Legal Job Luncheon Interview: Special Rules

At some point in your interviewing career it is inevitable that you will be taken by your prospective employer to a fancy restaurant for lunch, cocktails and/or dinner. The purpose of such an interview is threefold: (1) to give all of the involved parties a treat at the expense of the United States Treasury (and hence indirectly from the United States taxpayer, namely you and me); (2) to see how you handle yourself in a social situation away from the office; and (3) to get you away from the office in a relaxed setting so that you will be more likely to let your guard down and say some stupid things that will help the interviewers screen you out.

I would like to recall my interview with Firm A, particularly the part where I was taken to a famous four-star restaurant by a number of the firm's associates. If I had had the benefit of writing this article when that luncheon interview took place, I would have known a number of things that I did not then know. First, I would have guessed that the associates were all members of the Legal Personnel Committee and thus were not in a position to "tell tales out of school" even if I hoped in my heart of hearts that they would. Second, the fact that no partner was present would have alerted me to be on my very best behavior, as I was being led to believe that I could safely let my guard down with a bunch of men and women who, after all, seemed to be my peers in age and experience. Of course, in reality nothing could have been further from the truth; the whole purpose of this exercise was to put me in a position to let my guard down, and that's just what happened.


Finally, I should have been alert to the fact that a boondoggle like this was just as exciting for the young associates (who probably had been slaving until after midnight each night for the preceding month) as it was for me, and would have known how to turn that to my advantage.

I went like a lamb to the slaughter, let my hair down, talked incessantly, told every one of my awful war stories, drank way too much, and generally made a bloody fool of myself. As you know, the result was that I did not get an offer from Firm A, but the quickest rejection letter in recorded history (I think they even sent it certified mail to make sure I would get it promptly).

Don't Relax

Lawyers like to think of themselves as social animals, and a large part of their success or failure as professionals depends on how well (or how poorly) their clients perceive them in a social context. People love to be entertained, wined and dined, just as much as you or I, and every client wants to think of his lawyer as "just a regular person, not that much different than me once he gets out of the office."

Be assured: when you are taken to lunch, cocktails or dinner you are being subjected to the most intense scrutiny, as here more than anywhere else you will demonstrate whether or not you are a good fit for that particular firm, corporation or government agency. I always find these interviews to be the most stressful, in fact, because I cannot rely on my technical skills and hard working nature to pull me through; in this environment I live or die on my social skills and my ability to deal with people. So DON'T RELAX; you are under a microscope during this interview, and you will have to pull off the performance of your life if you want to get a job offer from these people who are wining and dining you.

Developing Social Skills

To survive in a legal job interview, you must develop (if you do not already have them), certain social skills that your years in school and non-legal jobs have never given you the opportunity to develop. If you are like most people (including me), your education has overlooked a number of social niceties that our forefathers (and sophisticated businesspeople and lawyers who inhabit the society you are about to enter) took for granted.

You have drunk much wine in your time, but you do not distinguish Bordeaux from a Haut-Medoc. You really do not understand what all of the forks next to your plate are for. You are not conversant in many of the topics that frequently come up at business luncheons. You do not know how to dance the basic ballroom steps. You do not know the courses in a formal dinner (quick, which comes first, the meat or the fish course?).

This may sound like "finishing school" stuff to you at first; you may ask yourself "are all clients as sophisticated as all that? Won't they appreciate someone who is just one of the guys (or gals)?" Perhaps, but you cannot take that chance. In my experience, most business clients are pretty sophisticated, and a lawyer always wants to be sure he can "hold his own" socially with just about anyone, even if that someone is listed on the Social Register and has the bluest blood on Earth.

Rest assured that if your client is not very sophisticated, he will do everything in his power (if he has the money) to appear sophisticated in business circles. This is why so many "nouveau riche" businesspeople, like many of the takeover artists of the 1980s, took pains to marry wealthy, Social Register type spouses, joined the boards of local charities (especially in the arts and cultural fields), and furnished their townhouses or summer homes with works by prominent artists.

The Importance of Correct Behavior

When you enter the lawyer's world, you will usually find yourself taking a step (or more than a step) up the social ladder as well. One of the first lessons you must learn is that social conversation among business colleagues or clients is never relaxed and informal; you cannot let your hair down and "be yourself." This is not a fraternity house mixer or a brew after work with your old college chums. There is a certain expectation of how you will behave, what you will say, what you will do, and how much you will drink (if you drink at all). You must learn and master the skills necessary to survive in your new setting. In the luncheon interview, as in any other legal job interview setting, you must send the interviewers a signal that you are one of them that you belong. This chapter will give you a few suggestions that will help you get ahead of the competition.

What Do You Talk About?

First, you must be able to carry on the conversation; and not about just anything. For some reason, there are a number of topics that seem to come up again and again during business lunches and other professional social engagements: the current state of the economy (or of a particular industry), the current state of the legal profession, sports, automobiles, real estate, the performing arts, vacations, and food (including wine).

