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Because interviews differ greatly in substance and nature, succeeding sections will delve into specific types of interviewing situations. The law school interview, the firm interview (all-day and half-day), first and second interviews, courtesy interviews, and single-interviewer and multi-interviewer sessions have varying purposes and demand varying approaches.
Prepare before any interview. Interviewing is never nonchalant. Re-search the firm to be approached, to determine the nature of the work and the backgrounds of the lawyers. For an on-campus interview, often the placement office will post the interviewer's name; do your research online and learn the person's academic and legal credentials, publications, and activities. This information gives you am-munition for the lulls in conversation and puts you on a more equal footing with the interviewer, who has your resume to learn about you. The very fact of your preparation favorably impresses an interviewer — you devoted a least a few minutes to the interview and cared about professional Appearance.
In preparation for any interview you must practice your "patter." Depending on the length and nature of the interview, varying opportunities will arise in which to present certain vital points — highlights of your background. Never enter an interview "cold" — know the firm and practice your presentation, down even to phraseology couching vital points. In an on-campus interview, however, bare furnishings demand careful management of time and interviewer. Preparation, relating to information about the Firm and to your personal highlights, is crucial.
Courtesy Interview
The courtesy interview generally arises from a letter or call to a lawyer, usually a friend or family acquaintance, to discuss opportunities in "The Law" in a certain field or city. Conversely, a courtesy interview can result from a letter to a hiring committee, which responds: "At this time, we do not have any available positions for someone with your qualifications. Because our needs do change, however, please call for an appointment if you are in [city] during the Fall." Such a response should not overly dishearten you, because at least the firm finds you interesting enough to extend an invitation. Utilize that opportunity to present an Appearance. Although the exercise may not benefit either party, it affords another chance to practice your pitch and look good, and to learn about yet another organization.
The first type of courtesy interview, with the "family friend," usually accomplishes little besides renewal of a family tie. Attempt, however, to examine the firm's practice, and pry information leading to other organizations in that city with whom you might want to work and at which the family friend might know a lawyer well enough to recommend you. You need not ask directly for this recommendation. Instead, simply ask whether your friend knows of organizations that might have available positions and/or practice in the fields of your interests. Your friend, who certainly knows of at least the latter, may then offer to contact some lawyers of his acquaintance. He may call while you sit at his desk (which, although discomforting, assuages your doubt about his bad memory or unwillingness to follow up), or may write on your behalf.
If your friend contacts other lawyers about your courtesy call, follow the procedure described below:
- When the friend calls or writes you informing of his contacts, inquire whether you should telephone or write contacts.
- Send a thank-you letter for his help.
- Contact the new contacts, mentioning your friend and your thanks for the contact's relying on his recommendation, and set up an interview.
Law-school Interview
The in-school interview — the most reassuring form of interview because it occurs on your home ground — begins with solicitation by the placement office of law-related organizations (principally law firms) for on-campus interviewing. Two factors are prominent in the availability of on-campus interviews: the industry reputation of your law school and the activities of its placement office. Students at law schools in large cities generally are able to use on-campus interviews to better advantage because, due to the heavy concentration of law-related organizations in a city, more interviewers come to the school. Depending on the location and reputation of your school and intensity of the placement director, you will have varying opportunities to develop on-campus interviewing skills.
On-campus interviews develop in the following manner: the placement office contacts employers or employers contact the placement office; the placement office lists, by category of practice or alphabetically, organizations coming to the school; and the applicant submits a resume' to the placement office, which forwards groups of resumes to the organizations. Organizations then inform the placement office of students desired for interviews. Names are then placed in time slots that can range from fifteen to sixty minutes. The interviewer is usually ensconced in a small, airless office, and students rotate through the room. Not glamorous, but efficient.
Most on-campus interviews occupy approximately twenty minutes and are designed to survey superficially the applicant's and employer's highlights. The on-campus meeting basically provides an employer opportunity to sift through the masses for a few students considered desirable for the entire organization to view. Some organizations, to narrow the field of students beforehand, will specify, for example, "top ten percent only," "law review only," or "practice limited to labor and insurance defense." Such systems can be arbitrary but also useful, winnowing the field at the outset to only those students interested in a specific practice.
The on-campus interviewer may be a graduate of your school, who volunteered or was sent for that reason. The interviewer usually is fairly outgoing and pleasant, intended to be a good representative of the firm. The questioning may occur in this manner:
Gee, I haven't had much chance to go over your resume — let me glance at it a minute.
I see you're on the law review. Do you enjoy it? The article you wrote last year concerned is that right?
Your majors in college were archaeology and political science . . . interesting.
Let me tell you a little about our firm. I hope you had a chance to read our resume" — good. Our practice involves mainly
We are interested principally in students, like yourself, who have demonstrated good academic achievement and sound writing skills.
