My East Coast Interview Tour

10.59 am

After spending a week interviewing in New York and DC, I can definitively say that there are differences between law firms, even in BigLaw. Some of it has to do with size - an office of forty lawyers feels different than an office of two hundred. Some of it has to do with work - one firm I interviewed with did only litigation, while another focused primarily on finance and international arbitrations. What interested me the most was the difference between the people at the firms.

I'd heard some recruiters talk about how firms hired based on "fit" - and I also heard that was a keyword for "we just didn't want to hire you". I'm more inclined to believe the former than the latter now. One of the firms that I was at this week is European based - and it shows. The attorneys I spoke to tended to have a more global view and to look beyond American law when discussing their work. Another firm, this one based in Texas, had more of a West Coast feel - pro bono work counts above the line there, and the attorneys were doing a "wear jeans/donate to breast cancer research" day.

And while I'm trying to sort out which firms are at the top of my list (extremely difficult, given that I only did callbacks at firms I really want to work at), I'm also sitting by the phone waiting for it to ring and reminding myself that it only takes one.