Offer is yours to lose. Interviews are longer and attorneys are less likely to have prepared for your interview by reviewing your resume, so make sure you have lots of questions at the ready beforehand (or ask follow up questions to their answers to your questions).Anonymous User wrote:Asking 3Ls
Any tips on CB interviews?
What kind of Qs are good to ask during CBs?
It's really all about fit -- you've passed all academic hurdles and there's a rebuttable presumption that you are intelligent enough to do the work. Make people like you. Don't ever intentionally move an interview along if you're spending the first 20 minutes talking about football.
Do you have answers you've found are pretty strong (or that you're most comfortable asking)? Most of you do by this point. Find a way to talk about them. For example if your why trans answer is awesome, a "why our firm" answer can be ended with a "and I'm very interested in transactional work, which your firm is very strong at because it does the largest and most complex cases such as [recent deals]." The interviewer will typically follow up with "why transactional?" Another way to do this is when asking questions. For example, you think your best answer is "why our firm?"-- at the end of the interview you can say something like "One thing I'm really looking for in a firm is [an in-depth litigation training program for young associates] because [example from your past where training programs were valuable for you]; which is one of the many reasons I'm very in your firm. Can you tell me more about [facet of the training program such as how associates are matched with attorneys within the program]?" This way you fit in a "why firm" answer into your question, showed you did research on the firm and really care about it, and as an added bonus you burn time by having a long-winded question. If you take this approach, make sure to go faster if the attorney seems impatient -- in my experience they usually eat it up.
One interviewer hating you can sink you - make sure you don't screw it up. If you get someone who seems like an ass and you just don't click with, I've found that asking them questions about themselves is a good way to survive. Attorneys love to talk about themselves.
Don't get overly friendly with jr associates at the lunches and say something stupid. It's true that they're probably more willing to discuss the negatives of the firm with you, but you can always ask those questions post-offer, pre-acceptance. If you HAVE to ask something like that, ask nicely (for example, say "how do you balance personal life and work" instead of "how can you survive billing 2400 hours?")
All I can think of right now. Happy to answer more specific questions.
