[0:00] Anna Hicks-Jaco: Welcome to Status Check with Spivey, where we talk about life, law school, law school admissions, a little bit of everything. I'm Anna Hicks-Jaco, Spivey Consulting's president, and today I am very excited to be chatting with one of our newest consultants, Meg Krishnan, who came to us from her role as Director of Admissions and Programs at UChicago Law, where she worked in admissions for nine cycles, ultimately came to run the whole interview program, and personally conducted thousands of admissions interviews. And I know she is itching to share the many insights that she gained from that experience with you all.
So today, we are going to talk about how to prepare for interviews, which are only getting more and more important in the admissions process. And we are very intentionally publishing this episode in early September, well before the vast majority of law schools even start interviewing. And we're doing that because it can be really effective to start preparing ahead of time, especially given that the turnaround time between the law school sending you an interview invitation and the interview itself is often super quick.
So this episode is all about interview prep: how to prepare if you've got some time, you're starting early, how to prepare if you have a shorter timeline or are prepping at the last minute, common mistakes that applicants make while preparing for interviews, exercises you can do to address common interview weaknesses, and more. So let's jump in.
Thank you so much for joining us, Meg. We are truly thrilled to have you as a part of Spivey Consulting and for you to be able to share your years of experience and expertise with applicants. Would you like to introduce yourself a little bit further?
Meg Krishnan: Definitely. Thank you, Anna. I am absolutely thrilled to be here. Interviews are one of my favorite topics. She shared that I've done thousands of them, so I have met so many of you applicants out there in the law school interview universe. I can tell you that it is absolutely one of my favorite parts of this because it's one of the times when we actually get to know you as an applicant. We get to see you. We can picture you here at the law school. So this is a wonderful part of the process, a great opportunity for you to introduce yourself, and I am excited to share more about how you can be thinking about interviews right now before you are even invited for those interviews.
Anna: Oh, wonderful. So first, I want to talk about some basics. So as we've talked about, this is really going to focus on the interview preparation process, and we'll link some past podcasts that we've done with more information and insights on interviews. But as a brief introduction here, Meg, can you tell us broadly the role that interviews have in the admissions process? Do all law schools interview? How important are interviews? Do you need to interview to be admitted?
Meg: Sure. So lots of different things happening in interviews, and I really do encourage you to go check out those other podcasts because they can deep dive these in a way that we're not going to today. But to begin with, the purpose of an interview. Let's start on the law school side. What is the law school thinking about? Why are they interviewing you? They're looking at a handful of things, but some of the most prominent that they're thinking about, number one, not surprisingly, is your employability.
Interviews, employment, they always kind of go hand in hand, and they're not exactly that different here in law school land. So on the law school side, when we're thinking about employability from an interview standpoint, we're thinking about: are you ready to interview to be a lawyer? That could be in big law. It could be in small firms. It could be in public interest organizations. But given the hiring cycles and that we're seeing things move up and up and up, why these law schools are interviewing in part is to see if you're ready for that process, if you can handle all the elements that go into the interview process.
And one of the other big things that they're thinking about in the interview process is your fit: Are you going to fit here at the law school? We want to kind of get to know you as a person. That's the point of getting you on Zoom. That's the point of getting you in a group interview or in a one-on-one interview. We want to meet you. We want to know more about you. So that's a huge driver for why these law schools are hosting interviews.
And last but not least, and this was definitely one of my favorite parts about it, is that interviews are a two-way street. So one of the other really important elements of an interview from the law school perspective is actually to introduce themselves and introduce what's important about the law school to you. So keep that in mind.
[3:51] Now, thinking about what actually goes on in these interviews, what they look like. They're going to vary. Some schools are going to invite you to interview, other schools are going to give you an option, and then there are going to be schools that simply don't interview. The whole gamut exists. Now, within that, if a school invites you to interview, first of all, we definitely encourage you to take it up on that if it's right for you. For most schools, that's going to be the right play, and for most applicants, that's going to be the right play. But there's certainly a great deal of advice out there if you're kind of deciding between all of that. So think about that.
