Interviews at the Law School

In preparing your resume and identifying opportunities for which it might be used, you began the actual process of interviewing, a process which is not only important but in many respects terribly frustrating, tiring and time-consuming. That process, together with all the frustrations, continues with interviews at the law school. Although the resume is to some extent a first impression it cannot compare with the first impression created in a face-to-face interview. You may be a properly idealistic sort who believes that quality should (and will) come through in each and every instance. Wish that were true in the interviewing process because it is not necessarily so! The interviewing process may last forever as that one form of human endeavor in which the first impression is not only critical; it is determinative. You must prepare to create the best possible first impression, or you will have done yourself a tremendous disservice. For most of you, the first impression is created in the law school interview.
 

First Things First


Try to avoid the congestion which inevitably occurs in law school placement offices at the height of the recruiting season. Sign up for your interviews as early as possible. If your school is one in which your ability to schedule interviews is restricted, whether by geographical preference or by lot, make sure that you understand the rules the placement office publishes about that procedure; use your placement office as an aid.

As noted, the most effective ally you have in the employment process is your law school placement office. Its principal reason for being is to place its graduates as well as possible, thus magnifying not only the school's reputation but also the prospect of future endowments and gifts. Do not view the placement office or officials as adversaries determined to deny your access to the Promised Land. Recognize the obvious limitations any placement office has to work as your exclusive advocate and deal with it accordingly.

If for one reason or another you are unable to interview with a particular institution you genuinely want to see, write to the institution in care of the chairman of the hiring or employment committee in that particular law firm, or the office of the general counsel if a corporation or government agency, prior to the time their interviewer reaches your campus; tell the addressee you would like an interview, that you are unable to get one through the placement office, and give the reason. Then ask whether or not they might see you while on campus. Many law firms are quite willing to stretch their interview schedules through breakfast, lunch, or after-hour cocktails to accommodate all students who wish to talk to the representative of that particular firm. In addition, you might consider intercepting a given interviewer with a brief explanation of why you have been unable to schedule an interview, handing the interviewer your resume, and suggesting that if time develops you can be reached through the placement office. Do not try and conduct impromptu interviews which disrupt the interviewer's schedule. Due to time constraints, you may simply be unable to write or locate a given interviewer prior to the time he or she reaches campus. To avoid that problem, you may want to call the firm, corporation, or agency and ask for the recruiting coordinator (a position which most major law firms now have staffed on a full-time basis) or the office of the general counsel or one of the federal government contacts listed. Explain your problem and express your desire to see the person if possible. I would, however, strongly recommend that this procedure be used only in those instances in which you have a genuine desire to see the institution and are simply unable to do so in the normal course of placement procedures. Abuse of the placement system may cause real problems for you with your particular placement office. If you are successful in reaching a responsive interviewer, you then must find a way to get your resume to the interviewer prior to the time he or she reaches campus. You may want to leave it for the interviewer at his or her hotel; you do not want to wait in the lobby and harass him or her in the fashion of some interviewing groupie.

Almost every law school requires each firm, corporation, or government agency interviewing on campus to provide certain information with respect to itself. Read and understand that information. Of course that would include the information provided in Martindale-Hubbell and the information provided by the NALP. In addition, there is a growing number of sources of information about various law firms, e.g., The American Lawyers recently published (and soon to be updated) compilation of information regarding major American law firms. It is embarrassing to the interviewee and somewhat insulting to the interviewer to sit through a half-hour interview answering questions about a law firm that are answered in the firm resume submitted to the placement office weeks ago. You can be certain that unless your resume looks like an Appendix, you have done yourself a disservice in not understanding more about the institution you are interviewing. The real sin is wasting the only time you may have to convince the interviewer you are special, unique, and different. It is substantially more difficult to get information about and therefore be prepared for an interview with a corporation or governmental agency. Nonetheless, there are ways that information can and should be obtained. A number of such approaches are discussed in this book.

