How to Prepare for a Legal Interview
Securing a legal job can be a daunting task. With schools producing new paralegals and attorneys at a greater rate than ever before, legal jobs are highly competitive. In considering whether to hire a particular person, legal employers tend to weight three factors: the time required to train the person, whether the person is competent or can become competent in the area of law the employer practices, and whether the person will leave shortly after being trained or for the first higher paying position offered elsewhere.
Instructions
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Dress professionally. Woman should avoid wearing short skirts, low necklines or tops that fit too tightly. Men should avoid wearing short sleeve shirts, instead interviewing with a suit and tie.
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Research the employer to be able to provide specific reasons as to why you want to work for that specific employer. Many legal job applicants simply apply to every law firm they can possibly find, assuming that eventually a job offer will be extended to them. By telling the potential employer why you want to work for them, it tells the interviewer that you are informed and also greatly enhances the sincerity of your answers to the interview questions.
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3
Bring multiple copies of your resume, any letters of recommendation and other required documents. Legal employers often use a panel to conduct interviews. One or more of the panel members may not have a copy of your paperwork. Bringing multiple copies of your employment information will ensure that each panel member will be able to personally review your information, as opposed to quickly glancing at the paperwork and passing it to the next panel member.
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Prepare a presentation as to why you want to work in this particular area of law. For example, if the area of law focuses on environmental issues or serves a disadvantaged segment of the population, be sure to state why those issues are important to you and that working for this particular employer would give you personal satisfaction.
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Convey a desire to seek a long-term position. Legal employers typically decline employment offers to those applicants the employer believes will leave after a short period of time. This is because it takes time to properly train the new employee of the employer's particular office practices and, in some cases, to teach the new employee the specifics of the type of law the employer handles. The employer is also aware that employees may attempt to take the employer's business away from the employer once the employee terminates the employment relationship. It is therefore important to specifically state that you are interested in building a long-term employment relationship.
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Familiarize yourself with the practice area of the employer. Some legal employers pose hypotheticals to applicants to determine how the applicant responds. Employers typically are not concerned with whether the applicant reaches the correct conclusion, but rather how the applicant reaches the conclusion given. Because the possibility of being presented with a hypothetical exists, it would be wise to at least become familiar with the area of the law on which the employer focuses. It tells the employer that the applicant is interested in the particular area of law and at least has a general understanding of the issues that type of law encompasses.
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