But if you do take us up on an interview invite, then know that what we want to know is more about who you are. So there's going to be an interviewer on the other side of this that's going to have a prepared set of questions. They're going to go a little bit about you, and then they're going to be assessing you. For some schools, the interview is a very important part of this. This is something that's really going to be able to tip the scales in favor for you one way or the other. For other schools, it's going to be more of a neutral, that this is something that's important. They certainly want to know more about you, but it's not going to make or break your admission process.
And lastly, there are going to be certain schools that are going to interview you for specific things, like a scholarship or the JD-MBA program. It's really going to vary school to school, and you want to do that research ahead of time. So you want to be looking at the schools, attending recruiting events, and learning more about the interview is something that you should expect in this process so that you can know more.
And last but not least, I want to give you a quick note on who you should expect to interview you. For a lot of schools, it's going to be people like me. I was on the admissions committee. I was a professional member of the admissions staff. But you might also find that there are going to be schools that are going to have alumni interviewers. Very few schools any of these days are going to have current student interviews, but that's certainly possible. You could get a group interview. And last but not least, there are going to be a handful of schools out there that are going to do Kira interviews or some other online platform where you're basically going to be talking to yourself. All of these are viable options.
Anna: Thank you for that overview. That was a great overview. The one interviewer type that I will add that we have been seeing only very recently is that some law schools are bringing in outside consultants to do some interviews. So it might be somebody who doesn't necessarily have a direct involvement in the law school apart from this process of interviewing you. The process of preparing for interviews with those folks, I wouldn't say meaningfully differs because they are going to be evaluating your interview based on a set of guidelines that the admissions office comes up with; it's the same goals.
So Meg, I'm interested in your perspective on how, if you are doing an interview with a member of the admissions staff, how do they prep?
Meg: Awesome. So I guess I really put on my lawyer hat today because I'm going to say, yet again, it depends. But you can really count on a handful of things that they're going to look at. The first one is the obvious because we always traditionally associate this with interviews. Most likely, they are going to look at your resume. Many interviewers are going to look at your whole file, but you can definitely bank on them looking at your resume. So that's something that you absolutely want to know. You want to have your questions ready. You want to have evaluated that and be thinking about that. Your resume is important.
A lot of interviewers are going to look at the rest of your file. They see things like your personal statement, any other optional statements that you've submitted, and some of the additional information that you have provided. Overall, it's going to vary case to case. You shouldn't necessarily anticipate that just because someone has read your file, they are outright going to ask you something about your file.
[6:55] Sometimes you will see in the interview process that these interviewers have very strict questions, right? They're going to go line by line, and it's going to feel relatively impersonal, which I know might feel kind of funny because you're expecting a conversation. You're expecting them to really engage with you. Know that that can definitely happen in this process because that's part of an interviewing technique that, for one reason or another, the school has had.
But overall, since we are here talking prep, you want to be prepared with your application materials. You want to know what you said in your personal statement, which I'm confident you guys do know exactly what you said in your personal statement. You want to be familiar with your resume, and you want to know if you filed any addendums, whether that be character and fitness, LSAT, GPA, anything else that you wanted to explain in your file. You want to have reviewed that, so you have that fresh in your memory.
It is possible that you will get a question based on one of those documents because there are going to be quite a few offices that how the interview process goes is your file comes in, the first reader reviews the file, and they might identify certain questions from that. Maybe it's something like an employment gap or a gap year or something that they're not understanding about one of your addendums, and they might flag that as a question that they are going to ask you. The interviewer will then come in, and whether they were that first reader or not, they're going to be prepared to ask you that question.