What are your interests? In law? In general?
What do you like to do with your spare time?
Are you interested in staying in [city]? Where is your home? Any chance of your returning to [city]?
In general, an interviewer will travel the length of your resume asking brief questions about items such as grades, journal participation, and previous work experience. Ultimately, the interviewer will ask for questions about himself, his practice, or his firm. Your questions and comments should follow the guidelines below.
- Before asking about an interviewer's credentials and practice, ask about the firm's: your purpose in an on-campus interview is to plumb the depths of an interviewer's knowledge about his firm and its facets. Time is usually inadequate to allow investigation of the interviewer.
- Because you have researched the firm beforehand, your questions can focus on particular areas of its practice and constituents.
- It is appropriate to ask about the habitual practice of the firm in hiring new lawyers: numbers per year; percentage of women among new lawyers; numbers, in different classes, of minorities, etc.
- It is appropriate to ask about the division of labor upon entering the firm: your areas of work initially, the effect of a rotation program, or if there is any choice in areas of interest.
- It is not appropriate to ask about numbers of bill-able hours expected of new lawyers or about salary. Exceptions might exist when the firm has included that information in a resume" for general circulation, or when the firm maintains offices in other cities or countries, and your question concerns generic differences in salary and benefits due to varying locations. In general, however, questions in those areas are better deferred until later interviews at the firm's offices. The questions touch on subjects more pertinent to a student close to an offer than one in an on-campus sifting interview.
Score the vital points at any cost. In a short interview, with a talkative or an inattentive interviewer, grasp the lead and direct the conversation to your advantage. That process may be the most difficult aspect of interviewing. In some on-campus interviews, you will be offered an opportunity in which to spout off. More often, however, the interviewer dominates the session, and you must jump in on every pause to score a vital point. When, for example, the interviewer drones on about the firm's practice, interrupt to direct attention to the paragraph on your resume that indicates prior experience in exactly the area at issue.
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Vital points highlight your career for an interviewer and indicate your ability to speak for five consecutive minutes. The on-campus interview is so short that only two things can propel you into the second interview — a brilliant aspect of your resume or a stellar performance in the minutes allotted you in the interview. Compress your vital points into a few practiced sentences and inject them into the interview without routinizing the process and reducing it to a tired vaudeville act. Your vital points will be practiced but must appear fresh when vocalized. Practice is necessary: organize the points and actually speak your parts privately before you ascend the stage. The interview, like any performance, requires prior practice and concentration during the act to insure that you and your lines are not flat. For one interview it is not difficult to sound polished and excited. The true professional interviewee — which you can become — must, like an actor, appear polished and excited in the twentieth interview. At that stage, vital points are trusted allies, whose delivery must be emphasized.
The on-campus interview challenges your ability to perform in a short time period, hindered by often verbose interviewers who present a full view of the firm. No time exists for extended repartee that allows paced, patterned approaches. The on-campus interview develops your capacity for compressed delivery and time management.
Initial Interview After Letter
The other type of first interview occurs after a positive response to your letter and resume. This interview can take many forms — a twenty-minute special, a half-day whirl, or a whole-day fryer, with single or multiple interviewers. Each is detailed below.
The twenty-minute special approximates in substance and feel the on-campus interview. Always inquire, when obtaining appointments, about the expected length of your interview at the firm, about the number of interviewers you will visit, and about the possibility of Lunch. Many times the initial interview at the firm will be intended as a sifting, superficial session, and you can divine this intention by discovering beforehand the mechanics of the interview.
If the first interview at the firm will be a sifter, prepare for it as you would an on-campus interview. If you know the name of the interviewer, research. Even when you set up the appointment, the secretary may not know which lawyers will be available on your appointed day. Then simply research the firm in general, practice your vital points, and play it by ear. To maximize available time, two or more lawyers may attend your interview. Although daunting, this practice can help you by geometric degrees, allowing you to impress numerous interviewers favorably in a short time span. In a multiple-interviewer situation, speak to the group and treat the experience as more of a speechmaking opportunity than a question-answer session.
At a short first interview, the ground rules approximate those of an on-campus interview. Ask questions about the interviewer, the firm's practice, rotation programs, numbers of new lawyers, numbers of female lawyers, and numbers of legal assistants. Again, avoid inquiries about salary and billed hours. Emphasize your vital points.
Half-day Interview
The half-day interview at the firm entails three or four hours of half-hour interviews, perhaps ending with Lunch. Lunch, a separate category of interview, merits its own discussion and appears later.
