Career guide
Our Definitive Law Firm Interview Dos &Don'ts
Fourteen rules from a decade on both sides of the interview table. None of them are about your handshake, all of them have decided real offers.
Before the room
Rule one — Research
Do
Research your interviewers like you'd research a counterparty, their deals, their practice, their trajectory.
Mentioning a specific transaction they led signals you take the meeting as seriously as they do. It changes the temperature of the room in the first five minutes.
Don't
Recite the firm's website back at them.
"You're a leading global firm with deep expertise" tells the interviewer exactly one thing: you prepared for nobody in particular.
Rule two — The why
Do
Have a one-breath answer to "why this firm, why this market, why now", and rehearse it out loud.
It's the first real question in nearly every process we run. The candidates who nail it sound like they've already made the decision — firms hire conviction.
Don't
Let the first time you say it be in the room.
An answer that exists only in your head comes out three sentences too long and one conviction too short.
In the room
Rule three — Your deals
Do
Talk about your deals like you owned them, the commercial context, the sticking points, what you personally ran.
Interviewers are listening for judgment, not a deal list. Pick your three best matters and know them cold, including the numbers.
Don't
Describe your role as "mostly diligence", even if it was.
Diligence on a $4B take-private is a story about risk, findings, and consequences. Tell that story instead of apologizing for your seat.
Rule four — Your questions
Do
Ask questions an investor in your own career would ask — dealflow, staffing model, where the practice is in three years.
Good questions are the most underused signal in interviews. They show you're choosing them as much as they're choosing you.
Don't
Open with hours, bonuses, or remote policy in round one.
All legitimate questions, and all ours to ask for you, at the right moment, without it costing you anything.
Rule five — The hard parts
Do
Get ahead of the hard parts of your CV, the gap, the short stint, the grade, with a clean, calm line.
Every CV has a question mark. Candidates who address it calmly convert it into evidence of self-awareness.
Don't
Let them discover something you should have told them.
Firms conflict-check, reference-check, and talk to each other. A surprise in week four kills more offers than any weakness ever could.
Rule six — Everyone counts
Do
Treat everyone in the process as an interviewer, including the recruiting coordinator scheduling your calls.
Hiring committees ask around. The junior associate at the coffee chat has a vote, and so, informally, does everyone else you met.
Don't
Match the interviewer's casualness.
A relaxed interviewer is being hospitable, not lowering the bar. The "beer test" is still a test.
After
Rule seven — The close
Do
Send a short, specific thank-you within 24 hours: one detail from the conversation, one line of continued interest.
Three sentences. Specific beats long. It keeps your name in the room while the committee compares notes.
Don't
Start negotiating before the offer letter exists.
Sequencing is everything: win the offer first, then negotiate from strength, ideally with someone who knows what the firm paid the last three laterals. That's us.