IE Law School and ONTIER team up to offer Mentorship Experience program

To help students gain exposure to law in practice and allow them to interact with peers who have had to make the same decisions they currently face, IE Law School and ONTIER have launched a Mentoring Experience program for undergraduate law students. Students studying the Bachelor in Law, Bachelor in Politics, Law and Economics, the Dual Degree Bachelor in Law and Business and the Dual Degree Bachelor in Law and International Relations are all eligible to apply.

Twelve students have been selected so far to take part in this opportunity and each has been assigned to an ONTIER mentor. Mentors are young ONTIER lawyers from different practice areas, including Intellectual Property, Real Estate, Tax, Employment Law, Public Law, Commercial Law, Procedural Law and Criminal Law. Mentors will guide students as they make decisions regarding their careers and professional trajectory, while students will also have the opportunity to attend conferences and events at the law firm.

ONTIER is a global law firm with headquarters in London. The firm operates in 14 countries around the world: Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Italy, Spain, the USA, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal and Venezuela. A full-service international law firm, ONTIER specializes in complex corporate and commercial transactions and international commercial disputes.

Carolina Callejón, Senior Associate Director at IE Talent & Careers and Legal Relations & Partnership Recruiter, described the program’s inception, “In November, we had a meeting with the Head of HR at ONTIER and we began shaping the program. The idea was to target students from third year onwards—who would be starting to think about their future careers—and provide them with guidance during that process.

“IE’s international profile encourages cross-cultural collaboration. ONTIER lawyers have broad international experience and diverse professional profiles, making them a good fit to guide equally diverse and international students. The ONTIER Mentoring Experience allows lawyers to act as mentors and reconnect with the academic world, while enabling mentees (students) to engage with the labor market. Mentors are young lawyers who are best placed to advise students on career options and practice areas.”

Carolina Callejón

Angela Selzer, a Dual Degree Bachelor in International Relations and Law student and mentee noted that, “Taking part in the Mentoring Experience at this leading international law firm, which has renowned expertise in public law and urban planning in Spain, is a tremendous opportunity. I will be able to gain insights into the field, learn directly from a practitioner and understand how to best convert my passion into a career.”

Mateo Mollier, student of the Dual Bachelor in Business and Law, adds, “My goal is to become a lawyer, and I believe that my experience as an ONTIER mentee is invaluable as it can help me define my career path. Meeting my mentor could have been a stressful experience, but our small age gap and shared experiences at IE made it amazing. The informal setting allowed me to ask a lot of questions and get to know Álvaro, and we discovered we’ve had a very similar academic journey.”

“The program and the mentor’s expertise will grant me the resources needed to adapt my knowledge base and skill set to a specialized environment, and develop my understanding of the vocational requirements and expectations of the practice as well as the firm,” concludes Politics, Law and Economics student Lara Hickson.

Carolina recalls the launch event, where students and mentors met each other for the first time. “The day of the launch event was great. I felt very proud of our students and very appreciative of the amazing work the IE University Talent & Careers team did on their selection. Looking at the boardroom table where they were all sitting, you could see our students blended perfectly with the lawyers who would be their mentors. The initial presentation by ONTIER focused on the format of the program, emphasizing its flexibility and the availability of the mentors to help the mentees in making decisions related to their future careers: practising as a lawyer, different areas of interest and how to get their working life off to the best start.

“In return, the mentees are expected to provide a fresh and innovative perspective on current matters. The highlight so far has undoubtedly been the first meeting between mentors and mentees: it went extremely well, to the extent that they continued the conversation way beyond the allocated time. Everybody felt comfortable and at ease, and it was reassuring to see our future lawyers mix perfectly with more experienced ones. I’m really hopeful that the program will be a success.”