Business Lawyer

One Kent student commented: "These sorts of questions are very popular (not with me!!). They are trying to see how you construct an argument or how well you can think on your feet and how you react under pressure. Be prepared for them to challenge your opinions and arguments in order to test all these qualities thoroughly"

☛ Is the current 28-day limit for detention without charge in terrorism cases sufficiently long?

☛ Should defendants in criminal cases have the right to know the identity of witnesses giving evidence against them?

☛ Do sporting boycotts have any effect on governments’ human rights policies?

The above questions all relate to issues that were widely reported and discussed in the legal and national press during 2008 – interviewers would expect aspiring lawyers to be aware of such issues and to have an opinion on them!

☛ How many petrol stations do you think are in the UK? This is a scoping question.

☛ If you were senior partner in this firm and the BNP came to you for representation what would you do?

☛ If a Client wanted to pay £750,000 for a house in CASH what would you do?

☛ What advice would you give to a friend who wants to set up a restaurant?

☛ How would you explain “the caution” to a client with learning difficulties who is extremely agitated at having just been arrested?

☛ What would you do if three partners all came to you on the same day with separate pieces of work that all needed to be done by 5pm?

☛ Explain the difference between contract and tort in layman’s terms;

☛ What makes you laugh?

☛ If you could have any super power, what would it be, and why?

☛ What interests you about being a legal counsel for our industry?

☛ What do you hope to achieve by working at our company?

☛ What experience or training has prepared you for this position?

☛ Describe your proudest accomplishments in your legal career. How do you define success?

☛ Recall a situation that required you to seek outside counsel. What factors did you consider? What was the result?

☛ What other types of situations require outside counsel?

☛ What’s the most complex legal situation you’ve faced at work? What strategy did you use to resolve it?

☛ Regarding the previous question, who else was involved in this project? What were their roles?

☛ Describe a situation where you made a mistake or regretted your decision. How did you handle it?

☛ How do you cope with stress at work?

☛ What kind of training or feedback will help you to excel in this role?

☛ Describe a time you had to prioritize conflicting deadlines. How did you arrive at your decision?

☛ How would you learn more about our organization during your first week on the job?

When interviewing an attorney candidate, especially one who is inexperienced, law firms might want to describe scenarios that are intended to reveal how a candidate would deal with a difficult or awkward situation. The last two items below are examples of scenarios that were used in the author’s firm.

☛ Tell me about a time when you had to accomplish a task under a tight deadline while working with someone who was difficult to get along with.

☛ What are the three most important things that you contribute to an organization? What are the three most important things that you could contribute to our firm?

☛ What are some of the most imaginative and creative things that you have done in a job?

☛ How do you deal with stress or conflict? What clues have you come to recognize as signals that you may be under too much stress?

☛ How would a good friend describe you?

☛ What kind of people do you find most difficult to work with?

☛ What do you think are the most important characteristics and abilities for any person’s success? How do you rate yourself in these areas?

☛ When have you failed?

☛ Describe the circumstances and how you dealt with, and learned from, the experience.

☛ Describe the work environment that you consider optimal for your personal satisfaction and best performance.

☛ Scenario: You are an attorney working at our firm on a day when you are the only person in the office. An elderly woman comes into the office asking to see a lawyer right away. She does not have an appointment but says that she needs to sign some papers. She has no papers with her. What do you do?

☛ Scenario: You are meeting with a 65-year-old gentleman to take will instructions. He tells you that he has three adult children who are financially well off. He advises that he is divorced, pays spousal support to his ex-wife, and is currently living common law with another woman. Although he has no problems sharing most of his personal information, he refuses to answer any questions about his assets and tells you to write down $1 as his net worth. How do you proceed?

☛ Lots of technical questions. e.g. How is a merger/acquisition structured?

☛ They interviewers went through my CV and asked me why I choose the particular A Levels, work experience, extra curricular activities and skills that I have learnt from these.

☛ They also asked about something in the media that particularly interested me and why, and my opinion on the issue.

