Most of the interview advice going around law schools is third-hand. Somebody heard it from a 3L who heard it from somebody else. This is what I've picked up from people who actually sit on the other side of the table, including multiple hiring committee members at Vault 10 firms, at both the associate and the partner level, who walked me through what they pay attention to.
Categories to think about going in
There's no universal rubric here. Nobody is simply checking boxes and adding up points, and every firm handles interviews differently.
Still, the same themes kept coming up when I asked. Partners and hiring committee members returned to these six, and what feels like small talk is often somebody getting a read on one of them.
Knowing them changes how you prep. It gives you a sense of what your stories might need to show.
Intellectual curiosity
The question is whether you found ways to go above and beyond what your school required you to do to graduate. Anybody can finish the curriculum. They're looking for the person who chased something down because it was interesting. A journal, a clinic, an RA position, an independent study, some niche corner of the law you read about on your own time.
If that's you, say it plainly and say why it grabbed you. If your record is thinner there, candidly, the fix is just specificity. Pick a case or a deal or a regulatory fight you followed closely and explain what you found interesting about it. Interest you can actually talk about beats a resume line you can't.
Sociability
This one carries way more weight than students expect, and I think it's the most common quiet rejection out there.
What they're really asking is whether they can put you in front of a client. Can you hold a conversation in a normal setting? Do you seem comfortable? Are you stiff?
Two things sink good candidates here. The first is answering the bare minimum. Somebody asks you a question, you answer it in one sentence, and you stop. Technically you answered. But now the person across from you has to go generate another question by themselves, and that gets old fast.
The second is treating every question like an obstacle. Show some interest in what's been asked and give the interviewer something to work with. You don't have to perform cheerfulness; you do need to help it feel like a conversation instead of a deposition.
Conscientiousness
Whether you follow through, and whether details survive contact with you. It shows up in small ways all through recruiting. Did you know the firm's practice mix? Did you send the writing sample you said you'd send? Did you spell your interviewer's name right? Big Law runs on people who close loops without getting chased, and they're reading you for that from the first email.
Maturity
Mostly judged by how you talk about other people and about things that didn't go your way. If you blame a bad grade on a professor, or you're dismissive about a former employer, you've handed them an easy note to write. That same story told with some ownership and no drama reads like somebody who'll be steady when a deal falls apart at eleven at night.
Work ethic
Everybody claims this one, so the claim itself is worth basically nothing. What lands is evidence, ideally from before law school. A job you worked while carrying a full course load. A season of something demanding. A project you stuck with long after it stopped being fun. The more ordinary and checkable it is, the better it works.
Judgment
How you think when the answer isn't clean. Sometimes they'll probe it directly with a situation that has no obvious right move. More often they're inferring it from how carefully you talk about confidential work, how you handle a question you can't answer, and whether you can say you don't know without falling apart.
Know your resume inside and out!
With a few exceptions, firms stick to what's on your resume.
So every line on that page is a question you've agreed to answer. If you list a language, somebody might switch into it. If you list a journal note, be ready to explain your argument to a partner who doesn't practice in that area. If you list an interest, expect to get asked about it, and expect that answer to count just as much as the substantive ones, because that's usually where sociability gets measured.
So work backwards. Read your own resume like a stranger and write down every question it invites. Get a real answer ready for each one. Then cut anything you can't talk about with genuine interest for two minutes.
The occasional curveball
A few firms go off script on purpose. Susman is the classic one. Their interviewers will ask trick questions, or something that comes out of nowhere, like what your favorite cultural depiction of litigation in media is.
The answer matters a lot less than what they're watching while you come up with it.
They want to see if you can think without a script, if you have a personality, and honestly, if you enjoy the game enough to play it. The way to lose is to freeze or give a safe non-answer. Pick something, commit to it, and say why. A candidate who names a specific movie and defends it in one good sentence passed. A candidate who says they don't really watch much didn't.
How to prep
- Build three or four stories that each speak to more than one of these. A demanding job you held through finals covers work ethic and maturity at the same time.
- Practice out loud with somebody who'll tell you when you sound stiff. Reading your answers silently won't surface it.
- Research the firm past the homepage. Know two or three matters they're known for and be able to say why that work interests you.
- Bring questions only that firm could answer. Anything you could ask any firm tells them you're running a script.
- Have a two minute version and a thirty second version of why law, why this firm, why this city.
What sinks people
- One sentence answers that leave the interviewer doing all the work.
- Resume lines you can't talk about.
- Speaking poorly about a professor, a classmate, or a former employer.
- Treating the interview like an interrogation to survive instead of a conversation.
- Asking nothing at the end, or asking something the firm's website already answers.
None of this is a script, and I'd be careful with anyone who hands you one. Firms run their own processes and interviewers vary a lot. But if you have a sense of what tends to matter, you can walk in with the evidence ready, and that's most of the work.
This guide comes out of private conversations with attorneys who serve on hiring committees, plus my own experience recruiting for and practicing at these firms. It isn't affiliated with, endorsed by, or put together in coordination with any law firm.
