA Tiered Community Mentoring Program event
Believe in yourself and connect with others who can help push
you toward your professional best. That was the message from three
guest speakers at today's networking event at Roxbury Community
College for participants in the Massachusetts Bar Association's
Tiered Community Mentoring Program.
"Everyone needs a push. Everyone needs a pull," said the Hon.
Diana L. Maldonado, first justice of the Chelsea District Court.
Maldonado said it was an attorney she worked with while a paralegal
in the JC Penney legal department that pushed her to enroll in law
school. And it was a tutorial assistant at Northeastern University
Law School who pulled her toward a goal of improving her legal
writing and analysis. "You have to believe in yourself. You have to
trust in yourself," Maldonado said.
State Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz and Damian W. Wilmot, a partner at
Goodwin Procter LLP in Boston, also spoke about the professional
roads they have traveled and how mentors helped them along the way.
The event ended with a speed networking session.
Now in its third year, the MBA's Tiered Community Mentoring
Program matches up 10 practicing lawyers with more than two dozen
students from high school, college and law school, including New
Mission High School, Roxbury Community College, Middlesex Community
College, Suffolk University Law School and Northeastern University
Law School. The innovative mentoring program was the idea of
Norfolk and Family Court First Justice Angela M. Ordoñez, who
attended the event.