This is a guest post from the recruitment partner at a top international law firm (who has chosen to remain anonymous due to the firm’s guidelines). I’m really grateful as I think that it contains some great advice, and some excellent example questions for students to think about:
“We are often surprised at how many candidates, who are first class on paper, fall down at interview due to lack of thorough preparation. The candidates that stand out and perform particularly well don’t blind us with legal brilliance (which would be hard to do in a 45 minute interview) nor have they mastered some dark art of interview techniques. Rather, they have really thought about the firm they are applying to and what the interviewers are likely to ask them and want to hear. That is, they have worked out what the firm is aspiring to be and why and are able to talk about, amongst other things, the training contract, the types of work undertaken, the clients, the culture and what challenges the firm faces. They also convince us that they really want to be lawyers in a city law firm and are not just going through the motions.
Whilst no two interviews are going to be the same, even within the same law firm, candidates applying for city firms can expect to be asked similar questions. For those who have been through the summer scheme programmes and/or the trainee contract interview process many of the questions below will be familiar but for the uninitiated here are some of the likely questions for you to ponder. Often there are no right or wrong answers and I am not going to give them to you now; that would be no fun! Be prepared to explain yourself clearly and convincingly and be ready to defend your position when challenged.
So here is a sample “Top 10” set of questions you will need to be able to answer off the bat:
1. Why are you interested in pursuing a career in law rather than working in say an investment bank or large accountancy firm? What do you think the differences between the jobs would be?
2. What interests you in particular about this law firm and what other law firms have you applied to?
3. [For those who have done work experience] Explain one piece of work you did during your work experience and what the legal issues where (you will not be asked to disclose confidential information!)?
4. How does a law firm like this assist its key clients and discuss some of the jobs that you know the firm has been involved in?
5. Which teams from the firm would need to get involved in a global M&A transaction?
6. If you were a General Counsel at a client and a law firm was pitching to you, what would be the three most important things you would look for in your law firm?
7. What are your top 3 requirements from a training contract?
8. Discuss something you have seen in the news in the last 6 months which has an interesting legal slant to it?
9. What are the three biggest costs which a law firm faces?
10. What challenges and, potentially, opportunities do you think the economic downturn has created for city law firms?”
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