1. Tell me what do you look for in a job?
The employer isn't really interested in what you are looking for: they are interested in what they are looking for. Fit your answer to their needs and focus on the benefits you can bring to the organisation.
2. Tell me how did you do in your third-level studies?
Emphasise your best subjects and highlights of your studies. If grades were average, talk about leadership or jobs you took to finance your education.
3. What do you know about our organisation?
Show you have gone further than just reading their website. Mention what you have read about them in the media; talk about products, services, history and people, especially any friends that work there.
4. Tell us who is your typical client?
You don't want actual names, so this question does not violate attorney-client privilege. What you want to find out is whether the average client is an individual or a business and whether the average job resembles what you need done, both in terms of the legal matters being covered and, when applicable, the dollars involved. If you have a big estate and fear lawsuits, so that you want to set up an asset-protection trust, you don't want to be working with an advisor whose idea of asset-protection is an ordinary estate plan and protecting life savings from Uncle Sam. You're looking for someone who can make you virtually "suit-proof," and the difference is huge.
5. Why do you want to leave your current employer as Personal Legal Adviser?
This should be straightforward. Reflect positively on your current employer but state how you are looking for more challenges, responsibility, experience and a change of environment. Explain how your current role can no longer provide you with these things, but how you believe the role on offer presents an opportunity for growth that will make full use of your strengths and potential.
6. Tell me why do you want to work for us as Personal Legal Adviser?
Be honest: this will allow your enthusiasm to come across. This is also a chance to demonstrate the research you have done about the company.
7. Tell me why have you chosen this career?
Show what motivates you. Explain why this sector appeals to you and use any work experience you might have to back this up.
8. Tell me what kinds of people do you find difficult to work with?
Again, this answer should reflect company values, for example, by showing that you are a team player.
9. Tell me will anyone else from the firm be working with me?
You're the one paying the bill, and you want to get what you pay for. If the lawyer uses paralegals or junior partners to do the work, you should find out just how involved your attorney intends to be. It's dumb to pay for a figurehead. You also want to find out what, if anything, the involvement of others does to your projected costs; it can push costs up or keep them reasonable, depending on circumstances.
10. Tell me what is the most difficult situation you have faced at work?
The interviewer is trying to find out your definition of ‘difficult' and whether you can show a logical approach to problem solving. Select a tough work situation that was not caused by you. Explain the way you approached the problem, including the actions you took and the solution you applied to overcome the problem. Give your answer with the air of someone who takes setbacks and frustrations in your stride, as part of the job.
11. Tell me how can I reduce my costs?
Find out if there are ways for you to minimize costs. In some situations, it may involve your doing the legwork to find certain documents or to drive documents around yourself, rather than relying on a courier service. The smaller a lawyer's practice, the more he or she will value your ability to do some of the menial chores on your own, and the savings will be very real.
12. Tell me about a time where you were asked to do the impossible?
The interviewer is testing your problem-solving skills and how you manage pressure. Find an example of a task, at work or during your studies, which at first seemed impossible and show how you used your skills to resolve it.
13. What are your goals for the future as Personal Legal Adviser?
A sense of purpose is an attractive feature in an applicant, so this question is designed to probe your ambition and the extent of your career planning. Your commitment is also under question, but avoid blankly stating that ‘I want to be with your company'. Instead, describe how your goal is to continue to grow, learn, add value and take on new responsibilities in the future that build on the role for which you are applying.
14. Tell us what have been your achievements to date?
The interviewer wants to know if you are a high achiever and ascertain how your accomplishments will be beneficial to them. Select one or two recent accomplishments that are directly related to the job on offer. Identify the situations, the actions you took, skills you used and the positive outcomes; quantifying the benefits where possible. Show how you can bring what you learned to the new role.
15. Tell me could I get contact details for some recent clients to use as references?
Attorney-client privilege can make this sticky sometimes, but someone who can act as a reference and say how the lawyer deals with clients will help cement your decision.
If the lawyer won't give you the names of clients, ask for professional references, perhaps the names of lawyers to whom he makes referrals. When you call those colleagues, do not identify the person who gave you his name at first, saying, "I was told you could be a reference for my attorney. I was wondering who you consider to be the best attorneys in town." If your lawyer's name comes up, then ask why the reference feels that way. If it's not on the list, ask why not.
16. Tell me beyond a law degree, what professional credentials do you have?
Law is not an area where you must see specific credentials to feel comfortable with a practitioner. The law degree and license speak volumes about someone having achieved the minimum standards for competency.
Still, there are some legal specialties, such as a "certified tax lawyer" or "certified civil trial lawyer." While there are major trade groups like the American Trial Lawyers Association that have developed credentials, most national specialty law groups are membership organizations, rather than education/credentialing institutions.
