Tips to Help Law Students With Callback Interviews

In a previous article I discussed the ins and outs of OCI screener interviews and a little background on the rest of the process. In this article I want to help law students that are gearing up for their callbacks. This article will include some tips and information that I learned during my callback interviews and explain the ins & outs of the callback interview process.

When do firms make callbacks?

In my experience firms will invite you back to the firm for a callback interview through a phone call and a secretary will send you an email. The timing of the call varies depending on the firm and what city your OCI is held in. The largest OCIs are in Washington D.C and New York City. NYC firms typically notify students of callback interviews significantly quicker than Washington D.C firms. Going into OCI a few upper-class law students informed me that some of their D.C firms did not callback until a week or two after their screeners.

That being said my experience with callbacks was that New York was extremely fast, all of my New York callbacks were received within two days. I received a callback from one firm several hours after my screener. Washington D.C on the otherhand was a tad slower but I received all of my callbacks within a week from my D.C screeners.

This is not to say that there is a hard and fast rule that New York is fast and D.C is slow, but that is the general rule.

So You’ve Got a Callback, What Now?

Well your not out of the woods yet, but you are now in serious consideration for summer employment with a law firm. The good news is that the most significant thinning of the herd occurs at the screener level, so if you made it past that you have a solid chance at getting an offer.

My initial idea on callbacks was not answering the calls when the interviewer called. The reason being was that I did not want to be put on the spot for picking an interview time/date until I had a chance to triple-check my schedule. I quickly realized that the interviewers were not scheduling the callbacks, just notifying me that I had a callback and that I would receive a scheduling email from a secretary. Oh quick note, I’m sure that 99.9% of you at this point have a professional voicemail, but just in case go ahead and double-check.

Once you receive a scheduling email try your best to set your callback quickly and get your interview in within a week. Firms make offers as they hold callback interviews so it’s best in this situation to be at the front of the line rather than blinking and having a more limited opportunity at an offer.

Be prepared to offer a couple of different dates, you can try for Fridays but I found that Fridays are poor interview days for most firms because many of the attorneys are out of the office on Fridays.

If you have multiple interviews I STRONGLY advise against scheduling two callbacks in one day. Sometimes it’s unavoidable if you are on a very tight schedule, but it’s nearly impossible to try and maintain the same level of energy throughout two callback interviews.

If you are doing callbacks with multiple firms in a different city try your best to schedule them on back to back days. A callback firm will usually offer to pay for one night in a hotel room and transportation to the area and back home. One firm will not pay for multiple nights in a hotel.

What is a Callback Interview Like?

It’s longggggggggggggggg, it feels like a marathon and I was so thankful when the fourth or fifth interviewer offered me some coffee. A typical callback interview can last between two hours and a half-day. Sometimes the firm will take you out to lunch at the end of the interview.

During one of my callbacks I had coffee with several associates before the rest of my interviews, during another callback I had lunch at a restaurant a the end of the interview and at another one I had an unbelievably awkward lunch with the other callback interviewers and some of the associates at the firm. It was kind of entertaining to see the level of brown nosing at that lunch, I don’t think I have ever witnessed more outwardly obvious brown-nosing.

Needless to say firms are all over the place on the length of interviews and how or whether you will be having coffee/lunch with associates.

Types of Questions?

One thing that is pretty consistent during callback interviews is the types of questions. It really feels like an extended session of screener interviews with associates and partners of the firm. Most of the questions are the same as the ones you faced during the screeners.

One thing you absolutely have to be prepared for is “why this firm?” Not every firm will ask this during the screeners but every firm will ask you this question during callbacks. Your response does not have to be an earth shattering revelation of why that firm is the only one you could possibly see yourself working at, but you should have a few things ready to go about the firm to show that you did your research.

How to Prepare

The vast majority of callback interviews will give you a list of the 4-7 attorneys who will be interviewing you ahead of time. That is not in every case however, one of my girlfriend’s callback interviews did not give out any of the interviewers names ahead of time!

If the firm does release your interviewers names ahead of time the expectation is that you will do something with that information. Check out the firm’s site and look at the attorney’s bio, if there are any notable cases or transactions they have handled it would be a good idea to ask about them during the question session at the end. Every callback interviewer reserved the last five minutes or so for questions.

Tips for Interviewing

The Obvious:

I’m going to breeze through the plainly obvious ones:

Dress is business professional, whatever you would wear to a courtroom as a practicing attorney.

No cursing, I don’t care how much of a political nut you are do not talk about politics.

Firm handshakes, look people in the eyes when you speak to them.

No alcohol if you go to lunch with some of the associates.

Not so obvious:

It’s hard to prepare for weird psychologically based questions but I can definitely say that they occur more frequently during the callback stage. The first question one of my interviewers asked me was what I thought about police brutality. It took me about five seconds to recover from the shock that I was being asked this during an interview. Someone else asked me if I had the choice what kind of animal in the ocean I would be. I of course said a Great White Shark, why? Because nothing in the ocean eats Great White Sharks. Not sure the interviewer loved that response.

If you get one of these off the wall psychological questions just take a few seconds and think about what your interviewer is asking. Don’t expect to get the answer right because there usually is no “right answer”, it’s just a question to evaluate your thought process.

If you are interviewing with seven attorneys you should take seven resumes, transcripts and (if applicable) cover letters for the callback. 99% of the time your interviewers won’t want the information but I did have several attorneys lose my resume in a pile of junk on their desk and having an extra definitely helps.

After the Callback

Thank You Letters

Sending thank you letters varies depending on personal preference. I only sent thank you letters to attorneys I felt I “clicked with” and were memorable in my mind. To my knowledge, law schools recommend that you send a thank you letter to everyone you interviewed with at your callback but personally I don’t think you are doing yourself any favors by sending a generic thank you letter to an interviewer that you did not have a memorable conversation with.

Whichever thank you letter strategy you choose to take be 200% sure that you have the interviewers name spelled correctly. In my opinion, thank you letters might move the dial a tad-bit if any, but spelling an interviewers name wrong can ruin your candidacy with that firm.

Offers

Give yourself a pat on the back once you are done with callbacks. At this point there are no more hoops to jump, either you will receive a job offer or you can strike that firm out. Offer timelines vary tremendously depending on the firm’s hiring situation and how ecstatic they are about your candidacy. One of my friends got an offer at the end of his callback interview! I’m serious, the man did not even make it out of the office before he received an offer. Other firms took up to a couple of weeks or even longer to extend offers after a callback!

A timeline for offers is difficult to predict but if you do not hear anything from the firm within several weeks it is perfectly acceptable to shoot an email to the hiring coordinator and request a status update.

If you receive an offer you should check how long the firm will hold it open. Most Biglaw firms will hold their offers open for around a month, but I know of some that are as short as two week.

Expenses

Regardless if you get the job or not you certainly do not want to be paying out of pocket to interview. Transportation, lodging and food are typically reimbursed by the interviewing firm, but its always best to ask first.

Conclusion

Hope this article was helpful and I wish you luck during your OCI process!