Some firms I'm interviewing with have strong investments and finance practices. I bid on the firms for other practice groups, but the guys interviewing me are investment/ finance/ M&A guys.

Any reading or research I can do in case the conversation goes in that direction? I don't want to seem totally oblivious.

Quick and easy read would be something like The Big Short by Michael Lewis.

Any shortcuts for this? As in not reading a book?

The Big Short is a short, pop-finance book. That's about as short of a cut as you're going to get. But I wouldn't worry about it. Big law interviews are not usually substantive.

If you are going to worry anyway, I suppose you could start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finance. If you look at the right side of of the page, there's a little drop down menu that has the entire hierarchy of Wikipedia articles pertaining to finance. I would focus on "Financial Markets" and "Corporate Finance." If you get through those, "Financial Instruments" and "Banks and Banking" would also probably be good reading.

You can really read the book in an afternoon, literally, start it now and you'll be done by bed time.

OP here. Is it really that good? I'll go get it from the library.

Not if you want a meaningful conversation

I've probably done 40 interviews this EIP and expressed an interest in the same practice areas and not a single person has asked me anything about finance. They don't expect you to know anything. One partner admitted he knew nothing about finance when he started. They teach you what you need to know.

Have an answer for why transactional, but you don't need to know anything more at this stage.

What would be an appropriate answer for "why transactional?", given that most 1L's don't get any exposure to what transactional practice is like?

You like going through lengthy documents and changing numbers and party names?

Does this general common wisdom still apply at the callback stage, or should you be able to demonstrate a bit more of an understanding by then?

This is the third person I've heard who basically said "they didn't teach corporate law during 1L, only litigation, how can a firm expect me to know corporate?" The answer is that if you actually want corporate over litigation, you would have read The Big Short, read the WSJ/FT in school, and have gone to corporate/securities law events as a 1L. You can't just create a valid interest over night because you hated 1L litigation or got an interview with a corp/inv shop. I was asked several times about it on my CBs and even quizzed on current events in their industry at a handful of firms.

Is The Big Short really helpful? Seems like an account of recent events rather than a guide to transactional practice. Is it just for context?

For one, it's a really good book and Michael Lewis explains how the financial industry works to a total novice in the most simplistic way possible (if you want something older, also try "Liar's Poker", which he also wrote).

"Barbarians at the Gate" is also a good read (but this is going to take you more than a day or two).

Sure you can. And rofl @ being "quizzed on current events in their industry."



Nope. I mean more useful than reading Harry Potter the week before your interview, but...

Barbarians at the Gates might be useful, but primarily for your own info. Although you never know - some of the lawyers in that book are still at big NYC firms, which can make for an interesting conversation starter!

In general, a basis for interest and curiosity is enough of a sell for corporate work in NYC. You don't have to be an expert.

One of my favorite moments was asking a Cravath partner who was about 10 years older than god why he picked Corporate. His answer?

"I knew I hated litigation, but I had no idea what corporate was."

Yes, it is a popular book about current events that will teach you a bit about the financial markets. It will not make you an expert in high finance and will certainly not teach you much about transactional law. The request was for something to help show interest in transactional practice, not something to help one conduct s transactional practice.

http://www.khanacademy.org/finance-econ ... -finance?k

~10 minute videos explaining finance concepts in very basic terms. You definitely don't need to watch every one, and he's pretty good about telling you about other videos you might want to watch for context. He does make some mistakes when he's explaining things, but they're usually errors in basic math, and he usually catches them.

Alternately "The Rise and Fall of LTCM (Long Term Capital Management) is great and gives you stuff that partners will know all about.

I had a screener two weeks ago with a market-paying firm in DC that started by them picking an industry signal off my resume and asking me if I'd heard of two recent cases in that industry. I had heard of one and could bluff the other, but my lack of in-depth knowledge on them seemed to hurt me.

So... they asked you about something on your resume?

No, my resume had "I interned with a fishing agency in DC last year" and they asked "could you give us your thoughts on the fishing law case that was handed down last week in California."

From my limited experience (SA) it seems like most corporate associates don't really understand the nitty gritty of finance either. "Interest" in doing corporate/transactional v. litigation can be expressed at a very high level, no need to go try to teach yourself how a synthetic CDO works in one day