Thus, you may need to distinguish between whether the lawyer is a member or a certificant.
17. Tell me if you weren't successful for this position what other roles would you be applying for?
The best answers are similar roles in similar companies to the one on offer. Even if you are toying with many different ideas on jobs, don't show this as it lets the employer know that you haven't worked out what you really want yet.This is also a question recruiters ask to find out what other interviews really good candidates have in the pipeline so they know the time frame for a job offer.
18. General Legal Advisor interview questions:
☛ What do you know about our products/services?
☛ Do you need additional training?
☛ Tell me about the problems you have had living within your means.
☛ What major challenges and problems did you face?
☛ Will you take a psychological examination as a condition of employment?
☛ What would you do if you were fired in two years?
☛ What was your biggest failure?
19. Difficult Legal Advisor interview questions:
☛ What kind of people do you find it difficult to work with?
☛ What was the most rewarding experience at work?
☛ What new skills have you learned or developed recently?
☛ In what way did this type of work interest you and how did you get started?
☛ What would you like to be doing five years from now?
☛ Why haven't you found a position before now?
☛ Walk me through the important points on your resume.
20. Behavior-Based Personal Legal Adviser Job Interview Questions:
☛ Tell me about a time you solved a difficult problem that could have had significant impact.
☛ Describe the most difficult decision you've made in the last 6 months.
☛ Tell me about a time you took initiative to do something that needed to be done, even though it wasn't really your responsibility
☛ Describe an important goal you have achieved, and how you achieved it. Tell me about set-backs you experienced.
☛ Describe a time when you had difficulty communicating your thoughts clearly to an individual or group.
☛ Tell me about a time you voiced a concern or disagreement to a coworker, supervisor, or professor.
☛ Tell me about a situation in which you had to collaborate with several people to achieve a goal.
☛ Describe your most disappointing experience. How did you cope with it? What did you do to move beyond it?
☛ Describe a time when you were faced with a stressful situation that required coping skills.
☛ Give me a specific example of a time when you convinced your supervisor or professor of an idea. How did you accomplish this and what was the result?
☛ Tell me about a time when you took on a leadership role.
☛ Tell me about a time you provided excellent customer service.
21. Personal Attributes based Personal Legal Adviser Job Interview Questions:
☛ What qualities do you feel are most important for a successful legal assistant?
☛ What is your greatest strength? Greatest weakness?
☛ Can you give me an example of a situation where you needed to deal with multiple priorities at once and how you deal with it?
☛ How do you deal with stress?
☛ Do you work well under pressure?
☛ Do you enjoy working as part of a team?
☛ How do you deal with sensitive or confidential information?
☛ Can you give me an example of a situation where you demonstrated an eye for detail?
22. Group based Legal Advisor interview questions:
☛ How do you communicate goals to subordinates?
☛ Did you have faults as a leader? Describe the situation.
☛ What is your expected salary?
☛ If you were hiring a person for Legal Advisor job, what would you look for?
☛ Example when you were able to successfully communicate with another person.
☛ Give examples of steps taken to make each team member feel important.
☛ Why did you leave your last job.
23. Education and Experience based Personal Legal Adviser Job Interview Questions:
☛ Which areas of law are you most interested in?
☛ Why did you decide to become a legal assistant?
☛ What subject did you like the most at school? Why?
☛ Which subject did you like the least, and why?
☛ What made you choose to attend [name of school]?
☛ How has your education prepared you to work for us?
24. Behavioral based Legal Advisor interview questions:
☛ What was the last book you read?
☛ What research have you done on our firm and our industry?
☛ What would you do differently if you were in charge of this company?
☛ How do you define arrogance? Are you arrogant?
☛ Can you work without supervision?
☛ What clubs do you belong to?
☛ What management style do you prefer?
25. Panel based Legal Advisor interview questions:
☛ Why did you leave your last job.
☛ How many Legal Advisor projects do you work on at once?
☛ Example when you were able to successfully communicate with another person.
☛ How do you see this Legal Advisor job developing?
☛ Have you ever had difficulty getting others to accept your ideas?
☛ When you are not studying or working, what types of activities do you enjoy?
☛ What are your strengths?
26. Phone based Legal Advisor interview questions:
☛ How would you describe yourself?
☛ What qualities do you like in a supervisor?
☛ What would your previous supervisor say your strongest point is?
☛ What are your outstanding qualities?
☛ What sort of decisions are easy for you to make?
☛ What personal characteristics do you think lead to success in this job?
☛ What is your definition of intelligence?
