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I have an interview with a large insurance company for their in-house summer program. I'm a 2L and I have no idea how to do an in-house interview. How do I pitch myself for in-house? What's the difference between an in-house interview and a biglaw interview? How much do I need to know about the company itself?

It looks like the attorney who emailed me about the interviewer is a corporate law/tax attorney but the program is a 10 week program that places interns in 2 5 week rotations out of 5 or 6 "practice groups," including dispute resolution and corporate transactions. Should I pitch myself as being interested in both corp and lit work? This would be doable, because I am taking classes that could be spun either way.

Also interested in this.

I have an interview w/ a petroleum company this week. Does in-house usually hire from SA class?

Bump. Looking for tips about questions they ask in the interview, what they're looking for (vs what big firms look for)

Anonymous User wrote:Also interested in this.

I have an interview w/ a petroleum company this week. Does in-house usually hire from SA class?

Why don't you ask the petro company dood

rad lulz wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Also interested in this.

I have an interview w/ a petroleum company this week. Does in-house usually hire from SA class?

Why don't you ask the petro company dood

I will, but it's nice to have knowledge of what is common practice before going in.

Do you know anything about insurance? The tripartite relationship? The difference between first party and third party coverage? Policy limits? Burning limits? Reservations of rights? Bad faith?

I did my 2L summer in-house for an insurance company (actually still working there now). In my view the interview was no different from any other interview I had with other firms, except I did get asked some ethical questions, which I thought was sort of weird, but whatever. Know as much as you can about the company and the interviewer, but that's a given in any interview.

As far as permanent hiring goes, my company requires a minimum of 5 years experience. But, once you get those 5 years the company gives preference to those who summered with them. It sucks, but the experience is nice and the people at my office know a ton of people and are helping me in my job search.

My advice: in-house is hard to get into early on in your legal career so having a background in it would be helpful, but if you get another offer to summer for biglaw, take that over in-house and then work your way back in-house if that's what you really want.

LgllyBlnde wrote:I did my 2L summer in-house for an insurance company (actually still working there now). In my view the interview was no different from any other interview I had with other firms, except I did get asked some ethical questions, which I thought was sort of weird, but whatever. Know as much as you can about the company and the interviewer, but that's a given in any interview.

As far as permanent hiring goes, my company requires a minimum of 5 years experience. But, once you get those 5 years the company gives preference to those who summered with them. It sucks, but the experience is nice and the people at my office know a ton of people and are helping me in my job search.

My advice: in-house is hard to get into early on in your legal career so having a background in it would be helpful, but if you get another offer to summer for biglaw, take that over in-house and then work your way back in-house if that's what you really want.

What sort of ethical questions? Also did you find it difficult to find a Biglaw job after summering in house, or did it help? And what sort of info about the company did you find helpful in the interview?

Thanks for posting about your experience. I really appreciate it. (OP)

Company info: The company I work for insures businesses, so I looked up some of the major clients, cases, etc. I lucked out during my interview because a major event occurred and the company I was interviewing with insured the major player, so that was a good conversation starter. Try to find out what the center of the business is, like where most of the legal action comes from, and have a general idea of any ongoing cases or legal issues in that area. Google was helpful and I also just typed the company name into WestlawNext and searched for recent cases.

Ethical questions: Once we got the preliminary stuff out of the way, one of the interviewers asked me about who the client is (i.e. the corporation v. management). I obviously knew the answer, but I just thought it was weird to ask in an interview. After working for a couple months I found out that another summer got himself into some trouble and that this was just standard for the company now. They also asked about reporting anything that I thought was sketchy, but I didn't have to recite the Model Rules or anything.

Biglaw: I'm still working in-house during my last year, still don't have a full time job (aka I'm a 3L freaking out), but my boss knows everyone in the area and got me a couple biglaw interviews coming up in the next couple weeks. I'm extremely happy about this since most biglaw hiring is done at this point in the year. There is the slim chance that the company will make an exception (it has a few times in the past), but I'm not banking on that.

This is OP, posting about my interview for future potential in-house interviewees:

The interview was about 30 minutes long with two attorneys. They asked the basic questions, why in-house, why company, what are your strengths, etc etc. They had no expectation of detailed knowledge of the company. It was very conversational and similar to a biglaw interview. Their attitude seemed a little more relaxed/friendly than a biglaw interview, although this could just be the interviewers I had. Ultimately for future applications I would say don't stress too much about it being different, just have a good, believable pitch for why you would prefer in-house and why you like their company.