MoFo Navigate
Our Future is Yours. Inclusive to the Core.
While most law firms provide a formal mentor, Morrison Foerster, through MoFo Navigate, takes a holistic approach to professional growth. Under MoFo Navigate, attorneys are given the right kind of support and guidance at the right points in their careers. By encouraging collaboration and leveraging insight across departments and geography, and over the course of each attorney’s career, MoFo Navigate creates a support system dynamic enough to respond to the changing needs of all of our attorneys as they grow and develop.
MoFo Navigate is also uniquely and specifically designed to promote greater diversity and inclusion. It is overseen by the firm’s Diversity and Inclusion (D+I) Group and trains both mentors and mentees on some of the common root causes of attrition, and how to mentor more effectively across differences. Our global approach is tailored to address the unique needs of our attorneys in each region. For information on mentoring programs, please contact Natalie Kernisant.
MoFo Navigate – United States
- On day one, your associate liaison welcomes you to the firm and answers any questions you may have as you acclimate to the firm. They will also introduce you to attorneys from across the firm to help you broaden your internal network and identify a Pathway mentor.
We invite you to learn more about MoFo's core values.
- As a new associate, you will be assigned a Pathway partner mentor. Your mentor will provide informal training, feedback, and advice on things like managing your Welcome workload and setting developmental goals.
We invite you to learn more about this program from MoFo associate Rebecca Tesfaye as she discusses her experience in the Pathway Mentoring Program.
- We offer associates the opportunity to join mentoring circles through the firm’s Affinity Program. Each mentoring circle is made up of attorneys from different offices, practices, and levels of seniority in order to foster traditional, peer, and reverse mentoring. Our Affinity Mentoring Programs help support the unique development needs of our attorneys.
We invite you to listen to a recording of an AMP mentor and mentee, MoFo’s Miriam Wugmeister and Melissa Crespo, and hear about the many lessons they have learned from each other.
- As you progress in your career, you need a sponsor. Sponsorship is a step beyond mentorship and occurs when a partner uses their influence to support the advancement of an associate (i.e., their protégé). Our Sponsorship Initiative is designed to strengthen these career advancing relationships by creating a culture of active sponsorship at the firm and providing resources on effective sponsorship.
We invite you to learn more from MoFo partner Christin Hill as she discusses the importance of sponsorship.
- The Diversity and Women’s Strategy Committees assign a partner liaison to new women partners, LGBTQ+ partners, and partners of color to help them navigate their first year as a MoFo partner. This program is part of the firm’s active approach to supporting the successful integration, growth, and development of our new partners.
We invite you to listen to a recording of a mentor and mentee, MoFo’s Arturo González and Alexis Amezcua, and hear about their experiences in Big Law.
MoFo Navigate – Offices Outside the United States
Many of the MoFo Navigate programs, including the Associate Liaison Program, the Sponsorship Initiative, the New Diverse and Women Partner Liaison Program and, in most cases, the Pathway Mentoring Program, operate in our offices outside the United States. In offices where the Pathway Mentoring Program has not yet been adopted, plans are underway to institute the program in a way that will best address the needs of newly hired attorneys in those offices. For information on mentoring programs outside the United States, please contact Usha Puri-Dewage (Europe) or Gretchen Debenham Hug (Asia).