Questions to Ask in Law Firm Interview
For the part of the day when the partners hand you to two associates and leave the room. These are aimed at people two to five years in, who will answer candidly about hours, supervision and departures as long as you ask about their own week rather than about the firm. Several of them are designed to check a claim a partner made earlier in the day without putting the associate on the spot.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What have you worked on in the last month?
Why ask it
Gets you the real matter mix rather than the practice group description. It also reveals how junior or senior the work assigned to associates actually is.
How many hours did you bill last year, and how did that compare with the target?
Why ask it
Asking an associate for their own number gets you a real figure where asking a partner gets you the policy. Ask two associates and compare, because the gap between them tells you how evenly work is spread.
How did you end up on the matters you are working on now?
Why ask it
This is the work allocation question asked from the other end. Whatever the firm describes as its staffing system, the way this person actually got their current matters is how the system works in practice.
What does a bad week look like here, and how often is it a bad week?
Why ask it
Every firm has closings and filings that run long. Frequency is what distinguishes an intense stretch from a permanent condition, and interviewers will usually answer honestly if you ask about frequency rather than balance.
How much notice do you get before a weekend disappears?
Why ask it
Everyone works some weekends. What varies is whether you find out on Tuesday or at seven on Friday evening, and that single fact decides how much of a life you can plan around this job.
Who reviewed your work in your first year, and did anyone talk you through the edits?
Why ask it
Redlines returned without comment are the default in many groups. Asking whether a specific person sat down with them tells you whether supervision here means teaching or only correcting.
How many of the people who started when you did are still here?
Why ask it
A number from someone in the class is harder to soften than a firm-wide attrition figure. Discomfort answering is informative in itself, and so is a long pause while they count.
Where did the ones who left go, and did anyone try to keep them?
Why ask it
Moves in-house and to government are normal. Moves to direct competitors, and a firm that made no attempt to retain anyone, point at something the recruiting material will not mention.
Who is good to work for here, and how would I find that out if I could not ask you?
Why ask it
Framed this way it is answerable without anyone being named as difficult. Most associates will tell you how the informal warning system works, which is the thing you actually wanted to know.
When did you first speak to a client on your own, and how did that come about?
Why ask it
A year and a story beat any policy statement about client exposure. If it happened because a partner was on a plane rather than because anyone planned it, that is how client contact works here.
What happens after a weak review, and have you seen someone come back from one?
Why ask it
Every firm has a process on paper. Whether an associate can name someone who had a bad cycle and recovered tells you if a single difficult year here is survivable or terminal.
How much of your year went on non-billable firm work, and did it count for anything?
Why ask it
Recruiting, pitches, knowledge management and client updates can add hundreds of hours. Ask whether any of it appeared in their review, because uncounted non-billable work is the quietest way a target grows.
What did you believe about this place when you interviewed that turned out to be wrong?
Why ask it
Gentler than asking what is wrong with the firm and usually more revealing, because it draws out the specific gap between how the group presents itself and how it runs.
How often do you actually work from home, whatever the policy says?
Why ask it
Written attendance policies and practice diverge in both directions. The associate answer tells you what is normal in this group rather than what was announced to the firm.
How much of your vacation did you take last year, and was any of it interrupted?
Why ask it
Unused vacation is the clearest single measure of workload, and it is a fact rather than an opinion. Ask whether anyone covers, because a group where nobody covers is one where nobody really leaves.
Who do you go to when two partners both need you and neither will move?
Why ask it
The firm may describe a coordinator or a supervising partner. This asks whether that person is actually used, or whether juniors are left to negotiate between two people who outrank them.
What is the one thing you would change about this group?
Why ask it
Ask each associate separately. One answer is a personal preference; the same answer from three people is the group's real problem and the thing you would be joining.
How did you learn the parts of the job nobody teaches: billing, client email, pushing back on a deadline?
Why ask it
These skills decide how the first two years feel and are almost never covered in formal training. Whether they learned from a named person or from being burned once tells you what kind of support exists.
What kind of associate does not do well here?
Why ask it
An honest answer names a real mismatch, such as needing structure in a group that gives none. A claim that everyone thrives means the interviewer is recruiting rather than informing.
If I take this job, what should I do in the first month that you did not?
Why ask it
Turns the associate into an adviser and produces concrete tactics: which partner to introduce yourself to, which system to learn early, which mistake everyone makes. Compare the answers across everyone you meet.
Getting Straight Answers from a Law Firm
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Match the question to the interviewer
Partners answer structural questions
Billable targets, credit allocation, promotion numbers, and group strategy are partner territory. Ask for figures and note whether they have them at hand.
Associates answer the ones that matter
Hours predictability, supervision quality, and who is difficult to work for are only answered candidly by associates, ideally two or three years in and away from partners.
Recruiting staff answer process questions
Timelines, further rounds, and offer mechanics belong here, not in your limited time with the people doing the work.
What to ask when
- Screening round: matter mix, work allocation, next steps. Keep it about the work.
- Callback or second round: supervision, attrition, review process, hours reality. This is where you have enough time for the harder questions.
- Offer stage: compensation detail, bonus structure, parental leave, secondment options. Asking these early reads as premature.
- Ask the same question of two associates. Where the answers differ is where the group is inconsistent.
- If you can get a phone call with a recent leaver, that conversation is worth more than any interview.
Common mistakes
Asking about balance instead of hours
Work-life balance invites a rehearsed answer about flexibility. Asking how much notice you get before a weekend disappears produces something usable.
Asking what the website says
Practice areas, office locations, and headline matters are published. Using interview time on them wastes the chance to ask about supervision and attrition.
Raising compensation in the first round
In most markets junior pay is standardized and public. Asking early looks uninformed rather than commercially minded.
Not asking anything difficult
Candidates who only ask pleasant questions are read as either uninterested or unprepared for the reality of the job. Attrition and hours are expected questions.
Before you accept
Steps
- 1Write down the billable target and exactly what counts toward it, in the firm's own words.
- 2Note the work allocation system and decide honestly whether you will do well in it.
- 3Note the retention figure you were given, and who gave it.
- 4List anything two interviewers described differently and ask about it before deciding.
- 5Confirm in writing anything you were told about start date, group placement, or bonus structure.