So you want to be proactive in the interview process. Make sure that you are reading your application, and make sure that you are identifying, "Hmm, if I was in Nick's shoes and I was interviewing me, these are things that I might be curious about." That's a really good place to start, and it's something you can pretty much guarantee that some version of that is going to be asked in the law school interview.
Anna: Thank you. I think those insights are so helpful for understanding this whole process. So you are a law school graduate, Meg. You have practiced law, but let's forget about all of that for a second and imagine for a moment that instead of leaving your role in admissions to join Spivey Consulting, you left your role in admissions to apply to law school yourself. Maybe not the most traditional path. But you're applying this cycle, and you anticipate, based on your profile and your application and the schools that you're applying to, that you are going to get some interview invitations.
It's early September. You're about to submit. You are on the very, very early side. What would you be doing now to prepare for interviews? And then how would you continue to prepare to set yourself up for success as we move forward throughout the admission cycle?
[9:08] Meg: Definitely. So I think that the first place that I would start is the why law question, actually. And this is something that I think a lot of people really get farther into the process before they really think about, because you are so in the weeds of applying to law school that you've probably been thinking about it for months now, and you're so confident that you want this why law, that nobody's probably asked you why do you want to go to law school in a few months, and you actually kind of get out of practice of giving that answer.
So it's, to me, one of the most important places that you can start in interview prep. Why do you want to go to law school? And I think that what you really want to do here is not write out word for word for word. You don't want a script of why you want to come to law school. You want to be thinking through bullet points. And I often tell people that one of the best ways to think about your why law answer is to actually focus on the ghosts of Christmas, which I know is kind of a wild thing. Bear with me, but think about these ghosts of Christmas: ghosts of the past, present, and future. These are three categories that you want to be thinking about when you're thinking about why law school.
What from your past brought you to wanting to go to law school? Was it a mentor? Someone in your family? Was it something that you experienced? Was it a class? What in the past brought you to why law? What in your current situation? Maybe you're in your undergrad, and you're taking those classes now. Maybe you're out there in the workforce, and you're either in the law setting, so you're seeing law on a day-to-day basis, or maybe you're in a teaching position, and IEPs are coming in, and you're seeing the lawyers, and that's a whole different element that you're seeing. Maybe you're in the corporate law. Like, what from your current position is motivating your why law answer?
And then think about it from the future. What do you want to do in the future? Are there career goals that you have for yourself in law? Are there certain positions that you're excited to get involved with in law school? Are there internships or journals or things that you're hoping to do both in law school and after you graduate? Make those lists. Go through that brainstorm exercise. Get the bullet points down there and then whittle it down into what is your best why law answer. If you are looking at all of those and you are thinking about yourself in an active interview situation, what feels best to you to be able to give that answer? That's your why law answer.
Write those bullet points down and then practice it. This is something that you should do over time, and that's why Anna and I are starting this conversation very early, because the more you practice, the stronger you're going to be, right? Interviewing is like muscle memory. The more you get into it, the better you will be. So you want to make sure that you have that really great runway to get those bullet points down and then get familiar with giving that why law answer.
This advice also holds for the variety of different questions that you can expect. In a law school interview, you can expect the why law school, you can expect why do you want to attend this law school, and you can expect personality questions. What are your strengths? What is a time when you made a mistake? Has there ever been a time when you changed your mind? What did that look like? And my favorite question: I will admit that there are interviews when I probably asked it, like, three different times in three different topics. What did you learn from that experience.
These are all things that you can expect in interviews, and all things that if you start thinking about them a little bit early on, if you start doing that bullet pointing, you can get stronger at an interview, and you will feel stronger going into it. You will get into the rhythm of saying it, and that will have a more profound impact and a better optimization for your interview.
[12:18] Now, the next category of question, and the next big place to be prepping, is the why do you want to attend X law school? And this is something that I bring up before you are even invited for those interviews, because it is, again, research that you can do over time that will lend a really authentic answer when you get into that interview setting. And I know that for many of you right now, especially with applications opening, you are in the weeds writing your why X essays for the schools that will accept them.
