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20 interview questions the top law firms are asking

Kym Freedman

Campus Recruitment Lead at Susquehanna International Group, LLP (SIG)
In the lead-up to clerkship recruiting season, we reviewed the common questions that law graduates are asked when interviewing at top law firms.

The questions were collected during the 2015 GradAustralia Graduate Satisfaction Survey, where law graduates at top firms tell us about their work as well as the selection and interview process they went through to land the job.


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Here are 20 common questions that you need to be prepared for:

  1. Why do you want to practice law?
     
  2. Tell us about a time you exhibited independence in your work?
     
  3. Why did you choose to study [insert subject]?
     
  4. What was your favourite subject?
     
  5. Why are you interested in the work that our firm does?
     
  6. How is our firm distinguished from others?
     
  7. What current news issues are you following?
     
  8. What can you bring to the firm?
     
  9. Why did you leave your previous job?
     
  10. What do you like to do in your spare time?
     
  11. What three words would sum you up?
     
  12. What brought you to law as opposed to commerce or elsewhere?
     
  13. Who is a role model in your life?
     
  14. What do you hope to get out of a clerkship at our firm?
     
  15. What if my morals conflicted with work I was asked to do?
     
  16. What stands out to you about this firm?
     
  17. What are your best three and worst three qualities?
     
  18. Why do you want to work at this firm over another firms? Have you applied to other firms?
     
  19. Describe a time when you came up with an innovative solution to a problem
     
  20. What are the cases that our firm worked on that you find particularly interesting?

Make sure you have a thorough understanding of the firm you're interviewing with, and be prepared to justify your choices. For more interview questions by firm, visit the “Graduate Job Reviews” tab of that a law firm’s profile.