There are multiple stages to the on-campus interview process. You will start with a screener during on campus interview week. I described OCI in greater detail in an earlier post, check it out! Basically, during on campus interview week, large corporate firms interview law students from a particular school for slots in the firms' summer associate programs. I want to note that for some of the lower ranked schools, you will need to apply to the big firms directly through the firms' websites. By April of your 1L, be sure to ask your career center if the large firms interview at your school or if you should apply online so that you have plenty of time to get your materials in.
Pre-pandemic, screeners occurred in schools' law libraries or in a block of hotel rooms. For the last couple of years, on campus interviews have been virtual using platforms such as FloRecruit. Students snag screener interviews through their transcript/resume submissions or depending on their law school, through a lottery system. Screeners last about twenty minutes and are designed to acquaint the interviewee with the firm. In a screener, you can expect the basic interview questions such as, “Tell me about yourself,” “Why do you want to work at this firm?” “What do you like to do in your free time?” If the screener goes well, you will be invited back to the firm for what is referred to as a callback interview. Again, pre-COVID, callbacks occurred at the firms' offices but like screeners, they have been conducted virtually for the last couple of years.
Assuming the callback goes well, you will receive an offer from the firm to participate in their summer associate program. If you are lucky, you will receive multiple offers from various firms and will need to figure out which firm will be the best fit. What a great problem to have! To aid in this decision, some firms offer what are referred to as second look interviews. The vibe of a second look interview is very different from the screener and callback because you are now in the driver’s seat. For a second look, you have an offer from that firm and are trying to decide whether you would want to work there for the summer of your 2L and probably for the first few years after you graduate law school. While you still need to be professional, you can be a bit more probative in your questions about life at that firm. I have listed some questions below to help “suss out” a firm's potential red flags. You can ask a version of each of these in your screeners too but in a second look, you are freer to (politely) follow up if you feel like your concerns have not been addressed.
· How does the firm staff its matters? I think this is the most important question to ask as a future junior associate. As I am sure you have heard, law school teaches you how to think critically but is not a big help in terms of daily practical legal skills. When you first start out, you will need a lot of support from your team. I will use corporate transactional terms here because that is my area of expertise but this guidance is applicable to litigation associates as well. You want to make sure that on large deals, the junior associate will have at least a mid-level and/or senior associate between them and the partner. For example, on an IPO, it is typical to have 1-2 junior associates, a mid-level and a senior associate. Often, the partner is at least ten years removed from a junior associate and has forgotten what juniors do not know or will need help with. Other times, partners expect the associates to handle most of the deal and take only a supervisory role. At your second look, ask how deals are staffed and make sure the attorney describes large deals as robustly staffed. Of course, for smaller matters, having both a senior associate and mid-level is not always necessary. For the larger deals though, if the attorney cannot give you a straight answer, i.e. says things like “It really depends on who is available” or “You will have the ability to get some real hands-on experience even as a junior and work with partners directly,” you should read between the lines to deduce what your experience will be like there. Of course, no advice is perfectly tailored to every partner or every junior associate but in my view, most junior associates prefer to work on a team they consider unnecessarily large than one that is too lean, especially given the hours associates at large firms typically work. Don't stress too much though, if you end up having buyer's remorse about your firm choice, you can always lateral later.
· Why did the associate choose this firm? When I asked this question, I listened for indications that the interviewing associate had other choices and accepted a position in this firm’s summer associate class because they wanted to, not because they felt like they had to. This question is not a deal breaker because sometimes firms withhold offers for reasons that have very little to do with a candidate. A positive response to this inquiry could just provide extra assurance that this firm will be a good place to start your legal career.
· How much freedom do associates have to choose the matters they work on? This question is also not a deal breaker because at a lot of the big firms, you tend to work for one senior partner and their team of junior partners and associates. However, if having a lot of freedom to choose your own assignments and workload matters to you, you should gravitate towards firms with more of a free market staffing system.
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