You should always take advantage of the rumor mill at your particular law school. Check with prospects who may have clerked at the firm in which you are interested or at least clerked in the city where the firm in which you are interested is located. They may have information about that law firm which will prove quite helpful to you in conducting your interview and in analyzing the institution. If you have friends who have interviews preceding yours, you might also ask them about the style, technique, and questions asked by the interviewer. It is also helpful to know something about the city or cities where the firm in which you are interested is located. Each area of the United States and indeed many foreign countries offer in themselves a line of inquiry about a particular institution. For example, practicing in many northeastern cities must be different from practicing in the southern and western United States. Practicing law in the Rocky Mountain States may be more like practicing in Texas or Alaska, but it is unlike practicing in Hawaii.

There are a growing number of law schools that are adopting the approach pioneered by Columbia which created a job fair or week of interviewing prior to the start of school. In some instances only local firms are invited to participate, while in others firms from all across the country send interviewers to the campus. If your school has such an opportunity, do not miss it. It will provide the greatest single concentrated exposure to the job market you are likely to see in your entire interviewing experience. In addition, mere will be more information about various firms available during that period than at any other time. Moreover, most "job fairs" are conducted to reduce or eliminate the need to miss class to meet interview schedules.

It is worth knowing your target. If you are focusing on private practice in a major city in a large law firm, you will have or should have a different set of questions and concerns than you would about practicing in a smaller city or for a governmental agency. Each prospective employer whether the United States Army, IBM Corporation, or O'Melveny & Myers, offers a different set of challenges and problems, and an early understanding of those circumstances will help you secure the job you want.

The Sign-Up

Do not spread yourself too thin. Everyone is understandably anxious to find a job, but a never-ending stream of interviews works to your disadvantage. You appear to be harassed, tired, perhaps even noticeably frustrated and miss or may miss an exceptional amount of class time. A second major rule with respect to sign-ups is to be realistic. Match your time and resources with available and probable bookings. You should reach to take full advantage of your accomplishments, yet be realistic about the prospects for employment. If you are at the middle oil the class and insist on interviewing firms all of whose members were Order of the Coif, you are wasting your time and denying yourself access to more likely possibilities. Be realistic with yourself and recognize that your talents and skills may be put to greater use and reach greater success at an institution where you have a reasonable chance for employment. A failure to appreciate that fact can be self-defeating and totally demoralizing. Many, many law students believe, and properly so, that they will be better lawyers than they are law students. Yet you need an environment, which need not be a permanent one at least at the outset, to demonstrate your belief is well-founded. Consequently, force yourself to be realistic about the clerkships or fellowships as well. I am suggesting however, that you settle for less than you can realistically achieve. Indeed, the purpose of this book is to help you develop techniques and strategy which will allow you to reach more successfully for available legal positions than you would otherwise be able to do. The academic credentials of a great many law students, perhaps even a majority of law students, are quite similar when viewed in the overall context. Success or failure in securing employment depends, therefore, on your ability to distinguish yourself from your competitors. Thus the legitimate use of technique and strategy are quite important. Incidentally, one of your best aids in achieving some degree of realism with respect to your law school interviews is the law school placement office.

Notwithstanding my admonition against spreading yourself too thin, I would suggest one or two practice interviews. In other words, to the extent you can do so in the context of your placement environment, it would be quite helpful to sign up for interviews with institutions similar to those for which you think you want to work. Ideally, such interviews would precede the interview with the firms you really want to see. In any event, I do not believe you should start with an interview in which you are truly interested without a practice interview of some sort. It is important to see the reaction to your resume, to hear the questions it provokes, to see what general questions come into the interviewer's mind, to see how you react to them, to test your general conversational interviewing style, and to get the reaction to some of the more sensitive questions you think you would like to ask in later interviews. Sometimes you kiss a lot of toads before you find Prince Charming.

Remember the basic goal of the on-campus interview is to be invited for further interviews at the firm, corporation, or agency where the presumption of qualifying law school performance arises in your favor.

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