Big Law Interview Tips and Law Firm Interview Preparation: A Complete Guide for Law Students and Attorneys

To a great extent, you sell yourself every time you make a new personal friend. If you're involved in a serious personal relationship with a significant other, that means you managed to sell who you are to that person too. What have you managed to do each of those times? You convinced the other person or organization that you deserve to be treated with respect and are a very worthwhile individual. Apart from self-esteem issues, it is difficult to understand why some people aren't able to sell themselves during interviews.

A failure to sell yourself during an interview can create many negative repercussions. Lawyers who do not sell themselves run the risk of being seen as arrogant, cocky, and disinterested. Such behavior also makes the lawyers appear ignorant of the fact that many other attorneys may be competing for the same position. Always sell yourself. When you do this, you not only make yourself look better but also make those in the hiring organization feel good about themselves because your behavior indicates that you want what they have to sell. If you were a legal-hiring organization, would you want to hire an attorney who knew how to sell him/herself or one who did not?
 

Look Your Best

You should be neat and clean, and your hair should be nicely cut. Male interviewees should wear a suit, a tie without any stains on it, a clean and pressed shirt, and shoes that have been recently shined. Men need to be sure that they have recently shaved or carefully trimmed their beards. Women interviewees should also wear business suits. They must wear hose and carefully choose blouses that are appropriate for the workplace. Only shoes or pumps with modest-sized heels should be worn. Women also need to avoid overdoing their makeup. Both men and women should refrain from wearing too much cologne or perfume. It isn't unnecessary and can irritate interviewers who may have mild allergic responses to such substances.

While you aren't interviewing for a military position, you still need to remember that it's foolish to make either an emphatic or veiled countercultural statement with your clothing. More often than not, you'll be interviewing with firms whose clients are multinationals and whose businesses generate millions of dollars. They demand that those working for them demonstrate integrity not only in their work but also in their appearance. This is because no one can escape the fact that people judge you on how you look. People tend to think (though often incorrectly) that if someone looks messy, his/her work will reflect the same carelessness. Therefore, before you go to an interview, look at yourself in the mirror. Be sure that you are as presentable as you can be. While your appearance won't get you the job, it can help you start on the right foot.

Many attorneys feel they look their best when they wear a certain suit or if they exercise the day before an interview. Whatever makes you feel that you look your best, you should do it. An interviewer's first impression is influenced to a surprising degree by your physical appearance. It will affect how he/she views you and your ability to interact with clients.
 

Know Your Audience

The Associate or Junior Partner Interviewing an Associate
As a general rule, associates and younger partners in law firms are looking for candidates who are primarily likable. For instance, they are interested in the type of candidate they could have lunch with. Associates and younger partners are not as interested in your qualifications as they are your personality. You need to impress these people. Let them see that you are a friendly, likable person. One of the biggest mistakes that interviewees make is trying to impress younger partners and associates that they are "gunners" or extremely competitive workers. This can prove dangerous because it's an approach that may imply that you think you're a much better worker than the people who are interviewing you. While this may, in fact be true, you must never let such an attitude surface during an interview with younger partners and associates. If you were granted the interview, you've got the qualifications. Concentrate on making younger partners and associates think of you as a friendly person, not a competitor.

The Typical Partner-Associate Interview
Remember, however, that older and mid-level partners are concerned with your grades and ability to work hard. When you are interviewing with these particular lawyers, you can take the opportunity to tell the firm how talented you are and how hard you like to work. After all, these are the people who are most likely to make the final decision as to whether or not you should be hired. They are looking for hard workers who have the capacity to one day bring in business. However, it will still be important to them to learn that your interviews went well with the younger partners and associates. That information will naturally tell them you are likable and probably get along well with others.
 

Realize That Law Firms Never Want to Hire Losers

The firm will decide whether or not it wants to hire you based almost exclusively on how well you do during your interviews. However, legal-hiring organizations, especially law firms, never want to hire losers. During any law interview, your job is to convince the legal-hiring organization that you are not a loser.

