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I interviewed with a firm last week and yesterday evening the recruiting person at the firm emailed me asking for a writing sample.

Two questions:

1) how long should the writing sample be? I’ve previously worked with recruiters that said a one to two page client alert may be enough. I ask because I’m not in a practice area that has many memos/long writing assignments, so coming up with a writing sample last minute may be difficult. I don’t think they’d want to see my 3-4 year old law school writing samples. I have an okay writing sample from my last job, but idk if it’s good enough.

2) is this a good sign or is this just one of those things that some law firms like/need to have on file for all applicants?

A partner from a big firm told me that no one reads writing samples lol. They just want it for the file. But I feel a writing sample should be under 10 pages. Perhaps a memorandum or brief that you wrote should be good enough.

Anonymous User wrote:A partner from a big firm told me that no one reads writing samples lol. They just want it for the file. But I feel a writing sample should be under 10 pages. Perhaps a memorandum or brief that you wrote should be good enough.

Perhaps this differs by company/firm but at my interviews, my interviewers made comments about my sample on more than one occasion. As to OP, I'm sure that they do this for every candidate. Your last one should suffice, but if I were you, I would do a read-over and check for grammar/syntax and anything else you could change last minute. Doesn't hurt. Best of luck to you, OP!

I always sent 2 or 3 page memos meant for clients but I never interviewed for litigation positions.

Thank you for your responses.

I want to clarify:

1) I’m not a litigation associate.

2) I already had my callback last Thursday.

Not sure if that changes anything.

I sent one that was 2 pages before and no one seemed to care. I think firms just want to have it on file for some reason. Not sure what it is, though.

It is strange that a firm would ask for it after the interview since that wouldn’t even give the interviewers a chance to review it.

Did the interviewers request a writing sample at your interview? This has happened to me a few times. I got 0 offers those times, so maybe in those instances, they heavily scrutinize a writing sample.