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For national/int'l firms that you get a callback from during (fall) OCI, is it a faux pas to mention that you might be interested in 'transferring' to another office at some point down the road? Or are they only interested in keeping you in the office that you will be interviewing for? I'm eying several firms with offices on both coasts and in Europe/Asia with the hopes that I might be able to gain experience in some of their offices either on the other coast or abroad, and I'm wondering if this is something I should mention or just keep to myself.

I've heard different firms have different degrees of independence between their offices, and that some are happy to let you move around a bit to gain broader experience. Lies?

Unless you KNOW that the firm is completely fine with associates transferring to another office (which is hardly to be the case for most firms), keep it to yourself. If something comes up after you get the job that requires you to move, that's when the firm needs to know. The mere fact you may want to switch offices should not be brought up in an interview.

You must be sure that your desire to check out their foreign offices is something the firm really wants. A good indication would be their flexibility in letting you split your summer between their offices in the US and abroad. But I would suggest to find that out before the interview because during the interview they will not tell you the truth. A way to do it is to contact their recruiting staff and ask for contacts of associates who split their summer this way.

Usually, firms have independent financials for each office - meaning one office does not want to spend all the big bucks on training you only to see you go and make money for another office. Also, a lot of practices are very location specific, so again if they waste time training you, they want to make sure you stick around to help them.