For law students navigating the demanding journey of learning, growing, and finding their footing in the legal profession, Kurt Cheng emphasises that it is the guidance and support of mentors that makes all the difference – empowering them to thrive, grow with confidence, and achieve lasting success.
Speaking on a recent episode of The Protégé Podcast, Kurt Cheng, a law graduate at Ashurst and a global ambassador at UTS, revealed how mentoring – in all its forms – is emerging as one of the most powerful and accessible support systems for young lawyers, helping them thrive and succeed in the profession.
Reflecting on the impact mentoring has had on his journey through law school and into his first year of practice, Cheng credited much of his personal and professional growth to the mentors who generously invested their time and guidance when he needed it most.
“I owe a lot of my own growth to my mentors. When I look at how far I’ve come in six years during university and in the last almost one year coming out of university, a lot of that growth I attribute to my mentors,” he said.
Cheng noted that current law students recognise the immense value of building connections early, explaining how they understand that nurturing them from the start – not just in later years – sets the stage for long-term career success.
“When it comes to building those connections and whether students at the moment are proactive, I think they are. People know that building relationships from early on during your studies will only benefit you long-term in your career,” he said.
“Definitely don’t be the person who only builds connections for the sake of building them. Come your fourth or fifth year of university, but you realise [you] need to make those connections, rather than start early on and become sort of a creature of habit.”
For today’s law students, Cheng emphasised that embracing lifelong learning is vital, highlighting how mentoring can reveal opportunities and possibilities that young lawyers might never have imagined.
“As a generation being, you know, speaking as Gen Zs, we’re in a time where I think we have to embrace the concept of lifelong learning more than any other generation that has come before us,” he said.
“I think mentoring is really just one part of that. It’s one part of it because it opens our minds and our eyes to things that we don’t even know yet or things that we didn’t know were possible.”
Cheng also emphasised the importance of recognising the value in every source of guidance, noting that wisdom can come from anyone and that each connection has the potential to teach invaluable lessons.
“I think it’s really important that you find a mentor as early as you can, because whether it’s an older law student, a neighbour, a family friend, a teacher, you will learn so much from them, no matter where or who they are,” he said.
