Coaching and Mentoring

Jennifer Johnson
Partner, Corporate and Energy M&A 

Abstract
Jennifer Johnson, a corporate partner in Stoel Rives’ Minneapolis office, reflects on the role coaching and mentoring have played in her own career and in the firm’s culture. Drawing on her relationship with longtime mentor Sarah Johnson Phillips, Johnson explains how mentorship can grow into lasting professional and personal relationships while supporting the development of successful practices.

Jennifer also discusses the strength of Stoel Rives’ energy transactions team in the Minneapolis market, where experienced energy lawyers are not always easy to find. She emphasizes that attorneys with strong transactional, M&A, and project management skills can successfully move into the energy sector when supported by experienced colleagues, practical training, and a deep bench of mentors.

Transcript
My name is Jennifer Johnson. I’m a corporate partner in the Minneapolis office. I’m also chair of the Minneapolis Coaching and Mentoring Committee and serve on the firmwide committee, so coaching and mentoring hold a special place in my heart.

One of the stories I like to talk about is my mentor from when I was an associate. Her name is Sarah Johnson Phillips, and she is here this week. She was our office managing partner last year, and now she is the practice group leader for the energy group.

Sarah was my mentor, and I relied on her a lot. We are very good friends now, and we are both capital partners. I think we are a good example of how you can form strong relationships and bonds with your colleagues, both on a friendship basis and through mentorship and coaching, while also growing a successful practice at this firm.

We have a very deep bench here, and that is especially apparent in the Minneapolis market. We have been trying to recruit associates to help support our energy transactions work, both in the M&A space and with other transactions, such as PPAs and contracting.

There are not many law firms in the Minneapolis market that do the same type of work. There are some, but not many, so there are not a lot of candidates in the market who already have energy experience. Because of that, we are branching out and looking for people who have transactional experience or mergers and acquisitions experience and want to break into the energy industry.

We can teach the industry. I think about my own experience. I knew nothing about energy when I started, but I was exposed to these transactions and had really good coaches and mentors teaching me along the way.

If you have the skill set and the baseline to do deal work and be a project manager, you can certainly learn the field and the industry and move into the energy space.