So this is a time where I don't just want you thinking about that writing; I also want you thinking about the interview process. So make sure when you are taking those notes that you also kind of have an eye on potential interview questions for why do you want to attend X law school?
I highlight this because one of the biggest mistakes that I saw in the interview process, and I would interview about 8 to 10 people a day, is I could literally tell what was on the homepage of UChicago's website every day because I would hear it again, and again, and again in an interview, and it would be people who maybe have absolutely no connection to whatever topic it was. It didn't fit with their resume, it didn't fit with their personal statement, but they would be talking about it. They would bring it into this interview, and the first time I would hear it, I'd be like, "Hmm, okay." By the second and third time, I'm like, "Oh, yeah, we definitely just updated the website."
So this is another reason why doing this ahead of time can really come in handy. Because if you're taking notes in August and September on things that interest you about a law school, chances are that's not going to be the homepage when you get interviewed in November, December. So you could really lend that authenticity. It'll also give you an opportunity to deep dive law schools in ways that you're probably not going to do if you're under the gun. If you get invited for an interview on a Monday, and you're interviewing on Wednesday, that's not a ton of time to do the type of depth of research that I am talking about.
And one of my favorite places to do that on a law school's website is their news and events section. I think that this is a section that is absolutely slept on in website land. Most law schools are going to have a section where they will publish articles on what their faculty, students, and alumni are doing in real time. This will give you an opportunity to see what they are actually doing. What are those students really doing in that clinic? What is the research that faculty are actually publishing?
This is one of my actually favorite tips for if you are in the weeds on maybe you're studying for the September and October LSAT, or you're writing your personal statement and you feel like you've been looking at the same sentence for about an hour. If you hit those walls when you are working on your application materials, take a break, go to the website of one of the law schools that you are looking for. Completely ignore the admissions tab; you don't need it right now. Ignore it, and go to the news and events side. Look at that. Get yourself re-motivated for law school.
I think that sometimes when you're able to see what actual people are doing and get fired up about that and picture yourself in that, first of all, it'll help you get right back into the LSAT studying if that's what you're up to. But more importantly, it also gives you language to talk about in interviews. When you're sharing your why X law school answer, you're able to really draw on those examples, and it shows a depth of research and an intentionality to what you're doing that is super valuable and is super respected on the admissions side of the world
Anna: I'm excited to start talking about the Christmas ghosts method of interview prep. I love that. I love the news items as well, because there's such a huge difference between saying, "Oh, I saw this thing on your website today," versus the impact of being able to say like, "I saw on your website three months ago this thing that is directly related to this thing that I want to do and that is really demonstrated by my resume or my personal statement."
And being able to talk about it with that level of nuance and depth, it makes it clear that you've really been thinking about this from your own perspective of, "Why am I interested in this law school?" as opposed to, "What did I look up this morning to tell you why I'm interested in this law school?"
[15:52] Meg: On my side, I was always thinking about when I was interviewing students; I love the word intentional. And to me, like, there was no better word where I could be like, "This person is actually interested in this law school," than when I would use words like intentional. And I think that that's something that this research and doing it over time can really lend that intentionality to it.
I also had a student that I worked with a few years ago, who the two of us, we came up with a really great way to capture all of this information. Obviously, there's AI now, and there's web pages, and there's Google Docs, and all these different places where you can helpfully take notes on the different things that you are learning about a law school.
But we actually discovered that one of the best ways to do it is to email yourself. So create an email chain where the title of the email is the law school that you're applying to.
So let's say, for example, it's the University of Michigan. You are emailing yourself. The title of the email just says Michigan, and then every random thought that you have about applying to the University of Michigan, whether it's an idea for one of their optional essays, or it's research that you're doing, or maybe it is an alum that you see. Maybe you're reading the news, and you find something; you're like, "That is a really cool job. I would really like to have that job."
