How do you research firms for callbacks? Forum

[bradley]

Everybody always says to research, research, research. How do you do this and what are you looking for?

[AmicusCuriae]

Vault, Chambers, google generally. Know their key/top practice areas (chambers is helpful for this), rough idea of where their offices are (heavy east or west coast? International? Only London?). If your firm provides a list of interviewers in advance, know what group the interviewer is in and where they went to school. Has the firm been in on any really high profile cases lately (google)?

[chipmunk]

I agree with the above poster. The goal of research is to be able to ask educated questions in the interview and give good responses to questions about why you want to work there. The firm's website, Vault, and Chambers should be enough to get you there. Anything else is overkill.

[AmicusCuriae]

I think another important thing to know is what practice groups are prevalent/active in the office in which you are interviewing. If the firm doesn't do litigation/tax/antitrust/employment, etc. out of the office you're interviewing for, you might want to know that. Use their website and see what the bulk of the attorneys in the office practice.

[NewHere]

Look at their website and/or news stories/Vault/Chambers long enough that you can
(1) Answer the question "Why do you want to work for us?" and
(2) Come up with two or three questions about the firm.

If the firm gives you a list of interviewers, it's also a good idea to look at their firm profiles, so you have a general idea of what they are doing and what their background is.

In theory you could come up with questions about the firm even without looking at their website, but it looks better if you can tie your questions to something you do know about the firm or the interviewer, so you come across as well prepared. ("I read that the firm has an X practice. What kind of clients do you typically work for in that field?" "I saw you were involved in Y. Can you tell me more about that?")