☛ They asked why I choose their particular firm for a summer placement.

☛ Give an example of where you had to work in a team. See our competency questions page

☛ Why do you want to study law?

☛ What do you think of law?

☛ Give an example of a recent commercial deal that captured your attention: which party/side in this deal would you like to work for if you were a lawyer and why?

☛ Questions about my work experience.

☛ Why do you want to work for our firm?

☛ Why do you want to work in London ?

☛ What extra-curricular activities have you undertaken and why?

☛ Which seats I wanted to complete?

☛ What modules I liked/disliked?

☛ What makes me different from other candidates?

☛ How is our firm different from other firms?

☛ What are your weaknesses?

☛ What are your strengths?

☛ Why should we hire you?

☛ What will you be doing 5 (or 10) years from now?

☛ Why aren't your grades better?

☛ Why do you want to work for us?

☛ Why did you go to law school?

☛ Why did you choose this school?

☛ Why do you want to work in this city?

☛ Who else are you interviewing with?

☛ Hypothetical questions (e.g., what would you do if, etc.)

☛ What's the biggest mistake you ever made?

☛ What kind of salary are you looking for?

☛ How do you like law school?

☛ "Philosophy"; questions (e.g., if you were a tree...)

☛ Illegal questions

☛ Who'll assign my work?

☛ What will a typical day be like for me?

☛ Will I get feedback on my work?

☛ What kinds of cases will I work on?

☛ What kind of work will I do?

☛ How does someone become a star - what makes them stand out?

☛ Ask questions appropriate to the age of the interviewer the size of the law firm.

☛ What qualities do you believe will make you a successful lawyer?

☛ How would you describe the ideal summer job?

☛ Tell me about your participation on the journal/in your clinical program. Describe your thesis/research project/note further. (Listen for analytical skills, interest in writing, etc.)

☛ What skills have you developed as a result of your experience?

☛ What goals have you set for yourself? How are you planning to achieve them?

☛ Tell me how your supervisor from your summer internship would describe you.

☛ What was the most useful criticism you ever received, and who was it from?

☛ Describe the project or situation that best demonstrated your analytical skills.

☛ Tell me about an idea you have developed and implemented that was particularly creative or innovative?

☛ Why did you choose the extracurricular activities you did? What did you gain? What did you contribute?

☛ What specialization of law are you interested in?

☛ What is your working experience?

☛ What did you do in your legal internship?

☛ Family background

☛ GPA in undergraduate school and graduate school

☛ Tell me about yourself.

☛ Tell me about your professional goals.

☛ Tell me about your experience as a lawyer.

☛ What interests you in this law firm/organization?

☛ Tell me about your ties to this geographic area.

☛ What do you want to know about our law firm?

☛ What was your favorite course during law school/undergraduate?

1. How did you become interested in X practice area/subject matter?

2. Did you focus on X while you attended law school? (If you are still in school) Do you recommend any courses or clinics that would enhance my understanding of X field?

3. Why did you choose this firm/organization over others?

4. What do you like most about this firm/practice group/organization?

5. What makes someone successful in this role?

6. Tell me about the firm/practice group/organization culture.

7. How is work distributed/how will I receive assignments?

8. What type of assignments do attorneys of my level typically work on?

9. Will I work with the same partners/senior attorneys often or will I be assigned to projects with different partners/senior attorneys?

10. How will my work be evaluated? What kind of feedback can I expect to receive?

11. How do you think the firm will grow in the next five years?

12. Is there a shadowing or training period?

13. How does the firm train junior attorneys to develop business?

14. What makes this firm/organization unique from other similar firms/organizations?

15. Tell me about a memorable case/deal/issue you worked on while working at this firm/organization.

16. Can you explain the firm’s/organization’s management structure to me in greater detail? Does the headquarter office dictate the actions of the other offices?

