Legal Intern Interviews: Tips + Questions to Prepare For

For 2Ls at my law school, on-campus interviewing is quickly approaching in January! For 1Ls, summer internship applications and interviews are beginning to become available. Legal Intern interviews can be stressful, especially if you’ve never worked in anything legal-related before law school. With plenty of practice, you’ll be answering even the tough interview questions with ease! Here’s some interview tips and questions to prepare for.

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Tips

• Reach out to any connections you know who work(ed) or interned at the office you’re interviewing with. If you know any fellow law students or attorneys who have worked at the office you’re interviewing with, this is a great time to reach out to them. They might be able to put in a good word for you or at the least let you know something about the interview process to help you prepare for it.
• Prepare with any available resources at school. My law school has a career services office with counselors who assist students in resume-crafting, interviews, and more. Whenever I feel unprepared for an interview or want to discuss the position, I schedule a meeting with one of the career counselors. They know quite a bit about all of the different places that law students interview at, and can even connect with you students who worked there previously. If your law school has a resource like this, I highly recommend utilizing it.
• Go over your resume, and then go over it again. Go over all aspects of your resume before the interview. Make sure you can discuss any relevant coursework you’ve taken from undergrad and/or law school, and any particularly noteworthy academic or professional accomplishments. You also need to practice discussing your previous work/internship experience, including what your responsibilities were and what you learned.
• Practice behavioral questions, and how to answer them with STAR. This interview tip comes from guest contributor, Bee of “Money and Bee”, a finance blogger! Find her on Instagram by clicking here. The dreaded behavioral questions are intimidating, but easy to recognize. These questions may try to hone in on your leadership skills, assess how you do in team settings, or gauge how you deal with failure or conflict. They usually start with phrases like: “Describe a time when”, “give me an example of”, “tell me about a time”, and “what do you do when”. “STAR” is an acronym that provides the framework for how to respond to a behavioral question: Situation: Set the scene and give the necessary details of your example. Task: What goal were you trying to achieve? Action: Describe the steps you took to address it. Result: Share what outcomes your actions achieved. Some tips I have for answering these questions with STAR are be specific and concise, be prepared with examples from your past experiences in your back pocket, keep the focus on you (use “I” instead of “we”), and relax, be authentic! See some of the behavioral questions below for some practice.
• Do your research on the office. This is another way speaking with any connections you have to work at the office would be helpful. Make sure to do your research on the office you are interviewing at AND the interviewers (if you know who they are ahead of time). Some specific things to definitely note down about the office are practice areas, locations, and recent clients (for firms) and recent projects and responsibilities (for gov/non-profit). I would also run a google search just to read any recent news articles that pop up regarding the office, if there are any.
• Be realistic and honest in your answers. If you’re not very knowledgeable in say, the complexities of energy law, for example, don’t try to convince the interviewers you are. Be honest about your lack of experience in the area and highlight your excitement and willingness to learn (“Although I haven’t worked in Energy Law before, I am very excited to learn more about the intricacies of the field and how it is regulated!”) Legal interns aren’t expected to know everything before they get to the internship, and employers know they will need to teach you! Another area of an interview to be honest in is when discussing your weaknesses in the “what is your greatest weakness” interview question. Don’t give an answer like “I’m too much of a perfectionist and I work too hard.” Be honest with your interviewers. Talk about how you need more practice in some sort of skill and tell them how you are currently working to get better at it. My go-to answer is “I haven’t had a lot of practice in public speaking, so I would say that’s a weakness I can definitely improve on. I’m currently enrolled in Appellate Advocacy (moot court), to work on getting better at it.”
• Dress the part. Definitely dress professionally to your interview. For women, I would say a good outfit consists of slacks or a pencil skirt, a blazer, and a button up shirt or blouse. For shoes, flats or low heels are good. Make sure to dress modestly!
• Get there early. This one is a no-brainer! Make sure to account for travel time, finding parking, finding the office, and then add some time for unanticipated traffic/shenanigans. Show up ten to fifteen minutes early.
• (for remote interviews) Make sure you pick a good location. Take your remote interviews from a place with reliable wifi, like a study room at your law school. Also make sure there won’t be any distractions or noises.
• Print out your application materials. Have your resume, cover letter, and any other relevant documents handy in your briefcase/purse when you head to your interview (or next to your computer if remote). It’s helpful to refresh your memory on the materials you had submitted to the office. Rereading your cover letter may also help you answer the “why do you want to work here” question more easily.
• Make sure to send a thank you email afterwards. Send an email thanking the interviewers(s) promptly after concluding the interview. My favorite template for crafting the email can be found here.

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General interview questions to prepare for:

• Tell us about yourself.
• What do you like to do for fun?
• What did you study in undergrad?
• Why made you decide to go to law school?
• What have been your most favorite and least favorite classes of law school? Why?
• How are you managing the workload of law school? What’s your technique for time management?
• Are you involved in anything at school?
• Can you walk us through your resume/Can you tell us about your time working/interning/volunteering at ___?
• What is your biggest strength/weakness?
• Why do you want to work here?
• What are you hoping to get out of the internship if we choose you?
• (If it’s an interview for a specific type of legal work) What drew you to this particular area of law/What drew you to litigation/transactional work/advisory work?
• If you were given a general memo-style research assignment, how you would go about completing it? Walk us through your steps and what resources you would consult.
• What qualities do you possess that would make you a good intern for our office?
• Do you feel like you work better on your own or in a team setting?
• Is there anything else you want us to know about you?
• Do you have any questions for us?

Behavioral-type interview questions to prepare for:

What’s a behavioral question, you ask? Read about it in my interview tips above.

• Tell us about a time you worked on a team to accomplish something.
• Walk us through a time where you were given a task that was tough to accomplish.
• Tell us about a time you disagreed with someone, and how you handled it.
• Tell us about a time you disagreed with a superior and how you handled it.
• What do you do when there’s a disagreement among team members?
• Tell us about a time where you failed, and what you did after/how you learned from it.
• Give me an example of a time where you took initiative.
• Describe a time where you had to lead others.

Good luck on preparing for interviews! Follow me instagram, earthtojul, for more law school content 🙂