Are you an unwitting sponsor – could you be a more effective conscious sponsor?

How sponsorship helps career development with relatively little effort.

At the ICWA garden party in June 2025  Lady Simler’s keynote address contained a powerful call to action. She invited us to think about and engaged with the sponsorship of talented individuals. She drew the distinction between sponsorship and mentoring. She then invited us to sponsor talented female lawyers, in addition to any existing efforts we put into the more familiar activity of mentorship. I would like to amplify that call to action. Sponsorship can make a real and significant difference to the progress of a spondee’s career.

These days mentorship and mentoring relationships are familiar across the profession. The contribution they can make to the progress and career development of others is well understood. Mentorship can be very powerful in building a mentee’s knowledge, skills and, with that, their confidence. Mentorship schemes are organised and offered by multiple associations and institutions related to the Bar. Sponsorship is rarely mentioned or discussed. The fact it falls below the radar as a career development tool raises a number of questions: is it understood by everyone who could offer it, is it happening anyway and if so, is it being used well or fairly and could more be done?

Contrasting mentorship and sponsorship

Mentoring and sponsorship have the same purpose. They exist to propel talent forward and upward. There are significant differences between the two. I wonder if those of us who want to see the talent around us progress and fulfil their potential are missing a trick; maybe because of some of those differences.

At its simplest a mentor shares their greater knowledge or experience of something with a less experienced individual, in closed 1:1 dialogue. By way of contrast a sponsor uses their more powerful position to endorse or advocate for an individual where it matters and to give them access to opportunities. Sponsorship happens outside of the 1:1 connection and involves third parties.

With mentoring there is an identified mentoring relationship, usually for a period time, focused on a particular issue or aspiration, it is contracted between the participants, often within the structure of specific mentoring scheme. The mentor and mentee have a number of arranged meetings over a period of time.

Sponsorship does not require any of those structural features needed for mentoring. There is no need for a scheme or organising body, a formalised relationship or even meetings. That maybe why few at the Bar are conscious of it as a tool to support the progression of talent. It also means there is a real risk sponsors do not recognise that is what they are doing and do not think consciously about who they sponsor.

All of that begs the following questions – what does sponsorship look like, how easy it is to do and how do you become more conscious about doing it?

What does sponsorship look like?

Lord Neuberger was an unwitting sponsor for me through decades of my career. I meet him when I was very junior. We met at property lawyers’ event when he was still practicing as a barrister. We spoke and got on. Although by then he was well known at the property bar I did not know who he was until just after I had stopped speaking to him. Someone else came up to me at that point asking how on earth I knew the “Great David Neuberger?” After that every time I was at an event that he also at he would smile and bring me into the conversations he was having. He would introduce me to those he was speaking to or who approached him. The result was he introduced me to most of the leading lights at in property litigation, both barristers and solicitors. Being seen talking to Neuberger and having him mention me by name not only give me confidence to navigate those professional events but also enhanced my credibility and helped build my network. At all times from those early days through his rise to President of the Supreme Court, and now as a grandee of the progression, Lord Neuberger had more power, profile and credibility in the professional than me. As a result, his public engagement with me was a form of endorsement which helped raise my profile and gave me access to those were engaging with him. He was probably not conscious of his sponsorship role at the time, but I am eternally grateful and have expressed that to him since.

During the first 2 years after I qualified as a mediator, I realised there were three barristers I knew well from outside of my chambers who were putting me forward to be a mediator in their cases. Their recommendations and introduction of me as a worthy mediator was the foundation of my mediation practice. Those barristers had some power and influence in their cases, and they used that to promote/advocate for me, as a mediator. Again, they may well not have appreciated the impact that had but I did.

Over the years I have organised seminars and conferences for various SBA’s and Lincoln’s Inn. When I approach people to speak, I am using my influence to promote them. I am acting as a sponsor. The effect is to endorse their quality, give those individuals access to opportunities and so introduce them to a wider audience. Similarly, when I tell other silks about how good a junior I have worked with is, I am acting as sponsor for them. I am advocating for them and the quality of their work.

How easy it is to be a sponsor?

The answer is sponsorship very easy. It is not demanding of your time or your intellect.  As the examples above demonstrate acting as a sponsor is something most of us will already being doing. We will frequently be sponsoring someone without thinking about it or its effect. The chance to sponsor someone happens in the course of navigating our professional lives particularly if we have some seniority or are involved in SBA’s, the Inns or other Bar organisations.

It does not require training or specific time slots. You do not need to make a commitment, negotiate its terms or have a single meeting for that purpose? Anyone who speaks to the directories is being a sponsor.

What does it require then? First, you need to recognise when you have an opportunity to act as a sponsor. It might be something is in your gift, sphere of influence or with connections who are listening to you that will be useful to the spondee. Second, you also need to know something about the person you sponsor and their qualities. You have to know enough to be both comfortable to endorse, or advocate for them and to be in a position match them to appropriate opportunities that come up.

How can you be a more conscious sponsor?

Unwitting sponsorship runs a significant risk of being influenced by unconscious bias. Often the opportunities to advocate for someone or promote them for an opportunity arises organically and without warning. It’s all too easy to respond quickly mentioning the first person who comes into your mind. That might be the last person you had contact with who fits the criteria. You may find that you frequently mention the same names as a instinctive unconsidered but speedy response.

Being more conscious means taking your time and be more considered. Be alert to the power and influence you have. Recognise that if you are being asked to make a recommendation, or to comment on others that is sponsorship and it can really make a difference. When you know that is going to happen stop and think ahead about all those who you know about who might be relevant to mention. Then you can make conscious decisions about how you share out your sponsorship.

Alongside being more conscious of the occasions when you can be a sponsor as you navigate your professional life be conscious of considering if those you met are talented and in what way. Consider whether they are individuals you wish to promote or advocate for. Give conscious thought to what you know of them and what more you need to know. That way you will have a number of names of individuals worthy of your support at your fingertips to consider when the opportunity arises.

In reality as you go through your professional life you will act as sponsor the question is will you use that influence well and fairly?

Written by Brie Stevens-Hoare KC

First published by The Barrister