17. What type of interaction do attorneys in this office have with attorneys at the firm’s/organization’s other offices?

18. What do you find most challenging about your practice?

19. What are the biggest challenges facing the firm/organization right now?

20. What is the next step in the hiring process?

21. Do you have any concerns about me as a candidate that would disqualify me from the position?

This is always a tough question asked to put the interviewee in a stressful situation and see how they respond.

Answering Strategy and Options

Do not say the first weakness that comes to mind. It can make you look unemployable. Instead, take a negative and make it look like a positive. The interviewer is not necessarily interested in the weakness itself, rather, the interviewer is looking at how you respond to weaknesses and that you are capable of improvement. Describe a weakness you have, but are currently improving (e.g., “I have always had a tough time giving negative feedback to those working under me, but recently I’ve put forth a greater effort to give the feedback in a meaningful way to help the junior associates that work with me to improve their practice”). Beware of “false weaknesses” (e.g., “I work too hard”). Nobody is perfect and the interviewer knows this, but if you try to be cute with your answer (e.g., “I smile too much”), you may turn off the interviewer altogether.

With this question, the interviewer is not so much interested in examples of your success – he or she wants to know what makes you tick. Keep your answers short, general and to the point. Using your professional experience, personalise and use value keys from your personal, professional and business profiles. For example: I attribute my success to three reasons: I’ve always received support from my colleagues, which encourages me to be cooperative and look at my specific job in terms of what we as a department are trying to achieve. That gives me great pride in my work and its contribution to the department’s efforts, which is the second factor. Finally, I find that every job has its problems, and while there’s always a costly solution. There’s usually an economical one as well, whether it is in terms of time or money. Then give an example of your experience that illustrates these points.

Many different types of people succeed in the law and your answer will be dependent on your personality. But there are some characteristics that your interviewers will be expecting you to mention.

Lawyers at law firms work in groups, learning from those senior to them and training those junior to them, so an ability to work in a team is crucial. But they're each individually accountable for a large workload, so they need to be able to take the initiative where necessary and get things done by themselves.

In addition, lawyers need to have an academic mindset to understand laws and legal theory, but must also be able to apply common sense and think about the wider commercial context of their work.

However, clients rely on lawyers to take care of many of the finer points of a deal or dispute for them, so attention to detail is also essential.

They’re looking for brain cells here. Take the question and run with it. Employers want to see a demonstrated ability to work hard, write well, solve problems, and deliver results. Your answer does not have to be limited to legal or professional problems. Use other challenges you faced, and explain how you overcame them.

Answering Strategy and Options

Professional Challenge: “Recently I researched a controversial contract formation issue arising from a defective letter of intent in a failed corporate acquisition. The question included the laws of three states, which were in conflict, and an acquisition of a $500 million company that was abandoned. The partner wanted to develop a motion for summary judgment, but was uncomfortable with the state of the law in the 9th Circuit. Over three weeks, I spent 95 hours developing a new angle that was incorporated into the briefs that were filed at the end of the summer.”

Personal Challenge: “Ever since college, I have wanted to run a marathon. It was a struggle trying to balance training runs and working at a firm, especially while I was in trial. I also injured my ankle a month before the marathon and was worried I wouldn’t have enough time to recover. However, I remained committed and finally completed my first marathon a few weeks ago. It was definitely physically and mentally intensive throughout the marathon, but I remained focused, stuck to my pace, and finished the marathon within my goal time.”

Your interviewers want you to explain to them why you're a good fit for their firm. That means you need to understand what law firms do, what their type of law firm does, what they do well within their category of law firm, and why their strength in a particular area or areas in the law matches your career aspirations.

So you'll need to explain what it is about finance or IP, and the firm's work in the area in particular, that has led you to apply. If you find that you can't identify an actual area of legal practice that grabs you, do more research or think again about a career in the law.

Remember, though, that your interviewers won't be expecting you to be an expert on your chosen area yet, and you don't have to commit to it for the rest of your career - this point of the interview can be a great time to ask some questions of your own, find out more, and clarify your aspirations - you'll be showing your interest is genuine by doing so.