Subjects that never seem to come up during business lunches (and should be avoided like the plague) include: your personal life (especially your romantic activities), shopping, clothes, hobbies that are unrelated to your profession, and scholarly topics. If it is possible to generalize, the topics that come up during business social occasions fall into one of two categories: (1) topics that demonstrate that the speakers take a broader view of their work than would be apparent if they interacted only at the office; and (2) "safe" topics that demonstrate that the speakers are just normal, everyday folks with the same basic interests as everyone else. If you have never owned a house or a condo in your life, and couldn't care less about sports or automobiles, you have much learning to do.

No matter how intensely you work, you simply must find the time to learn what is going on in the world. You must subscribe to a good daily newspaper -- one with strong sections on world events, business and the economy, sports, and cultural affairs. When in doubt, there are two standbys: The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. I would recommend that you have the paper delivered to your home, so that you can read it over breakfast or on your way to work; you don't want to clutter up the business day with reading.

I would also recommend that you subscribe to one of the "better" magazines that offer insights and analysis on the stories you are reading about in your daily newspaper. I personally find Atlantic, Harper's (not, and I emphatically mean NOT, Harper's Bazaar) and The New Yorker to be the best of these; Time, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report, while they served you well in college and law school, will not be as useful as they simply rehash the stories from the previous week's daily newspaper - you cannot afford to be more than a day or two out of touch.

If your education on houses, automobiles, cultural matters or sports is weak, I would recommend subscribing to a publication that treats these subjects in a nontechnical way: Sports Illustrated, for example, or Car and Driver. Finally, if you know you are having lunch with someone who has a peculiar passion or interest, try to read up on it as much as you can before the luncheon interview so that you can put him at ease and get him to hold forth on something he dearly loves (who knows? you may even learn something yourself).

This may seem trite to you, but I have found that being able to converse on a variety of topics (especially if they are the "right" ones for your environment) enhances your self-confidence. Remember that you are not trying to become an expert; your goal, as during a more formal job interview, is to be able to ask intelligent questions, demonstrate to other people that you share their interests, and "open up" the interviewers so that they do as much of the talking as possible.

Know Your Way round the Menu

A luncheon interview, of course, is more than just talk. There is eating and drinking going on as well, and you must have some knowledge of food, wine and spirits. Most of the fancy restaurants to which you will be taken for luncheon or dinner interviews will feature French or Italian (particularly northern Italian) cuisine: it will help for you to study a couple of cookbooks so that you can understand the menu.

When I first started interviewing, I befriended the maitre d' of one of New York's better French restaurants, who for a few dollars on the side walked me through most of the menu items that are staples at French restaurants - told me which ones the "tourists" ate, which ones require special utensils (escargot, or snails, usually have to be removed from their shells, and it takes practice to master the special removing tool that the waiter will silently place in front of you with a knowing smile), and which ones should be avoided at all costs (even a seasoned interviewer will gag if the waiter brings a boiled sheep's brain to your seat, no matter how much you may protest your love of this delicacy).

3. Rules Regarding Liquor

As for wine and spirits generally, different rules prevail depending on whether the interview is a luncheon, a cocktail session or a dinner. For a luncheon interview, the rule is simply stated: DON'T DRINK ANYTHING... PERIOD. When the waiter asks if you want "something to drink", ask for a club soda with lime or a plain tonic water, and don't worry about what the other folks are drinking. No one will question your choice; these days a lot of people are avoiding alcohol altogether, and if anyone does ask you can always say "I have a long afternoon ahead of me, and I want to keep a clear head."

If your interview is taking place over cocktails, the general rule is: THE LESS EXOTIC, THE BETTER. This is not a place for Pina Coladas or any fancy concoction that comes with a little umbrella. Because it is a cocktail, you must drink something; if you are uncomfortable drinking alcoholic beverages, you can always order a light beer or a club soda with lime. If you must drink something alcoholic, my recommendation is Scotch and water, or Scotch and soda (if you want to impress your interviewer, you can ask that it be made with an upscale brand of Scotch, such as Chivas Regal or Dewar's White Label - they all taste the same). My experience is that it takes many Scotches before you start to feel any adverse effects, and even if you do you are unlikely to have a serious hangover the next morning.

If you cannot stand the taste of Scotch (many people can't ~ it tastes vaguely like iodine, and is definitely an acquired taste), order a Bourbon and water, a Bourbon and soda, or a Bourbon and ginger ale instead (Bourbon has a sweeter taste, more like brandy); if you want to impress your interviewer here, you can order a Bourbon by name (popular brands are Jack Daniel's and Jim Beam - avoid asking for Wild Turkey, as it tends to be associated with Rednecks and honky tonks) or by state (Bourbon is often known as Kentucky or Tennessee whisky). You should avoid martinis and Manhattans - even if your interviewer is having one - as these are strong drinks that can "knock you for a loop" even if you limit yourself to one.

