Recently on the Protégé Podcast, K&L Gates lawyer, Mei Gong, spoke with Jerome Doraisamy about her dynamic and diverse career, and how young lawyers can go about forging their career path. 

There are different ways to go about it, she explained, one way is to throw yourself into a lot of different opportunities and extracurricular activities, afterwards reflecting and reassessing; “Is this what I want to do? Am I getting the most out of this?”

Some say clarify your purpose and your values first, she said, explaining that COVID-19 lockdown presented her with the unique opportunity to deeply reflect on her career.

“I started to ask myself an interesting existential question, which was, “Can a monkey do my job, and if so, what is the purpose of my career?”

Getting in contact with purpose is a key career driver for many, so understanding your values and purpose is essential, explained Ms Gong, “If you don't know where you're going, the road will take you anywhere.”

It’s as simple as asking fundamental questions like, “What do you want from your career?”, “What are your key driving values?” and “What is doable for you?”

“That will frame decisions on where you commit your time,” she illuminated.

Through this kind of reflection, Ms Gong found her purpose — to make the legal profession a more diverse inclusive space.

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She responded to her inner drive and signed herself up to opportunities to write for academic journals and conference papers, and tracked different courses that reflected her interest in diversity and inclusion, with the focus on female junior and foreign qualified lawyers. 

Continuous effort is required to bring these deeper reflections to the surface. It is important to dedicate time to it regularly, and to enlist the help of others, Ms Gong noted. 

Ms Gong reflected on an aspect of her journey which involved reaching out to a lot of people on LinkedIn from different career backgrounds, different countries, different seniorities and asking them the question: “What's the purpose of your career?”

“Gathering all these diverse perspectives, doing a lot of self-reflection and trying new things, that's how I evolved to understand what I want for my career, and what support network or what mentor sponsors I needed to reach out to,” she explained.  

She reflected further on the importance of connecting with others for enabling career progression, “Advocating for career progression may sound like a very individual, alone pursuit. But ultimately, we don't stand alone,” she said.

Once your purpose and values are clear, you can use them as a guiding compass to help you build your personal brand and decide on what mentors, sponsors, and support network you need to reach out to, to support you along your journey, she said. 

This includes building “deeper relationships with colleagues, and your boss or supervisor will also gain a deeper understanding of where you want to go and potentially connect you to opportunities,” she explained. 

“It's important to be grateful [to those] who [have] helped you,” she went on, “We need support networks, we need mentors, we need sponsors to get there.

“It’s important that we share our gratitude to those people constantly along the way, not just when we've got to our destination but all throughout the whole process.

“And don't forget to pay it forward,” she added, “Don't forget to share the lessons that you have learned along the way with others.”