Inside the Process

The Interview Prep Packet

Before you walk into a room, you should know who is in it. Every Mosaic candidate gets a written briefing on the specific people they are about to meet.

By Bryson Malcolm, Founder & CEO of Mosaic Search Partners · August 2026

Most candidates walk into a lateral interview knowing the firm's website and not much else. That has always struck us as backwards. You are not interviewing with a firm. You are interviewing with five specific people who have their own practices, their own histories, and their own reasons for being in that room. So before every round, we write you a packet about them.

These are real documents we build for real searches, and they run anywhere from nine to fifteen pages depending on how many people you are meeting. Below is the structure, with an illustrative example so you can see the shape of it. The firm and everyone in it are invented. The actual contents of a real packet stay between us and our candidate, which is the whole point of them.

See what a packet looks like Eight pages. Illustrative example using a fictional firm. View sampleHide sample

Illustrative example · fictional firm

Smirkland & Pallas LLP does not exist, and neither do the lawyers in it. The layout, sections, and level of detail are taken from real packets. The substance of a real packet is confidential to the candidate.

Interview Preparation

by Mosaic Search Partners

Round 1 · Smirkland & Pallas · Fund Formation

Smirkland & Pallas

Briefing for your screener next Tuesday. Thirty minutes on Zoom with the partner who runs the firm's fund formation practice out of . This is a strong match on paper. Honestly, the person you're meeting is the person who would shape your work.

CandidateA. Candidate

DateTuesday, Sept 8, 2026

Time1:30 PM ET

FormatZoom (video)

Join link

Role: Fund Formation Associate · New York · 3 to 6 years

Prepared by Bryson Malcolm · Mosaic Search Partners · Strictly Confidential

Contents and Logistics

I.R. Partner and Head of Fund Formationp. 3

II.The practiceWhat the group doesp. 5

III.Who runs the groupThe power players and the benchp. 6

IV.The New York officeWhere you are in forp. 7

V.Smirkland & PallasThe firm and where it sitsp. 8

Schedule

1:30 PM ET R. Partner, Head of Fund Formation · Zoom

Prep at a Glance

The setup. He is head of the fund formation practice firmwide, based in . He came out of , and his practice is . He deals with on a regular basis.

What I think he'll be listening for. One, whether you actually like this work as a career, since this group is first. Two, real reps. Three, comfort with the current wave of work, which is heavily .

Worth knowing before you dial in.

Mosaic Search PartnersConfidentialPage 2 of 8

I. R. | 1:30 PM ET

Partner · Fund Formation · New York

Head of the firm's fund formation practice

Firm bio · LinkedIn

He leads the firm's fund formation practice. He represents and their sponsors across matters. He spent time at before private practice, which is why side of his book runs so deep.

Practice

Agencies and counterparties he lives in front of:

Recent themes per the firm bio:

What Chambers and clients say

Representative work

Background

JD: Undergrad:

Mosaic Search PartnersConfidentialPage 3 of 8

II. The Fund Formation Practice

This is the group you would be joining, and he runs it. Here's what I think matters about how it's built.

The two decade Chambers run

Chambers Global:

Legal 500 US:

Who the group serves

The focus areas inside the group

What the work actually looks like

Mosaic Search PartnersConfidentialPage 5 of 8

III. Who Runs the Group

The firm's own directory returns professionals in this practice, and the posting describes it as more than lawyers. Either way, a real group with depth, small enough that you would know everyone. Here is who carries it.

R. · Partner · head of the practice

The person you are meeting is the person who runs the group.

A. · Partner · New York

Pay attention to this one. He runs the transactional side and he sits in your office.

D. · Partner

The longest-running Chambers name on the compliance side.

R. · Of Counsel

The institutional memory.

A. · Partner

The most useful one for you to look at, because she is closest to your seniority.

Mosaic Search PartnersConfidentialPage 6 of 8

IV. The New York Office

You are in for New York. The listing went out for two offices because the group staffs across both, but your submission is to New York and that is the seat we are talking about.

New York

Address:

Size: roughly attorneys, one of the largest offices in the network.

Why New York holds up for this practice

A senior partner already runs the transactional side out of that office, so you would have leadership down the hall.

Mosaic Search PartnersConfidentialPage 7 of 8

V. Smirkland & Pallas

The firm runs over attorneys across offices. The bench breaks down as roughly . Revenue and profits per equity partner: .

The structural change worth knowing about

This is fresh enough that it is a genuinely good question to ask him.

Compensation. The posting lists . For context, the market scale moved to .

Where the firm is strongest

Culture and identity

Mosaic Search PartnersConfidentialPage 8 of 8

Redacted here, not in yours. The blacked-out passages are where the actual intelligence sits, and it is different for every candidate and every firm.

What is in it, section by section

The packet is built around the people first and the institution second, because that is the order in which they will matter to you.

Prep at a glance

The front page is the version you reread in the ten minutes before the call. The setup, what I think each person will be listening for, and the one or two things worth knowing before you dial in.

Logistics that actually work

Date, time in your time zone and theirs, format, the live join link, dial-in numbers, and for in-person rounds the address plus what to tell the person at the security desk. Small things, but they are the ones that go wrong.

A section on every single interviewer

One section per person, in the order you will meet them. Their practice, their career arc, representative matters, recognition, where they sit in the group's hierarchy, and what we would ask them. For a full round with five or six interviewers, this is most of the document.

The practice group

What the group actually does day to day, who it serves, the focus areas inside it, and the ranking history behind the reputation. This is where you find out whether the work is what the job posting implied.

Who runs the group

The power players and the bench beneath them, with a read on each one. Who holds the rankings, who controls the transactional side, who the institutional memory is, and which partner sits closest to your seniority, because that person's career is the one your seat is built to produce.

The office you would actually sit in

Size, address, where this practice ranks among that office's core groups, and whether the seat makes sense there on its own terms or is being staffed remotely from another city.

The firm

Headcount and structure, revenue and profits per partner, partnership tier changes, where the firm is genuinely strongest, the published compensation range for your role against the current market scale, and what the culture actually rewards.

Every round gets its own

The first-round packet does the heavy lifting on the firm and the practice. The second-round packet assumes you already have that and goes deep on the new people, with a short update on anything that has changed at the firm since we last talked. By a final round you have a small file on the group, which is roughly the position their own associates are in.

Why we do it this way

Two reasons. The first is obvious: you interview better when you know who you are talking to, and the difference shows up immediately in how specific your questions are. The second matters more. Reading a packet like this is how you figure out whether you actually want the job. A lot of candidates decide to pass after seeing a group laid out plainly, and we would much rather you learn that before an offer than eighteen months after you accept one.

Want to see one built for you?

If you are weighing a move, we can start with a confidential conversation about where you actually stand.

Talk with us