Powered by
MOMENTUM
MEDIA
If firms are going to use one-way interviews, I think they should at least use them to test something relevant to legal practice, writes David Minahan.
Large commercial law firms offer internships (known as “clerkships”) to penultimate and final year law students. I recently experienced this process firsthand. Over the past few months, I submitted applications, completed psychometric testing, and participated in several different forms of interviews.
Out of the different forms of interview, perhaps the most notorious is the one-way interview. In these interviews, we were briefly shown a question and then had a limited amount of time to record our responses. The questions were usually about our interests, experiences, or reasons for wanting to work at the specific firm. Applicants who survived the one-way interview generally proceeded to an interview with a partner.
Overall, I think my answers in law firms’ one-way interviews were good. However, I like to be very concise. As a result, I sometimes struggled to fill the time available. But whenever I tried to provide more detail, I found it difficult to maintain a clear structure in my response.
My experience made me reflect on the fact that ordinary conversation is rarely perfectly polished. People pause and occasionally struggle to find the right words. I think most interviewers would not immediately fault an applicant for this in a conventional interview. In a short recording, however, one poorly expressed comment can stand out more than it would in a face-to-face conversation.
I came to realise that the best way, if not the only way, to succeed in one-way interviews is to plan a structure for answers to common questions in advance. This, however, raises the question of whether one-way interviews ultimately assess how well candidates prepare and rehearse their answers in advance.
During the clerkship process, The Australian Financial Review published interviews with Corrs Chambers Westgarth chief executive Gavin MacLaren and Gilbert + Tobin chief executive and founder Danny Gilbert. I did not apply to either of their firms. Yet, I found aspects of their responses surprisingly relatable to my own clerkship experience.
During his interview, MacLaren was asked, “What keeps him going?” The AFR interviewer observed that it was not a question he found easy to answer. In the middle of his response, MacLaren admitted that he was not doing a “very good job of explaining this”.
I think MacLaren’s response was very natural. I am sure he had several motivations. Each of his motivations may have had varying levels of significance throughout his career. Most people in his situation would struggle to articulate all of them clearly in the moment. This, of course, does not necessarily mean they are poor communicators. It simply means they are human.
More broadly, MacLaren’s response also illustrates that even one of Australia’s most respected and successful lawyers cannot always give a perfectly structured answer to a question. To me, this is strong evidence against relying on a short, recorded response to assess someone’s communication skills.
I appreciate that some law firms use one-way interviews because they are an efficient and inexpensive way to filter applicants. However, law firms can achieve the objective through other means. For instance, firms could instead require applicants to complete psychometric tests, critical thinking tests, research tasks, or short problem-solving exercises. Law firms could impose time limits on these tasks to discourage the use of artificial intelligence.
Another idea would be to ask retired partners to assist in conducting clerkship interviews. I have observed that many partners are quite happy to talk about themselves and their work. I doubt retirement has changed that. I therefore suspect that some retired partners would welcome the opportunity to interview applicants.
If firms are going to use one-way interviews, I think they should at least use them to test something relevant to legal practice. For example, firms could ask applicants to respond to a legal problem or a current business issue. In one of my one-way interviews, the first question I was asked was, “If you had to teach a class, what class would you teach?” We had 30 seconds to think of a response.
I will admit that I struggled with the question. I cannot say that I have ever put much thought into what class I would teach. I have no interest in becoming a schoolteacher or teaching in any capacity.
After that one-way interview, I found myself wondering why we could not be asked a question that was more relevant to law and legal practice. In his AFR interview, Gilbert warned his interviewer against “frivolous lines of questioning”, such as asking what he had for breakfast, because they were “barely of any interest to [him], let alone anybody else”. I suspect that Gilbert would have enjoyed the “what class would you teach?” question just as much as I did.
I appreciate that some applicants may not like these types of questions. I, however, do not see a problem with them. After all, we are studying law and seeking to become lawyers. I would also much rather that my chances of getting a clerkship depend on how I respond to a question relating to law rather than a question about a hypothetical class I would choose to teach.
Ultimately, I think law firms should reconsider using one-way interviews to assess candidates. Ideally, they should not use them. However, if firms are going to make applicants talk to a screen, they should at least ask us something relevant to the law or the position.
David Minahan is a juris doctor candidate at the University of Melbourne.