First of all, I hope you're going to LinkedIn and checking how that person got that job, so you can trace the steps that will get you there. But if you see that, if you see a prominent alum or a news story or something that hits on Michigan, send that email to yourself, and then keep doing it. Email is so quick and so fast. You can just take your phone out and do it real quick. And then when you get down to actually applying to Michigan, and you're sitting there, and you're doing your application materials, you've almost got a cheat sheet for yourself.
You go to your email account, you search that word, you search the title that you used, and then a whole email chain will appear before you, giving you all kinds of ideas, and making it feel like you're not starting from scratch, but you're starting from a place where you have that really good research. So whether it's the email method or not, making sure that you're doing the research over time, it will just be something that your future self will absolutely thank you for.
Anna: Thank you, Meg. That was a great outline of an ideal interview preparation process. And if you're listening to this right around when the episode comes out or right around when you're submitting your applications, do that. But now, to a little bit contradict everything we've been talking about, we have to acknowledge also that it is also very typical to start your interview preparation process much closer to the time that you are actually interviewing. I would say that's probably more common than this ideal process that we're talking about.
So for anyone who may be listening to this because they just received an interview request, or they have an interview coming up in the next few days, what type of preparation would you recommend to them?
Meg: I think the very first place to start is actually logistics. So the first thing that you should do is read the email that is inviting you to interview. More often than not, there will be very helpful tips embedded in that email or linked out of that email to the law school's website, where they will tell you about what to expect for the interview. They'll tell you the format; they'll tell you the length. A lot of schools will actually put interview questions out there, so see what they are telling you about the interview.
And one trick there is that there are a lot of schools, and Chicago was one of them, where you wouldn't actually get the Zoom link for your interview until about 10 to 15 minutes before the interview. We mentioned that in, like, three different places: the email that you got to invite you, the website over and over again. And I can't tell you how many times people panicked about a half hour before their interview, and they would email us saying, "I didn't get my Zoom link. I didn't see my Zoom link." I could just picture them all frenzied, worried about this, and it's like, "Well, duh, you weren't supposed to get it until 15 minutes before."
So reading that information ahead of time is something that you absolutely want to start with. The second logistical thing you want to start with is: where are you going to do this interview? Most law school interviews right now are on Zoom. There are a handful where you are in person, but for the most part, Zoom or Skype or some version of this is the primary modality that we're doing these interviews. Make sure that you've got the right setup, make sure that you've got the best lighting, make sure that you've got the best internet, and do that first.
[19:35] Do not think that that's the easy part and leave it until right before you do the interview. That's just a recipe for disaster. That is a recipe for you freaking out about your internet connection 15 minutes before you're going to do this interview, and then you're not taking that deep breath, and you're all kind of rushed rolling into the interview. Not the best.
So the very first thing, no matter when you are invited for an interview, is to make sure that you've got the logistics nailed down. Make sure that you are setting yourself up for optimal success in that. From there, you want to think through your interview prep in two different categories. You want to be thinking about yourself, and you want to be thinking about the law school itself.
Now, yourself is in some ways a little bit easier to do because you've created those application materials. You made that resume, you made that personal statement, but you want to make sure that you've got a handful of bullet points about yourself to begin. So very first thing that you'd like to do, focus on that why law answer. Think about those ghosts of Christmas. Make sure that you have a handful of bullet points there. Think through your future plans. Where do you want to be? What type of career are you hoping for? A lot of times law schools will ask questions like, "Why law now? What are you hoping to do with your career? What cities do you want to be in?"
These are questions that you should know the answers to. You don't need to be firm in that you need to be a public defender in Oklahoma City, but you need to know some broad strokes of what you are hoping to do with your career so that you can demonstrate that you have that intentionality, that you've thought through the process of not just going to law school, but actually being a lawyer, because that's something that these admissions officers are looking for. We want to know that you're going to succeed in law school, but we are ultimately scanning for are you going to be successful as a lawyer. So making sure that you have an idea on your career plans and goals and what you're hoping to do is important.
