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Is it okay to just say you're interviewing with other firms in the area? I felt I was put in a weird place being specific about other firms. Anyone have any input on this?

you can either say you're not comfortable disclosing that information
OR share a few peer firms in the same market.

Just rattle off a couple of local peer firms that you had at least a screener with. This is a veiled question about ties and wanting to make sure you're serious about working in that market instead of NYC/someplace else.

Yeah I think this question can only hurt you, but it's pretty easy. Just don't list firms that are way different from the narrative you're telling the firm. If you're saying all you want is M&A, don't say your other interviews are with Quinn and Paul Weiss.* If you're saying "all I want is Atlanta" don't say you're interviewing with Cravath, etc.

*Yes PW has a pretty decent corp. department but the point is to strengthen the narrative and obviously PW is better known for lit.

bdubs wrote:Just rattle off a couple of local peer firms that you had at least a screener with. This is a veiled question about ties and wanting to make sure you're serious about working in that market instead of NYC/someplace else.

This.

And don't list firms in other cities.

When I ask candidates that, I'm just curious if they've met some of my friends at other firms. I wouldn't worry about it too much. Just tell the truth, or listen to the advice above and make shit up. The only thing it could affect is the offer timeline-- a lot of times if the firm knows you have lots of competitor interviews lined up (and the possibility of other equally good offers) they'll accelerate the timeline and offer sooner.

Jchance wrote:you can either say you're not comfortable disclosing that information.

Don't say this.

bdubs wrote:Just rattle off a couple of local peer firms that you had at least a screener with. This is a veiled question about ties and wanting to make sure you're serious about working in that market instead of NYC/someplace else.

The peer firm element is worth stressing too. If you're CBing at Kaye Scholer, mentioning that you're also CBing at the entire V10 is probably a good way to ensure they don't bother extending an offer so they can focus on more "realistic candidates," for lack of a better term, before they're all taken.

Jchance wrote:you can either say you're not comfortable disclosing that information

This would make you seem like a complete weirdo.

I feel like this question hurt me a few times at OCI. A partner at a pretty small satellite office of a big NY firm grilled me a bit about why I was interviewing with the local biglaw powerhouses with bigger class sizes. Tbf, this is after I talked about how I liked the idea of a smaller office/class size during the interview.

So yeah, just stick to a few peer firms and you should hopefully be OK. Just make sure they are actually peer firms.

A lot of the times I was asked this the lawyers used it to give me their impressions of the other firms. Sometimes I learned some first-hand, hard-to-find info about some other firms, though you have to take it with a grain of salt. In one case, the firm added an interview to my CB with an associate who had just left another firm I had interviewed with. She told me why she left and how her new firm differed. It was one of the more helpful things I saw a firm do at a CB.