27. Typical Personal Legal Adviser Job Interview Questions:
☛ What motivates you?
☛ Why did you choose this career?
☛ How do you work under pressure or stress?
☛ What do you consider your greatest achievement?
☛ Tell me about a mistake you made and what you learned from it.
☛ Give me an example of your organizational skills.
☛ What's the most creative idea you've ever had?
☛ How will you evaluate your success after you graduate?
☛ Describe your work ethic.
☛ Tell me about someone you have a lot of respect for.
☛ Give me an example of a time you learned something new.
☛ What does diversity mean to you?
☛ Give me an example of a time you provided excellent customer service.
☛ What do you like best about our company/organization?
☛ What do you think would be most challenging about this position? Most rewarding?
☛ What five adjectives best describe you?
☛ Why did you choose the major you did?
☛ Give me an example of a time you worked on a team and what role you played.
☛ Give me an example of a time you set a goal at work or in school. How did you accomplish your goal? Were you satisfied with the outcome?
☛ Tell me about extracurricular activities you participated in, what role you played, and what you gained from them.
☛ Tell me about a situation where you had to resolve a conflict with another person. (See Behavior-Based Interview Questions for tips.)
☛ What did you like most about your previous job? Least?
☛ Describe your work style. What work environment best suits you?
☛ Describe the best supervisor you've ever had. If you could make one suggestion to that supervisor, what would it be?
☛ If I called a previous supervisor or a professor, what would they say about you? What would they say are areas you could improve in?
☛ What are your short- and long-term career goals? What are you doing to achieve those goals?
☛ Where do you want to be in 3 to 5 years?
The interviewer is trying to gauge your interpersonal skills and team contribution. Outline the project objectives, your responsibilities, the actions you took to assist the group and the successful results. Provide evidence of how you were a keen collaborator and how your contribution was critical. You also want to demonstrate that you value teamwork and understand its key attributes such as honest communication, a shared purpose and effective problem-solving.
The interviewer is looking to see if you can think and act quickly, and that you really are knowledgeable in this field. This can be a challenging question that puts you on the spot. A good response if you cannot immediately relate to that issue is to speak about a crisis you may have dealt with in a previous role and the outcome once you resolved the issue.
30. Explain some situations in which you have worked under pressure or met deadlines?
Behaviour-related questions aim at assessing how closely you match the competences or personality traits required by the job. Use this opportunity to highlight success from projects, sporting or social activities.
31. Please explain me a situation in which you solved a problem?
For this question it's a good idea to think of a fairly recent example and pick a problem that is similar to the challenges you'd face in the job you're interviewing for.
Using the Star technique, start by explaining the task in no more than a few sentences while giving sufficient detail so the interviewer can understand the challenge involved. "Next describe the action you took, the process you followed and the steps you completed, remembering to be clear about the part you played in the result.
"The result is the most important part of your answer as a successful outcome proves that your actions were effective. If possible, detail statistics or figures which highlight the magnitude of your success, mention positive feedback you received and talk about what you learned and how this learning will help you in the job."
32. What are your strengths as Personal Legal Adviser?
The interviewer wants to know what you are particularly good at and how this would fit into the role. Choose a few of your key strengths that are required for the role and give examples of how you have demonstrated them successfully in the past. Strengths could include the ability to learn quickly; composure under pressure; ability to multi-task; team focus or your ability to work autonomously.
The interviewer wants to see that you have composure, problem solving skills and can stay focused in difficult conditions. Give an example of a time when you were faced with a stressful situation (not caused by you) and how you handled it with poise.
33. Tell me how often will I hear from you?
You want to make sure that the lawyer's idea of the appropriate amount of time to spend with you is similar to your own. If you need hand-holding and a call from your attorney every day, then a lawyer who calls only when there is action on the case may not be active enough. This question forges your expectations for the relationship, helping to set a standard that the lawyer will have to meet for you to feel he is living up to his promises.
34. Tell me how are fees charged? How much are your fees and for what are they paid?
With all of the ways lawyers bill clients, you want to know specifically what is involved. You are always entitled to an itemized bill for the lawyer's services, but you would prefer to know in advance how fees are calculated.
Some lawyers are always on the clock, meaning that your call to check with a lawyer on your case sets the clock in motion, as do your few minutes of small talk with the attorney. You do not want to be racking up charges while talking to your attorney about his family. Find out the ground rules for being charged. Will a five-minute phone call show up on your bill, or is that a free part of the lawyer's service? If you are charged, what's the rate going to be? Will you pay to have copies of important papers mailed to you?
35. What's the most difficult situation you ever faced in a job?
Prepare ahead for this question by thinking of a story that has a positive ending – both for you and the company.
