How to approach firms with multiple practice areas? Forum

[jcg]

0L and that may be reflected by my question.

When applying to firms that have a lot of areas of practice, do you emphasize what areas you are interested in? If a firm has 3 people that practice real estate law and 20 that practice corporate law, would you emphasize either based on the amount of lawyers practicing in that area if you're interested in both?

And please don't tell me to retake lol

Thank you for your opinions!

[dixiecupdrinking]

Short answer: Worry about this later.

Longer answer: If you're going to a big firm, nobody expects you to know what you want to do. You can usually explore a few different practice areas as a summer associate. It's a bonus to be able to give an educated reason for why you want to do a particular kind of practice, but the bar is generally pretty low; they know you haven't been a lawyer before and won't know what a lot of the work is like until you do it. The thing you definitely don't want to do is express a narrow interest in an area where they don't have a lot of attorneys.

[mephistopheles]

im a 1l and got my job by really gunning for a practice group that they specialize in at the office i'll be working at.

it's worth the time reading up on what goes on in a group that you want, and when looking for that SA keep in mind that they'll probably only take SAs in areas that they focus in.

[drmguy]

In my experience, I felt like a few interviewers were trying to trick me into saying I want to do something they don't do. My worst experience was when an interviewer told me that they don't really do transactional when they were split 50/50 on their NALP form. As for your concern, I approached every firm with an open mind. I'm not entirely sure what I want to do yet. They were fine with that. Just don't use that sort of answer when the firm only does one practice area.

[Drake014]

In my experience, I felt like a few interviewers were trying to trick me into saying I want to do something they don't do. My worst experience was when an interviewer told me that they don't really do transactional when they were split 50/50 on their NALP form. As for your concern, I approached every firm with an open mind. I'm not entirely sure what I want to do yet. They were fine with that. Just don't use that sort of answer when the firm only does one practice area.

Unfortunately, sometimes the NALP forms aren't up to date and, more often, sometimes the interviewer is not fully aware of his/her firm's practice areas (I've had this several times).