You can categorize interviewees in many ways. The following list of three basic types of candidates tends to match the three main types of lawyers. Those interviewing you will try to figure out which lawyer profile fits you. Law firms characterize lawyers as losers, cruisers, and grinders. Cruisers and grinders will get hired, while losers will be quickly forgotten.

The Loser Candidate
First, a law firm wants to make sure you're not a loser. Law firms believe that a loser is a candidate who acts inappropriately during the interview or doesn't appear to be truly interested in the job. Losers are also those who will be difficult to manage if hired and indicate to their interviewers that they have had significant problems with their supervisors in their current or past positions. Law firms also believe losers are those who do not have a strong interest in practicing law or are arrogant.

Firms are always reluctant to hire interviewees who indicate that they do not like to work hard. You may also appear to be a loser to a firm if you fail to look directly at each of your interviewers during different points of the interview. All of the traits just described tend to fit losers; these attorneys rarely ever get hired. They generally make very poor lawyers and fail to thrive in a law firm environment.

The Cruiser Candidate
Cruisers represent about 30 to 40 percent of the people interviewed by law firms. A cruiser is the type of candidate who tends to do his/her work fairly competently. However, he/she never demonstrates a high level of enthusiasm for the practice of law. Furthermore, he/she never does anything to indicate that he/she is a truly outstanding lawyer who would like to make partner. At least he/she does not demonstrate a fierce drive to become a partner. Cruisers comprise the majority of people working in large law firms. They have exceptional backgrounds, good skills for developing clients, and capable of doing good work. They may even make partner one day. However, though cruisers do get hired, they are generally not the most desirable candidates.

The Grinder Candidate
Grinders, on the other hand, are sought out. A grinder is a person who demonstrates a single-minded obsession with being the best performer possible. They tend to bill the most hours, try very hard to fit in with everyone socially, and do excellent work. While grinders desperately want to become partners, they manage to demonstrate their ambitious nature in appropriate ways. They also actively seek out clients. Oddly enough, some grinders fail to attract many new clients because they are so obsessed with the practice of law. In addition, these types of candidates may sometimes demonstrate certain weaknesses. However, they are usually malleable, which helps them overcome their weaknesses. These types of candidates typically get the most offers.

Though there are some exceptions to the categorizations listed above, you can be sure that losers never get hired, and grinders land all of the most desirable positions.
 

Ask the Right Questions During Your Interviews

If you have done enough research about the employer, you should be able to develop an excellent list of questions that you would like to ask. You need to make sure that you have questions ready for each of your interviewers once they ask if you have any questions. (This holds true, even if you have to pose some of the same questions more than once to multiple interviewers.) Your failure to ask questions may sometimes be interpreted as a lack of interest on your part.

The questions you ask should be direct and relevant. You want your questions to go way beyond the standard types of questions that the other interviewees will be asking. Good questions will immediately provide you with relevant information. You will have the chance to evaluate the answers and their credibility by observing the interviewers' voice tones and body language. Keep in mind that when you ask good questions, you distinguish yourself from the other interviewees. Furthermore, failing to ask certain questions may negatively affect how you are evaluated as a candidate.
 

Prepare a List of Questions Before the Interview

Before you go into any interview or series of interviews, you should prepare questions that you feel are direct and relevant. The process of doing this will help you prepare for the interviews and be ready when you arrive for them. You should ask questions about various aspects of the firm's practice that truly interest you. However, do not be too prying. A good tactic is to ask questions about how the firm staff's cases. The following list contains some of the excellent questions you can follow up with after your interviewers answer the first question.

• How is a case typically staffed?
• How many of the firm's lawyers are in a particular department? (if your prior research did not answer this question)
• Is the department subdivided? If so, how?
• What different responsibilities would I have?
• In the litigation area, do the lawyers concentrate on major cases that are large team projects? Do the lawyers concentrate on the types of cases that typically have the same underlying factual issues? Do associates ever handle their own cases with minimal supervision?
• In the transactional area, what types of deals do attorneys at my level work on? Do sellers, buyers, and promoters typically employ the firm? Are there certain types of work I will be expected to exclusively handle?
• How will I get my work? Will my work be assigned by a department head, or will my work come from just one partner? Will I have to request work from individual partners?
• Will I be assigned work from other departments?
• Are assignments randomly given based on an associate's availability, or can they specialize in their practice?
• Are there cliques within the firm that make getting work difficult if you are not a member of them?

