Preparing for corporate position interview coming from litigation Forum

[Anonymous User]

I graduated law school in 2015 and have been in lit positions--including clerkships--ever since. I'm thinking of trying to switch to corporate. I feel that it might fit my personality and interests better than lit. I have an interview with a firm coming up for a spot in the general corporate, estate planning, and commercial real estate areas. I'm looking for suggestions on how to prepare for this interview given that I lack a background in these areas. Suggestions for reading material are welcome, both to help prepare for the interview, and to help ensure my feeling that I will like more transactional, business-oriented practices more than lit is correct.

Thanks!

[gregfootball2001]

You have experience and knowledge that the corporate associates don't. You've seen what happens when the corporate stuff goes wrong. Stress that because you've seen what happens on the back end, you'll be valuable working on the front end. For example, they do estate planning - have you seen or worked on litigation involving estate matters? You can always be taught to draft a signature page, but if you have experience spotting the important issues, that's valuable.

[Anonymous User]

You have experience and knowledge that the corporate associates don't. You've seen what happens when the corporate stuff goes wrong. Stress that because you've seen what happens on the back end, you'll be valuable working on the front end. For example, they do estate planning - have you seen or worked on litigation involving estate matters? You can always be taught to draft a signature page, but if you have experience spotting the important issues, that's valuable.

As someone who does transactional, I think this approach is dead wrong, for a few reason.

First, you don’t want to discuss corporate screw ups; that’s only going to put them on the defensive.

Second, just because you’ve litigated a case based on a contract doesn’t mean you know how to draft that contract and the other million little things go into closing a deal. To imply otherwise will come off as belittling what corporate attorneys do.

Third, don’t reduce what a corporate associate does to “draft a signature page.” Yes, you have to do that as a junior, but that’s not the part of the experience you want to focus on, and it’s a minor party in the grand scheme of things.

I think the litigation angle providing a window into corporate is best brought up as an aside, if at all. Instead, focus on why your interests and personality are a good fit for corporate, or why these particular areas of corporate appeal to you. Talk about how you’d enjoy the drafting process, working productively with counterparties, helping build something, getting clients a good experience, etc.

[gregfootball2001]

You have experience and knowledge that the corporate associates don't. You've seen what happens when the corporate stuff goes wrong. Stress that because you've seen what happens on the back end, you'll be valuable working on the front end. For example, they do estate planning - have you seen or worked on litigation involving estate matters? You can always be taught to draft a signature page, but if you have experience spotting the important issues, that's valuable.

As someone who does transactional, I think this approach is dead wrong, for a few reason.

First, you don’t want to discuss corporate screw ups; that’s only going to put them on the defensive.

Second, just because you’ve litigated a case based on a contract doesn’t mean you know how to draft that contract and the other million little things go into closing a deal. To imply otherwise will come off as belittling what corporate attorneys do.

Third, don’t reduce what a corporate associate does to “draft a signature page.” Yes, you have to do that as a junior, but that’s not the part of the experience you want to focus on, and it’s a minor party in the grand scheme of things.

I think the litigation angle providing a window into corporate is best brought up as an aside, if at all. Instead, focus on why your interests and personality are a good fit for corporate, or why these particular areas of corporate appeal to you. Talk about how you’d enjoy the drafting process, working productively with counterparties, helping build something, getting clients a good experience, etc.

The ideas I shared in my post were what helped me go from litigation to transactional (which is what I currently do), so obviously YMMV. Good luck!