Archive for September, 2010

California trial attorney Martin Grayson, author of The View From the First Chair: What Every Trial Lawyer Really Needs to Know, is the subject of a future profile in Student Lawyer magazine. It’s a wide-ranging interview, but one section caught our attention as it applies to students who see a future for themselves in court. The question put to Grayson went like this, “Are there certain academic courses, clinics, or part-time work that law students should partake to better prepare themselves for trial practice?”

Grayson: “There’s no doubt that any advocacy clinic would be helpful if you’re interested in trial work. Getting actual court experience, dealing with clients … any experience [of that sort] is good. But my advice to students is this: go to court. Walk into a courtroom — a civil courtroom, or a criminal courtroom, if that’s your interest — and sit there for the morning and watch the docket move, watch how the judge handles the attorneys, watch how the attorneys present themselves and their cases, and watch how the clerks handle the procedural flow of the action. As Yankees great Yogi Berra once said, ‘You can observe a lot just by watching.’”

The Student Lawyer profile isn’t scheduled until next year, but Grayson’s thoughts and advice about the art of trial practice are available in his book, which comes with a recommendation from Trial Magazine. The book is available on our site (free shipping) or from Amazon.

Raise your hand if, at your last job interview, the interview asked you one of these five questions:

a) Why are you interested in working at this firm?
b) Tell me about your last big mistake? How did you handle it?
c) What attributes do you have that would instill client confidence?
d) What is your favorite and least favorite aspects of teamwork?
e) If you had an extra hour in the day, what would you do with it?

Of course, the point of the exercise is to get inside your head, and see whether you’ve got The Right Stuff to work longer and longer for less and less.

But what if there was a way to get into the firm’s head to see if it’s the kind of place you really want to invest the next 2200 + hours … and nine years on a partner track. Ah, but there is a way, according to ex-Kirkland & Ellis partner Steven Harper, now an adjunct at Northwestern. The trick, says Harper, is to interview the interviewer. Subtly, of course.

In a recent blog post, Harper said that at some point in job interviews, a recruiter or interviewer will ask whether you have any questions. And that’s when you jump in with something like this: “Can you briefly sketch your own career highlights at the firm as, say, a second-year associate, a fifth-year associate, a non-equity partner, and now?” Lawyers love to talk about themselves, says Harper, and if you pay really close attention – that is, listening between the lines – you can learn important truths about opportunities, mentoring, lifestyle, work environment, and firm culture. In short, whether you even want to work there.

For more on “interviewing the interview”, see Harper’s original post at: www.inthebellyofthebeast.wordpress.com.