You can come up with an almost endless list of questions to ask during an interview. Nevertheless, here are a few more that are considered acceptable inquiries.
How many billable hours are expected, and what constitutes a billable hour?

• How many years does it typically take to become a partner? Are there different types of partners? Are associates expected to have significant business before they become partners?
• How is the firm governed? Is there a small committee that makes all of the important decisions? Are decisions made by associates as well?
• How are evaluations handled? How many people determine an associate's progress and compensation?
• What type of training does the firm do?
• What are the firm's overall growth prospects? What are they in your specific practice area?
• Are partners accessible?
• Do associates get significant experience early in their careers? If not, why not?
• What do the interviewers like most about the firm? What do they think needs to be changed?

Never ask about salary or benefits during an interview. In addition, never ask whether the firm frequently terminates attorneys. It is also wise to avoid requesting specific information about your prospects for becoming a partner. It is your recruiter's job to obtain this information for you. It's quite possible that the firm may even voluntarily offer this information to you during the interview.

Do Not Act Nervous

You should practice interviewing in front of a mirror with a friend or your spouse. During one week this year, we saw three attorneys come from other states or from abroad for a series of interviews with law firms. Not one of these individuals received a single job offer. How could that happen? We learned that all of the candidates appeared far too nervous during their interviews. Sometimes, people completely leave behind their usual personalities when they go into interviews and become excessively nervous. Candidates typically leave interviews where they've appeared extremely nervous without even realizing how they came across to their interviewers. You need to ensure that you are not excessively nervous during your interviews. Try to avoid moving around or fidgeting constantly. Don't say "you know" numerous times or laugh inappropriately. All of these behaviors reflect excessive nervousness.

You need to exude confidence during your interviews. Would you want a nervous lawyer representing you in court or handling multi-million-dollar transactions? You get the point. You need to approach your interviews with confidence. Let the interviewers see you demonstrate the same type of focus you usually project when taking part in important client meetings.

None of this is meant to say that just being a little nervous will harm your chances. In fact, the adrenaline that starts pumping when you are nervous can actually help you excel in your interviews. Just try to stay aware of how you are really behaving and attempt to hide your nervousness as best you can. Arriving on time and well prepared can really help minimize your nervousness.
 

Prepare Honest, Positive Answers to Possible Interview Questions

Certain cardinal rules characterize what you should be doing during each interview. If you study the following list of some of these rules and their descriptions, you should be able to improve your interviewing skills.

Cardinal Rule 1: Never Bad-mouth Your Present Employer
You should never bad-mouth your present employer or boss. This mistake can make you appear both disloyal and unprofessional.

Cardinal Rule 2: Never Speak in Detail about a Client's Case
Never reveal specific details about any of your current clients' cases. You need to come across as an attorney who can be trusted and who views confidential matters seriously. Your interviewers want to know that you will protect the confidentiality of their clients' secrets.

Cardinal Rule 3: Be Honest
You must always be honest during your interviews. Don't let your enthusiasm for the job cause you to start making slight exaggerations. Never fail to reveal crucial information you're being asked to provide. Do not try to adeptly avoid a question about your past or present job experiences or academic performance. Always remember that no law firm expects you to be superhuman. No attorney is perfect. In fact, letting others know about some of your weaknesses can often make you appear more human and attractive to employers. People tend to reject those who try to portray themselves as perfect individuals.

Of course, all attorneys are trained to highlight facts that paint a favorable picture of their clients. You can do this on your own if you do not exaggerate or omit crucial facts.

Cardinal Rule 4: Never Reveal a Sour Grapes Attitude
No matter what type of question you are being asked during an interview, you should never answer with a reply that reflects a sour grapes mentality. Each answer you give needs to be upbeat in some way. Think about this from your own experience. Do you prefer to be around people who are positive or negative? The same principle applies to interviewing. You will come across as a positive person when you provide upbeat answers to the questions. Such responses also make the interviewers think that you are psychologically healthy. Your positive attitude can even help the people interviewing you feel at ease and good about themselves.