The theory of the extended interview differs fundamentally from that underlying the on-campus or twenty-minute specials. Not merely an exercise in snap judgments and mechanical sifting, the extended interview exercises your ability to deal at length with numerous personalities in situations of varying tensions and atmospheres. The extended interview allows the firm to test the applicant in different ways. The firm may use a routine in which some interviewers gruffly bark out questions as orders, baiting or focusing on particularly unpleasant aspects of your academic record (grades are favorite); on the other hand, some interviewers beam sweetness, bantering carelessly about hobbies, sports, law in general, etc. In an extended interview, try to gauge the type of interviewer in the first few minutes — usually not a difficult trick — and play the interviewer's game as well as possible within those ground rules. Because the firm will likely provide different types of interviewer, you need not strain to change the course of an individual interview from the pattern that the interviewer wishes to set. You will be able to ply your wiles and score points more at leisure throughout the day, and generally you will visit at least one or two interviewers amenable to your direction.
The function of the extended interview most important to the firm is to parade you before as many people as possible, in different types of interviewing situations. Intense interviewing drains and bores the firm's resources and exhausts applicants, but the thoroughness of the process produces a reasonably complete picture of you as a physical presence — numerous lawyers have had the opportunity to view your Appearance. Even an extended interview tells little about an applicant's potential for success at law practice, but it can suggest your ability to handle different social contexts and to deal with lawyers and clients on a personal level. Seeing many lawyers allows human factors to influence the day, tension to dissipate, and errors and brilliance to show.
Do not be overly encouraged at an invitation for a half-day or longer. Many organizations automatically follow such a practice, after diligently screening resumes to catch the best paper-qualified candidates. Some firms, however, by running you through extended interviews, indicate serious interest. It is nearly impossible to know if the firm is serious at this point, unless a lawyer slips something to you.
- Grades. More than one interviewer may delve, here, to observe your reactions to uncomfortable inquiries. If your grades lack that cutting edge, develop a small patter to deal with the perennial favorite of interviewers. Attempt, in general, to emphasize law journal or publication experience as demonstration of abilities to reason legally and to write cogently, and work experience to demonstrate abilities to deal with clients and other lawyers. Avoid laboring over elaborate explanations or, worst of all, excuses for lesser grades. Demonstrate other ratifications of law practice potential, attempting to undermine the omnipotence of law school professors. The bottom line: develop patter to respond to questioning about grades. Interviewers will like your ability to meet creatively a possibly compromising situation.
- LSAT scores, believe it or not.
- Your interest in particular areas of law practice.
- Prior work experience.
- Clinical-course work experience in law school.
- Moot Court.
- Law school journals.
- Your law school — size, professors, percentage of women, etc.
- Your reasons for desiring to join the firm. This response should of course focus on the nature of the firm's practice. Additionally, as a basis for your interest, mention the city or part of the country in which the firm is located. If the organization is a law firm, the "big-firm/small-firm" dichotomy sounds good and is useful. Thus, if the firm is large ("large" varies from city to city, but in general fifty or more lawyers means "large"), emphasize your desire for an environment that affords many different areas of practice, to broaden your experience in early years. If the firm is smaller, emphasize the collegiality of a closely knit group of lawyers, the availability of closer supervision, and the earlier assumption of responsibility. If the smaller outfit is a branch office of a large organization located elsewhere, emphasize the benefits of both the large and small firms — varied practice from a big-client base and closer personal relationships with fellow lawyers.
- If a branch office, your interest in working in the home office or other branches.
- Your interests in specialization.
- The manner in which you spend time outside work or legal studies.
- Your interest in pro bono activities.
- Your ability to work long hours; your interest in working those hours.
Often the last lawyer to whom you speak will deposit you with the coordinating lawyer with whom you met originally, who may indicate some measure of interest or disinterest on behalf of the firm. More likely this person will indicate nothing and will state merely that the firm will contact you within four weeks. If an interviewer comments favorably on your resume, qualifications, or likelihood of receipt of an offer, avoid self-congratulation at that point. One lawyer cannot decide your petition; committees meet and the decision reflects true bureaucracy. You will rarely receive any reliable indication while at the firm about your chances of joining.
The half-day interview tests mainly your abilities to maintain a straight tie and slipless skirt and an affable smile for four hours. Only slightly more substantively, the process insures that five or six lawyers can meaningfully discuss your Appearance (clothing-speech-attitude) as it relates to the firm as an environment for work and social interaction. The process enables you to view the offices, evaluate personalities, and score vital points with numerous lawyers.
