Legal Job Interviews & Handling Negative Questions

Once in a while, especially if your lawyer interviewer is a litigator or trial attorney, you may find yourself the focus of a "negative" or "adversary" interview. This is one in which all of the interviewer's questions appear to be designed to put you down or make you reveal unflattering or negative information about yourself, and it can be a truly terrifying experience. Even in a normal job interview, you may encounter one or two questions in which the interviewer appears to be less than impressed with something in your background or experience. If you should ever be subject to such an interview, or if such a question should arise, keep in mind that things are not usually as they seem. In most cases the interviewer doesn't really think you are a jerk, and isn't prejudiced against you before you walk into the room. Otherwise, why would he be taking the time to talk to you (remember that your mental attitude should be that you already have the job before you walk in the door).
 

In situations where the tone of the entire interview is negative, the interviewer's purpose is not to humiliate you (although if you are not careful he may well succeed; litigators are very good at cross examining people and tearing apart their prepared stories), but rather to see if you are tough enough to survive in what he believes is a rough practice, a difficult environment or an aggressive culture. In the situation where the overall tone of the interview is positive but the interviewer asks one or two negative questions, what is usually happening is that the interviewer has surfaced one or two things on your resume that he thinks he will have trouble selling to his partners or colleagues, and wants you to tell him what he should tell these people when they express their concern about these particular things.

Important Rules

Whatever you do in this situation, there are three important rules to keep in mind.

First, don't be defensive. By reacting to the question with surprise, shock or horror, you send a signal to the interviewer that you had something to hide and (shucks!) the inter-viewer has discovered the skeleton in your closet. Your first response to such a situation probably should be something like "I anticipated that you would ask me about that." This puts the interviewer at ease, and tells him that he probably won't have too difficult a job explaining this one difficult item. Also, be sure to keep your answer as short as possible. The more you make a big deal out of the negative item, the more the interviewer will too.

Second, remember that no one can intimidate you without your consent. You didn't go to law school because you wanted to be a shrinking violet. The legal profession is tough, combative, aggressive and downright dirty at times. Show the interviewer that you can take the pressure without losing your cool. Remain calm at all times but be sure to be assertive about your strengths, your achievements, and the positive aspects of your resume. In fact, if you sense that the interview is going to be entirely negative, you are free to ignore the interviewer's specific questions to a certain extent.

A simple example will illustrate the point. Let's say you know something about cars, and I sell you my old used car with a promise that it will get 30 miles to a gallon on the highway. You don't ask me about the state of the brakes, and I have no reason to tell you anything about the brakes because I don't notice anything wrong with them. Two weeks later you call me on the telephone and tell me the brakes on my old car are worn through and need to be replaced immediately.

Of course if I value your friendship I will make some accommodation. But if I don't know you from a hole in the wall, and if I have reason to believe you should have known what you were doing when you bought the car and should have had the brakes tested at that time, one perfectly valid response to your telephone call is for me to smile and ask "but tell me, are you getting 30 miles to the gallon on the highway?" In other words, just because a person has asked you a leading question does not mean you have to give him a direct answer; you can counter a negative with a positive.

Third, in answering an interviewer's question you never, ever, ever volunteer negative information about yourself. Even if the lawyer interviewer accuses you of having done something in your past that you know darn well is true, you never admit this to the interviewer unless you want to be "screened out" immediately. When this happens your preferred response is not to deny that it happened, but to explain it in a low key, off-the-cuff manner, in a way that any reasonable interviewer will find plausible, and then turning the interviewer's focus back on himself as quickly as possible (generally people who like to engage in "adversary" interviews are also people who love to hear themselves talk).

If, for example, the interviewer asks "isn't it true, Mr. Candidate, that you have spent only an average of six months on each of your last three jobs?", it is much better to say something like "well, I'm sure you know this industry has had a rough time of it in the current recession; all three of my last employers went through substantial downsizings and when you're the last hired, you tend to be the first to be laid off - isn't this your experience, Mr. So-and-So?" than to say "yes, you're right; I guess that makes me look like a job hopper or an incompetent, huh?" Appealing to an interviewer's sympathy and compassion is not usually a good strategy; most lawyers I know are not overly gifted with these emotions.