Cardinal Rule 5: Allow the Interviewers to Reach Their Own Conclusions
The best attorney interviewers allow those questioning them to reach their own conclusions about their overall qualifications and suitability for each position they pursue. You cannot force the person interviewing you to support you simply because you have well-prepared answers to their questions. However, effective answers to interview questions can obviously help you educate the interviewers about why you are the best attorney for the position. Simply provide your answers in such an open and pleasing manner that your interviewers will all but forget the five other people they already interviewed for the same position earlier in the week.

Cardinal Rule 6: Evaluate Your Resume from Each Interviewer's Perspective
Before each interview, you should review your resume from the perspective of the hiring organization that will be interviewing you that day. Bear in mind that a resume makes a statement regarding the information it provides and doesn't. Your resume will be in front of every interviewer you meet and will guide their questioning of you. We review thousands of resumes a year. We learn quite a bit about all of these attorneys just from reviewing their resumes. You must learn to anticipate questions about what your resume says and what you (may have) intentionally omitted.

Cardinal Rule 7: Completely Review Your Own Background Before the Interview
Given the importance of this point, it might have been best to list it first. You may be asked questions about your most challenging assignments, where you see yourself in five years, your personal philosophies, and what type of work environment you like. A well-prepared attorney knows him/herself and is prepared for whatever questions come his/her way. By knowing yourself, you reflect the type of confidence employers want to see. Nothing comes across worse to an interviewer than a wishy-washy attorney who has no real idea who he/she is or why he/she is interviewing with a particular firm.

Cardinal Rule 8: Make Sure Your Answers Are Short, Concise, and to the Point
An attorney whose answers are long-winded and who thinks aloud cannot help but convey that he/she might behave that way with a client. Interviewers want short, clear, and definite answers. Such responses tell the interviewers that the attorney they are interviewing knows him/herself and is confident. Long-winded answers convey indecision and the inability to quickly provide appropriate responses.

Cardinal Rule 9: Know Your Audience
The fact is that you may need to tailor your answers a bit in regard to the particular person who will be interviewing you. Most interviewees have a good sense for the different types of attorneys that might interview them. While you never want your answers to sound too formal or too loose, the fact is that an associate or senior partner might be impressed by different types of answers. Similarly, different types of attorneys may have unique types of personalities. Stated differently, some personality types will be more receptive to certain answers.

Cardinal Rule 10: Never Allow Yourself to Become Too Relaxed
No matter how comfortable you feel or how relaxed the person interviewing you may seem, never get too relaxed with your answers. Never provide answers that reveal highly personal aspects of your private life.

Never present yourself as being too relaxed. If you find yourself interviewing with a firm with no formal dress code, it will still be inappropriate to not wear a suit to the interview. For one reason or another, becoming too relaxed may be a sign of disrespect to the hiring organization. Many interviewees fall into this trap and lose positions because of it. Do not let this happen to you.

Remember, your job is to communicate that you are likable and professional. You should not try to convey that you are the legal-hiring organization's buddy. You need to be perceived as a competent person who will do his/her work properly, get along with others, and respond well to authority.

Be On Time
Too many good attorneys lose great positions because they are late for interviews. While this is not an insurmountable problem, the fact that you've arrived late for an interview can make you unduly nervous. No one looks good if he/she is sweating during his/her first interview. You may even disrupt several interviewers' schedules. You will also have to justify your lateness during each interview. This may lower your self-confidence and cause you to not sell yourself as effectively as you might have if you had just arrived on time.

Plan to arrive at the building where the interview will be held at least 30 minutes before you have to be on the 22nd floor for your interview. You can examine every magazine in the lobby newsstand and catch up on current events. You might even want to take a favorite magazine with you that you haven't had a chance to read yet. You want to arrive on the 22nd floor approximately two minutes before your interview is scheduled to begin.
 

