Some More Words on Interviewing

Our poster had a good point - I am, of course, very grateful to have the opportunity to do all these interviews. That does not mean, however, that the process was pleasant. I had the flu, and running all over New York to do between four and nine half-hour interviews a day was not fun. The interviewers themselves were extraordinarily varied. I met some incredibly kind and helpful people, some very direct and professional folks, and one extremely rude gentleman from a firm that shall remain nameless. I had some delicious lunches, which I couldn't really eat because I was nauseous, and met a large number of extremely nice junior associates. Despite that fact that most of the people I met were friendly, approachable, and genuinely interested in making sure that both I and they made the right decision, I think that even had I been in the best of health, the process would have been pretty miserable.

Before this week, every firm looked identical to me. I had no experience with law firms, and to be honest, very little idea of what they actually did. I still don't have a great understanding of what your archetypal New York law firm does, especially the corporate sections of it. Now, though, I see that there are actual differences between firms. One partner told me to "kick the tires a bit" while I was interviewing, and so I tried to do that. For examples, firms have different ways of assigning work to associates that seems to have a tangible impact on the associate experience. There are definite cultural differences between really large firms as compared with smaller ones. Some firms seemed more formal, while in others, no one was wearing suits. And, associates did actually say different things about how many hours they worked per week, and how happy they were with their jobs.

All in all, I hope this week will result in both some job offers, and also a better conception of how to chose between firms. I'm happy I got a chance to participate in fly-out week. However, I think I'm going to retire to bed until Monday to recover from the experience.