Questions to Ask a Paralegal in an Interview
Interview questions for hiring a paralegal, aimed at deadline discipline, drafting, document review, client contact, and the line they are not permitted to cross. Written for attorneys, office managers, and legal recruiters.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Tell me about the caseload you carry right now. How many matters, and what kind?
Why ask it
Opens with something they can answer without preparation, and gives you a number to test later answers against. Someone who cannot roughly count their own matters is not tracking them.
Which case management and e-filing systems have you used?
Why ask it
Ask which they learned on their own, because that separates people who adapt from people who were trained once. Court e-filing portals differ enough that naming yours is a real advantage.
Walk me through how you would keep track of deadlines across a dozen matters.
Why ask it
Look for redundancy: a docket entry plus a calendar plus a reminder before the true date. Answers that rest on one system, or on remembering, are how malpractice claims start.
How do you check your own work before it reaches an attorney?
Why ask it
Strong candidates describe a specific pass, reading citations against the source, checking exhibit numbers last, printing it. Attention to detail as a self description means nothing on its own.
Tell me about a deadline you nearly missed. What happened?
Why ask it
Everyone has one, so a claim otherwise is either inexperience or evasion. The tell is whether they describe fixing the process afterwards or just the crisis.
A client calls and asks whether they should accept a settlement offer. What do you say?
Why ask it
The one question in the set with a right answer. They must decline to advise and route it to the attorney, warmly but without hedging. Anything else is a hiring risk, not a training gap.
Describe a time you found an error in an attorney's document. How did you raise it?
Why ask it
You are testing whether they will speak up to someone senior. Listen for the mechanics: privately, in writing, with the correction already drafted.
Walk me through drafting a document you had never done before.
Why ask it
Good answers start with finding a precedent in the firm's files and reading the rule, not with searching the internet. Note whether they thought to ask what the document was for.
Two partners both need something by five. What do you do?
Why ask it
The answer should involve telling both of them early rather than choosing quietly and hoping. Candidates who say they would stay late are volunteering to absorb a problem instead of surfacing it.
How do you decide what to escalate and what to solve yourself?
Why ask it
You want a line they can articulate, anything that changes cost, strategy, or a deadline goes up. Escalating everything and escalating nothing are equally expensive to supervise.
Tell me about the most document heavy review you have worked on. How did you organize it?
Why ask it
Volume alone is not the point. Listen for coding decisions, privilege calls handed upward, and how they kept two reviewers consistent with each other.
What does trial preparation look like when you are running it?
Why ask it
Experienced candidates talk in artefacts: witness binders, exhibit lists, a cut list, who carries what into the courtroom. Vague answers usually mean they assisted rather than owned it.
How would you handle a request from an attorney that will take twice as long as they think?
Why ask it
Similar to the competing deadlines question but aimed at estimating. The good version includes giving a number and offering a smaller version that fits the time available.
How do you keep a file in a state where someone else could take it over tomorrow?
Why ask it
Directly relevant to holidays, illness and turnover. Candidates who describe naming conventions and a current status note are describing the thing that saves your firm money.
Tell me about a time you disagreed with how a supervising attorney wanted something done.
Why ask it
Tests judgment and deference at once. Best answers show they raised it, were overruled, and executed properly anyway without relitigating it.
How do you record your time, and what do you do with work you cannot bill?
Why ask it
Contemporaneous entries versus reconstructing Friday afternoon is a real difference in realization rates. Willingness to flag unbillable work rather than bury it says a lot about honesty.
Where do you look when you need a court's local rules or a judge's standing order?
Why ask it
A specific answer, the court's own site, the chambers page, a colleague who practices there, shows someone who has been burned once and learned. This is where filings get rejected.
How do you handle it when a client is upset with you on the phone?
Why ask it
Client contact is a large part of many paralegal jobs and rarely tested in interviews. Listen for de-escalation and for knowing when to hand the call to the attorney.
What part of paralegal work do you least enjoy?
Why ask it
Someone with no answer is managing you rather than talking to you. Whatever they name, check that it is not the largest part of the job you are hiring for.
What do you want to know about how we work here?
Why ask it
Their questions tell you what they have been burned by before: unclear supervision, unpaid overtime, no support during trial. Take the pattern seriously, and answer honestly.
Interviewing paralegal candidates
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Test the work, not the resume
- Hand them a two page document with planted errors, a wrong exhibit reference, a broken citation, a date that contradicts the caption, and give them ten minutes with a pen. This predicts performance better than any answer about attention to detail.
- Ask them to talk you through your own e-filing portal or case management system on screen. Familiarity is obvious within a minute.
- Give a short scenario with a real deadline calculation in your jurisdiction and let them ask you clarifying questions. What they ask matters as much as the number they reach.
- Use the same core questions for every candidate so you are comparing answers rather than impressions.
Things worth verifying
- Confirm any certification directly with the issuing body rather than accepting a line on the resume.
- Reference check with the attorneys they supported, not only the office manager. Ask specifically whether they would staff a trial with this person again.
- Be clear in the interview about overtime classification, expected hours during trial or closing periods, and who supervises them day to day. Surprises here cause first year departures.
- If the role involves client contact, say so plainly and describe how much. Candidates who dislike it will often tell you if given the opening.
Signals to weigh carefully
- Willingness to answer a client's legal question, even helpfully, is disqualifying rather than correctable. It exposes the firm.
- Describing every past supervisor as difficult usually predicts the same account of you.
- No system for deadlines beyond a personal memory or a single calendar with no backup.
- Discomfort naming any part of the work they dislike, which usually means rehearsed answers throughout.
What candidates are weighing on their side
- Whether they will be one attorney's paralegal or shared among several with no arbiter. Say which, honestly.
- Whether their time is billable and what realization target sits behind it.
- Whether the firm funds continuing education and association dues, and whether it pays anything for certification.
- What advancement looks like when the next title up may not exist. If the ceiling is real, say so rather than implying otherwise.