Full-day Interview
The differences between a half-day and full-day extended interview are physical and psychological. A full day of talking with many people, all of whom you must impress favorably, is tiring. The face numbs from smiling, the neck chafes from the tight collar, the feet ache from the heels. The third part of a fully extended interview, the afternoon, simply repeats the morning. (Lunch, the second part, appears in the next section.) Although your energy level has dropped markedly, however, each lawyer devotes only a half-hour as a diversion to your interview. The disadvantage is yours. During the afternoon of the full day your practice and attention to clothing, attitude, and speech carry the day. You must be able to rely on your physical preparation. You must concentrate and not rely on an automatic ability to respond engagingly to sometimes difficult and inane questions. During the afternoon, grit gets you through.
Avoid routine during the afternoon. One problem is the necessity of repeating endlessly the nature of an article you wrote or the reason for your interest in the firm. You need not respond uniquely or differently to each questioner, but you must invest your answer with interest, as though the tenth time is the first time you have heard that question. Concentrate on the vital points — their emphasis is your goal with each lawyer.
The afternoon simply provides further opportunity for the firm to look at you. Utilize the afternoon as a chance to obtain a thorough view of the people and the practice. The firm may decide your fate on the basis of the single full-day interview; that interview may be your only opportunity to examine young lawyers' views on working at the firm, or on practicing law in general. In contrast to an on-campus interview, it is not inappropriate in a full-day session to inquire about young lawyers' working habits, i.e., the number of billable hours. Refrain from inquiring of older lawyers in this regard. Avoid questions concerning salary until an offer has been extended.
The afternoon of a full-day interview may be used to advantage by alertly probing, taking the offensive, and appearing interested. You may not be able to score many points when drained and interviewed-out, but you can maintain the status quo — make the "look" good enough to avoid demerits. You may not have a second interview, so, tired as you are, make a professional showing. The show is, more than anything else, expected.
Second Interview at the Firm
Second, or call-back, interviews at the firm are similar whether they follow on-campus, short at-firm, or more extended first interviews.
Word on the subject, the firm does not favor reimbursement. Financial information of any type is little discussed in the interviewing world.
In general, for a first interview, do not expect reimbursement for travel and hotel expenses. If offered, reimbursement will be pro-rata payment based on either the number of organizations with which you interviewed or the number of organizations on the trip that agreed to split charges. The situation can be delicate because a firm may believe that all organizations reimburse expenses and may base its offer on that assumption, reducing the pro-rata share. If you feel comfortable enough with the particular lawyer making the announcement, discuss it.
A firm will more likely provide reimbursement on a second interview. The method of reimbursement will probably follow that mentioned above. The best "Appearance-approach," if the firm has made no indication, is to ask the last lawyer you visit about the policy. The question is not inappropriate even if the policy is not to reimburse.
The proper method of obtaining reimbursement is by letter, citing the policy and including copies of all relevant receipts from the interviewing trip. Depending on the formula for reimbursement, you should include also the number of firms with which you interviewed. Avoid charging each firm for the full tab: horror stories abound about students who work this scheme and later are dismissed from a firm because the plot is discovered. Because organizations discuss recruitment, your multiple charging might easily be exposed.
With each interviewing season, the practice of reimbursement for travel expenses becomes more common. Your uncomfortable cry for recognition will likely be unnecessary. Be adroit, but do not fail to discuss the matter at some point.
Thank You
The thank-you note concludes the initial interviewing process. A note should always follow an interview conducted at the firm, whether the interview lasted twenty minutes or eight hours. Do not send a note after an on-campus session.
Like many aspects of the job hunt, the thank-you note more often prevents demerits than adds to the positive total. You will not overwhelm the firm simply because you cranked out an automatic four-line note, but the effort assures that you have assimilated, as a matter of habit, formal courtesies appropriate to the lawyer's world. Properly phrased and prepared, the note is another part of your Appearance that maintains the status quo relative to other applicants. The note should he produced within a week after the interview.
Address the thank-you note to the recruitment coordinator, if one exists, or to a senior lawyer who seemed to run the interview show. The note should express appreciation for the firm's hospitality and for the opportunity to meet the lawyers and evaluate the practice. In addition, the note can request the addressee to relay your thanks to the lawyers with whom you spoke. The note can express your pleasure at the possibility of future contact and the hope of ultimate association with the firm. The note may also refer to an attached writing sample, if you did not present one during the interview. A sample thank-you note follows.
123 Mockingbird Lane
Whereall, Ohio 45200
September 10
Jackson Rogers,
Esquire Dewey, Cheatham & Howe
1000 10th Street Washington,
D.C. 20036
Dear Mr. Jay:
I enjoyed greatly our meeting on September 5 and wish to thank Dewey, Cheatham and Lori Newsome, James Hargrave, John Ransom, Jill Collins, and Jeff Norton for an informative afternoon. Please convey my appreciation to them.
You suggested that the Firm would reach hiring decisions within four weeks. I look forward to talking with you at that time and hope to enter a permanent association with Dewey, Cheatham.
Sincerely, James L.
James
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