A glass of wine or beer is an acceptable cocktail, but is not preferred, especially if you are having dinner with the interviewers immediately afterwards - wine, especially, is something you drink with dinner, and an interviewer may think you are unimaginative or unsophisticated if you stay with wine the entire evening.

Finally, to repeat a point, unless you are interviewing in Honolulu, do not order a Hawaiian drink. If the bar is one that is famous for these, you can always return to the bar after your interviewing is done and indulge to your heart's content.

The Wine List

For a dinner interview, the order of the day (or evening) is wine. I have learned that it helps to know something about wine in the business world, but you need not become an expert. A useful beginner's guide to the world of fine wines is Kevin Zraly's Complete Windows on the World Wine Course, which you will find in paperback at just about any bookstore for under $15. Once you have tasted some of the more common red and white wine labels in Zraly's book, you will usually be able to order from a wine list with confidence.

Remember: (1) red wines with meat, white wines with fish or chicken, and (2) the lighter the meat's color, the lighter the red wine's taste should be (for beef a hearty Burgundy or Cabernet Sauvignon is best, for lamb or veal a lighter Merlot, Rose or even a Zinfandel is better). Sweet wines are to be avoided, unless there is a need to comply with special dietary needs. After a dinner interview, the drink of choice is Brandy or Cognac; most people order these by name brand, so it may help if you familiarize yourself beforehand with one or two of the most common brands (such as Courvoisier, Martell or Remy Martin).

What Do You Order?

Now let's turn to food. I will assume that you have done your homework and can identify the dishes on the menu (nothing, I mean nothing, is more embarrassing than ordering something off the menu with a fancy name, only to discover when it arrives on your plate that it looks absolutely disgusting).

What should you order from the menu? Should you order the most expensive dish on the menu or one of the less expensive "specials"? Should you order first or after your interviewers have ordered? Should you order what they order? These are questions that will inevitably cross your mind when the waiter comes around to take orders, and there are no easy answers. Let's take them one at a time.

Should you order the most expensive dish on the menu or one of the less expensive "specials"? This is a tough one. During the heyday of the 1980s on Wall Street I would have said "order one of the restaurant's specialties, even if it is one of the most expensive things on the menu; this will tell the interviewers you are sophisticated and courageous, not easily intimidated, with a hearty appetite for life." In these more frugal times, where clients audit every penny of their legal bills, my advice would be "don't order the cheapest thing on the menu, but be a little sensitive to price, as the interviewers will not want to hire someone who runs up a client's bill needlessly." In any case, you should order something you like and are comfortable eating; otherwise you will spend too much time trying to figure out how to eat your entree when you should be focusing on the conversation.

Should you order first or after your interviewers have ordered? I prefer to order after my interviewers have ordered, as this will give me a chance to determine if they are inclined to pinch pennies or "go for the gusto", and I then follow their lead with a greater likelihood of success. The trick, of course, is to do this without being too obvious about it. A technique I have used successfully is to not even look at my menu until the waiter approaches the table to take orders, making believe I am totally absorbed in the conversation. When the interviewers ask me if I'd like to order, I say "you know, I've been so involved I haven't had a chance to even look at the menu. Why don't you go ahead; I'll be ready by the time you're finished ordering?" Then, by listening to what is being ordered, I will know how best to fit in with the group.

Should you order what they order? In a word, never. You never order anything one of your interviewers is eating, especially if you are ordering after they have ordered. Doing so demonstrates a lack of imagination, or too great a willingness to "follow the crowd". In scanning the menu, you should have a first, second and third choice, and go with your highest priority that has not been ordered by one of the other persons at the table. If you simply must order something that one of the interviewers is eating, because it is a personal favorite or a world-renowned specialty of that restaurant, try to differentiate your order by asking for a different side dish, or (if it is a meat dish) asking to have it cooked differently, and then be sure to tell the interviewers that "I couldn't come to this restaurant and not have the [whatever

Table Manners and Etiquette

This is not the place to discuss table manners and etiquette; suffice it to say that you should know what you are doing. If you are being interviewed at a formal dinner (this is unlikely), you will need to know the traditional courses, and the traditional order in which they are served. You will need to know which fork to use, and how to place your utensils on your plate when you are done. There are books that teach such things, and you must not only read them but practice until you don't even have to think about doing the right thing.

If You Are Left Handed

If you are left-handed, be sure the waiter or maitre d' knows this when you are being seated; at a good restaurant the waiter will know (or will be told) to furnish you with a left-handed table setting. Also, if the table is such that two or more people must sit on the same side, be sure to sit yourself in such a way that there is no interviewer seated to your immediate left. If you fail to do this (and the interviewer to your immediate left is right handed), your left arm will be constantly poking that interviewer in the ribs.

See the following articles for more information:
 

• 21 Major Interview Mistakes to Avoid at All Costs
• The Best Way to Prepare for a Job Search and Interviews
• How to Talk About Other Interviews in Your Interviews
• How to Answer the Tell Me About Yourself Interview Question
• How to Answer the Do You Have Any Questions for Me Interview Question