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On-Campus Interview (OCI) season is not in full swing here at Vanderbilt but was actually winding down in the first full week of August, illustrating how the recruiting calendar is simultaneously accelerating and telescoping while turning the phrase “Fall Recruiting Cycle” into an anachronism. But aside from providing me with an opportunity to play the biannual game “Do These Formal Business Clothes Still Fit”? — spoiler: the answer is no, because, apparently, a #4fourandunder sleep schedule, combined with a poor diet and no time to exercise is not a recipe for model health, who knew? — OCI is when law students across the country get to put their interview skills to a pretty significant test. In last year’s award–winning[1] four-part series on Fall OCI, I discussed the various pieces of the Biglaw recruiting process, including the multiple interviews candidates will be subjected to before they can secure an offer.
However, those columns were a macro look at the interview process, and in working with Vanderbilt students, we will discuss Biglaw interviews in an abstract sense, but I also like to work with them to dig into questions and develop the strongest possible answers. Thus, in the run-up to, and during, OCI, I often engage in a number of mock interviews with my students. Since I am unable to bring the entire readership of Above the Law into my office for such a mock interview, I thought I would go over some commonly asked interview questions and the best way to approach them. While not a perfect facsimile of the experience in my office — there is no digital photo frame in the reader’s line of sight that automatically shuffles in a new photo every minute as a way to see which students are actually focused and which are easily distracted — this should provide with the next best thing. And while I have reams of practice questions at the ready for my student, I will only go over a few today, mainly because I am not Michael Lewis and, thus, am not getting $10 per word for this column — who could have guessed that print journalism would run into financial woes.
As I tell my students, you should always be truthful in your answers, so if the discussion below is not applicable to your particular set of circumstances, do not adopt the language. But at the very least, this should give you a sense as to the best way to approach various questions and potential pitfalls.
The types of questions a candidate will likely encounter during their legal interview can likely fit into three broad categories: straightforward, behavioral, and hypothetical.
Straightforward
These are the questions that are the easiest to anticipate, but also the most likely to come during an interview, so one should have their answers down cold.
Why did you come to law school?
You might have read there has been a surge in law school applications over the past two admission cycles, in possibly large part to a certain overtanned individual on Pennsylvania Avenue. It is perfectly understandable to have one’s motivation to enroll in law school be heavily linked to helping stop the actions of an increasingly lawless and reckless administration. However, keep in mind the firm with whom you are interviewing. If, for example, they have garnered a reputation for funneling a good portion of their attorney roster into the current incarnation of the federal government, it would be best to think of another reason for coming to law school. Likewise, be wary of saying that your reason for coming to law school is because you have family members in the law or you were a liberal arts student without much of a post-graduation plan. Law firms are looking for attorneys who will stay with them for a significant period of time, or at least long enough to generate a profit, which likely won’t happen if enrollment is the path of least resistance.
Favorite class?
There is no need to lie just to try and match your professed academic interest with the practice area of the attorney with whom you are interviewing. If you really did not like Secured Transactions, that is okay. However, ideally, your answer should track with the type of job for which you are interviewing. So, if the firm is a litigation boutique, perhaps focus on talking up Civil Procedure of Criminal Law as opposed to your American Legal History seminar in which you wrote a paper on John Hart Ely.
Behavioral
Behavioral questions are a rapidly growing trend in the realm of legal recruiting. These questions are open-ended, rather than one that could be answered with a single sentence, see, e.g., what is your favorite law school class. The benefit for employers is that you can dig a bit deeper into not only a candidate’s background but also their thought process, which can hopefully provide you with a bit more insight as to how they will act in the future, since the entire legal recruiting process is about making an evaluation of projected talent in a way unlike any other industry outside of professional sports.
Describe a major setback or failure you have faced and how you responded?
No less an authority than Don Draper asked fresh-out-of-college Smitty, “I’m gonna ask you a question that was always asked of me when I was on job interviews . . . have you ever been fired?” Here’s the thing, odds are you are going to make a mistake as a lawyer. It is a stressful job and oftentimes you can be juggling a half dozen things at once. Now, there are degrees of mistakes, and staying away from the egregious ones that cost your clients millions of dollars, or perhaps even their freedom, should be the goal. But rest assured, some level of mistake will happen during your legal career. This question is trying to get at how you will respond to such an inevitability by seeing how you dealt with it in the past. Most everyone who attends law school has been a high achiever their entire lives and this is especially true when looking at the student body of the country’s most elite law schools. It’s possible that one could make their way into Biglaw without having ever made a discernible academic or professional mistake. How are you going to handle it when it happens? Firms are not looking for someone who is going to wilt and need days to recover after making an error. Providing a past instance of a mistake and, most importantly, how you overcame said mistake, can assuage many of your potential employer’s fears.
If I talked to a former boss or classmates, what would they say is a positive trait you possess? How about a negative trait?
This question is a personal favorite. Everyone is perfectly happy to say something positive about themselves, but this question spins it two different ways that require a bit more thought. First, the question is not what you would say about yourself, but rather, what someone else would say. This requires that you step out of yourself for a moment and understand how you are perceived by others. Can you engage in that sort of introspection? Second, while people like to talk themselves up, there is a hesitation to say anything negative, for fear it betrays some weakness. But much like understanding that you will make a mistake as an attorney, the best candidates understand that they are human and have flaws. Whenever answering this question, be honest about what your flaws are — though only to a point (e.g., if your biggest flaw is that you have an insatiable drug habit, keep that one to yourself for the time being) — but then explain how you are addressing those flaws and circle back to your best traits.
Have you ever had to work with someone you did not like or make clear they did not like you? How did you handle that?
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Attorneys can be jerks. I know, be still one’s heart. If you are going to work in Biglaw, or really a legal employer of any size, you are probably going to have a colleague with whom you do not get along with. How will you deal with that situation when there can be so much riding on a particular case? As with many of these behavioral questions, the evidence lies in your life to that point. Explain how you can thrive in a professional environment, even if you are not going out with the office each night for drinks or inviting your team over for dinner.
Hypothetical
Attempting to project future behavior based on past actions is great, but can only take an interviewer so far. There are scenarios that will come up in legal practice that no previous job can serve as the necessary preparation.
Imagine it’s Monday and you have three different partners come to you with assignments due on Friday. You know it is physically impossible to complete them all in the allotted time. What do you do?
I am hesitant to call this a hypothetical because this will almost assuredly happen. Again, as a high achiever throughout one’s life, the instinct can be to say you will stay as late as necessary to get all the assignments completed. That is likely the wrong answer. Think of this question as the legal equivalent of the Kobayashi Maru. There is no way to “win” this scenario; instead, you have to show your ability to speak truth to power and explain to someone that you will not be able to complete the assignment. The trick is to explain you would let the affected partner know as early as possible, think Tuesday rather than Thursday night, and work to make sure the project would be completed by someone at the firm.
Successful interviewing is almost a prerequisite for landing a firm job through Fall OCI. Familiarizing yourself with the types of questions you might face before walking into the interview room can help ensure your way to that Biglaw pay day.
[1] My Dad liked it.
Nicholas Alexiou is the Director of LL.M. and Alumni Advising as well as the Associate Director of Career Services at Vanderbilt University Law School. He will, hopefully, respond to your emails at abovethelawcso@gmail.com.