informal via headhunter; received cold call on the phone. headhunter was great, very high on the firm to say the least. knew a lot about the firm, its focus, and prior strategies that have paid off for the firm.
I applied through university. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Farella Braun + Martel
Interview
Passed the screener and completed a callback. The first few interviews were with partners at the firm, who were all very professional and lovely people all around. The last part was an hour-long panel with 3 associates. The norm within the legal industry is to let the applicant learn more about the firm through the interview with one or more associates. Instead, however, I was grilled by the associates in a very confrontational and aggressive manner, and they kept lobbing question after question at me. I felt like a witness on the stand and not a law student who was being offered the chance to learn more about their experience. They ended the interview in a very abrupt manner, making me feel like they couldn't wait to be done. It was absolutely inconsistent with everything Farella seems to stand for and everything I had learned about the firm so far. Having completed numerous screeners and callbacks, I have lots of other interviews to compare this one to, and I found this to be not only the most negative interview of my OCI, but also the most negative interview of my life.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Numerous behavioral questions, such as "Why do you want to work at the firm?" "Tell me about your summer" "Tell us about a time you faced a difficult challenge"