Let the Recruiting Meal Put You Ahead of the Game

The recruiting breakfast, lunch, or dinner is important! In fact, we have seen many highly qualified candidates fail to receive offers because they did not excel during this meal. Sometimes, candidates actually manage to make unusual errors during these meals. We honestly have no idea why so many interviewers like to meet with candidates in such settings. In many respects, we consider the interviewing meal to be overvalued. Nevertheless, it is important, and candidates need to do well during it.

In business and legal circles, most people ask others to lunch in order to develop or maintain business relationships. How you behave in social situations can say a lot about you. While we could turn our suggestions about how you should behave during one of these meals into a book, we will choose instead to just provide you with some basic rules of behavior.

Cardinal Rule 1: Wait in the Lobby for Your Host
It is bad manners to take a seat at a table until your host has appeared. Because the legal profession is a very demanding and sometimes unpredictable one (due to phone calls, added filings, and other issues), your host may often be late. Wait in the lobby. You should allow your host to walk with you to the table and not feel like he/she has inconvenienced you by being late.

Cardinal Rule 2: Eat at the Same Pace as Your Host
For example, if the person you are dining with is a slow eater, you need to be sure that you do not finish long before he/she does.

Cardinal Rule 3: Order Only the Basics
Do not order an appetizer or a dessert unless your host does so first. Never order the most expensive thing on the menu. However, if the other participants in the meal order appetizers or desserts (or if your host suggests that you feel free to do so), go ahead.

Cardinal Rule 4: Determine the Appropriate Price Range by Asking Your Hosts What They Are Planning to Order
This is the best way to learn if a specific menu item is too expensive.

Cardinal Rule 5: Treat Your Meal Servers with Respect
How you treat the server will say a lot about how you are likely to treat secretaries and others within the legal-hiring organization. Never be disrespectful to the servers.
 

• See Interviewing Tips for more information

These cardinal rules are not included here to simply remind you of Emily Post's great wisdom. You need to remember these pointers. Should you actually be someone who needs to know how to hold your fork or where to put your napkin, you will need to do additional reading. Just remember that the interview lunch is a test of your social skills and grace. Some people take years to learn these skills.

Though you might be asked important questions during the meal, its main purpose is to test your ability to make small talk and get along with others. Do not let your guard down! Too many attorneys forget this important warning. The interviewing meal needs to be approached with the same level of enthusiasm and professionalism that you exhibit during the more formal interview stages.

Listen
Last but not least, you need to LISTEN during your interviews. Though if you're nervous, you might wish you could do all of the talking, be sure you listen carefully to what your interviewers are asking and saying. Keep in mind that many individuals like other people the most who allow them to talk about themselves. Many of the attorneys you will be interviewing will really cherish the opportunity to talk about themselves and their accomplishments. Let them talk and try to appear truly interested in what they are sharing. This will make them feel good about themselves and appreciate your attentiveness.

Attorneys are expected to know how important it is to be a good listener. Most people become attorneys so they can try and help solve other people's problems. You can't really help someone until you have truly listened to them and gained some understanding of their problems. Attorneys who do not care about their interviewers' opinions are rarely ever hired.
 

Remember That the Interview Isn't Completely within Your Control

Regardless of how well you prepare and no matter how well you fit a firm's ideal profile, an interview can still go poorly without really being anyone's fault. Personal chemistry is often the culprit.

Our job at BCG Attorney Search is to eliminate any and all misconceptions on behalf of both the candidate and the law firm before a first meeting. However, unexpected glitches do occur sometimes. Hiring requirements can change dramatically based on the loss or addition of a client. An employee from another office might be brought in to fill a vacancy. A person who was planning to leave may decide to stay at the last minute, leaving you out in the cold. Be prepared for the unexpected. Life is like that. If you become one of our candidates, your resume will probably be submitted to more than one firm. When we agree to take you on as a client, we stick with you. We will "exhaust the well" while trying to help you land the job you deserve.

No matter how each interview turns out, we wish you all of luck in the world as you continue to search for a better future. We hope this information will help you find a job that will allow you to become the star you deserve to be. Naturally, if we can help, let us know. INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE ABOUT LAW FIRM INTERVIEWING?

SEE THIS ARTICLE: THE #1 THING YOU NEED TO SAY IN LEGAL JOB INTERVIEWS TO GET A JOB
   

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