The Best Strategy

The best strategy when dealing with negative questions is to turn the question into a positive statement about yourself. If, for example, the lawyer interviewer were to ask you "I see from your data sheet, Mr. Candidate, that you have been divorced three times; not much of a family man, are you?" (incidentally, I think any interviewer who asked this question in such a blatant manner is opening himself and his employer up to a lawsuit, if not a punch in the mouth; I am using this example because it is clear, not because I think it is a real world question), you could say something like "well, Mr. So-and-So, my spouses haven't been too tolerant of my long hours at the office, it's true; it's really hard to find someone who really understands my commitment to the law and my total involvement in my work - there really are days when I just lose track of the time, and I feel I can't let go of the problem until I am satisfied I have found the right answer - tell me, how do you manage to reconcile career and family life in your demanding practice?" (Note that by answering in this fashion, you may make the interviewer start to wonder if he is as committed to the law as he thinks he is). Not every situation, of course, lends itself to this approach, but if you can pull it off it is equivalent of the grand slam home run.

Handling the Awkward Silence

It happens every once in a while; you have answered an interviewer's question, keeping your answer short, concise and to the point. You then wait for the interviewer to say something or ask the next question. But nothing happens. The interviewer simply nods his head and encourages you to go on, or just sits there like a statue and glares at you. Several awkward seconds pass and you frantically start thinking of ways to resume the dialogue. You have reached an impasse for which neither you nor the interviewer seem capable of getting the interview going again.

I have never fully figured out why this happens so often in legal job interviews, but awkward silences are part of the game you must learn to play. As best as I can figure, there are three possible reasons for an awkward silence, in decreasing order of likelihood: (1) the interviewer is playing a game with you to test your poise in dealing with an awkward situation -he wants nothing more than to see you lose your cool so that he can "screen you out" as an unstable candidate who has not fully reached maturity; (2) the interviewer's people skills are not well developed and he simply does not know what to say either; or (3) the interviewer has fallen asleep with his eyes open (or, in one case that actually happened to a friend of mine, suffered a massive stroke and died) during your last answer.

Whatever the reason, there is a simple two-step strategy that will help you overcome the awkwardness and get the conversation going again in a way that makes you look like a seasoned professional.

Step one is to simply say nothing: Look at the interviewer and wait for him to say something. Don't be afraid to let a few seconds pass in this fashion, as the awkwardness is mutual and the interviewer will be just as eager as you are to get things going again. What you don't want to do at any cost is to start babbling about anything and everything just to end the awkward silence. Remember the cardinal rule of legal job interviewing: SAY AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE. You have already answered the interviewer's last question to your satisfaction (and probably to his as well); if he wants you to expand upon your answer, let him give you an idea of what he wants. Just stare at him for a few seconds.

Step Two

Under no circumstances should you let an awkward silence last more than a few seconds; if you do you will appear to be nonverbal in the interviewer's eyes, and no lawyer ever wants to think of himself or another lawyer as nonverbal. If after a few seconds the silence remains unbroken, it is time to resort to Step Two: ask the interviewer one of your prepared questions. Don't worry that the question is unrelated to the previous topic of discussion; your goal here is to turn the initiative back where it belongs -- in the interviewer's hands -and get him to start talking again. Most interviewers (especially in the second scenario described above where the interviewer is a slug and doesn't know what to talk about either) will be delighted or relieved at this approach, as it is exactly what a lawyer would do if a client "clammed up" on him during a counseling session.

If you sense that your interviewer has fallen asleep during the last answer, there is one sure way to find out: remain silent for a moment or two, and if there appear to be no signs of life in the interviewer, clear your throat sharply and loudly. If that does not produce a response, you may wish to say, in a fairly loud voice, "Mr. So-and-So, would you like me to expand at all on my previous answer?" If there is still no response, you should begin to suspect cardiac arrest; what my friend did in the awful episode described above was to leave the office, walk calmly up to the late interviewer's secretary, and say "excuse me, ma'am, but I believe there's something wrong with Mr. So-and-So; could you please have a look at him with me? I think he's passed out" (and no, I do not know whether or not my friend was offered the job).

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