And then the third category, and the you side of this equation, is you want to be familiar with traditional interview questions: What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Law schools, because we are the home of all sorts of difficult conversations, thinking through different ways of thinking about the law, we want to know that you're open-minded; we want to know that you're going to be able to engage with people who view the world differently than you.
So we want to know that you have that capability, so most law schools are going to ask some variety of a personality question to get at that. So make sure that you're thinking about this. And at the first pass, get all of that information down. Then take a beat, look at it, and think about: are there examples? Are there ways that I can illustrate what these bullet points are through experiences that I've had? It's oftentimes a lot easier for you to talk through a story to describe something about yourself than to just outright say, "I'm empathetic. That's one of my talents," right? No. Like, think through an opportunity when you showed empathy.
It sounds more natural to you, and it will sound more natural to an interviewer, so make sure that you take stock of that and think through those sort of traditional interview questions, and keep a bulleted list so that you've got notes in your head, because no one's going to say that you can't have notes when you take an interview. You absolutely can. But start with that you column.
Now, thinking about the why law school column, that's where you want to do some research on some of the things that are important to you. Now, no one is going to expect you to be able to name-drop five faculty members in a law school interview. That's simply not something that we need from you. We don't even need you to get the correct title of the clinics or something like that. But we do want to know, and we want you to be able to demonstrate, that you have actually researched a law school thoroughly and that you can demonstrate that you are actually interested in that law school.
So you want to think through a couple of things that are important to you, and they've probably already popped out because you have done things like attend recruiting events or visited law schools. So you know these things exist in law school, and you want to be able to call them out. You want to look for: are there particular programs, concentrations, certificates, things that are speaking to your direct interests? Highlight those. You want to be talking about students and what current students are doing at that school.
Maybe there's student organizations that are very important to you. Research that on the law schools that you'll be able to talk about getting engaged with the community. Think about research, faculty, what are they up to? What are their studies, right? You want to be able to speak to certain things that you see at the law school with specificity that connect to yourself.
And then you also want to be thinking about, and this was something where I think a lot of people actually slept on it, you want to be thinking about where the law school is. I don't want your first answer to a why do you want to come to UChicago Law School, I would never want your first answer to be, "Chicago is the greatest city ever," even if I maybe think that. But it could be down the line if you've gone through the things like clinics and student organizations and research imperatives that are important to you. Then at the end, transitioning to, "Hey, you know, I also love the city." That's not going to hurt, right? That's something that, again, shows that you are thinking this through.
Overall, when law school admissions professionals are trying to gauge what the purpose of the why X law school question is, we want to know that you have done your research. We want to know that you're actually serious about coming to our law school. So being able to show that intentionality, being able to show that you have not only researched the law school, but also pictured yourself there and given that answer, that's what's important to us. So focus on those two categories.
[24:28] Anna: Thank you, Meg. I think these are all things that are very accessible to anyone who might be about to interview. You absolutely should be thinking about these things. You absolutely should be doing this research. I'm curious about some of the methods that you might use to prepare to use this information and this research and these things that you are thinking deeply about to be able to express them well in an interview specifically.
Do you recommend practicing interviews? Do you recommend writing down your answers to your questions? And as I'm asking that, I am knowing already the answer. But what do you recommend in terms of the process of applying this thinking to the actual interview?
Meg: So please don't write your answers down, because then you will either memorize it and say it so fast that I won't even be able to catch your answer, or you will be like this, and you'll be reading from something, and I can tell that you're not focused in on the conversation. So I don't think it is helpful to write out your answers. I do think it is helpful to bullet point your answers, and I think it's helpful to practice them.
I think at the beginning, practicing just talking out loud can be helpful, but as you get a little bit farther into the process, nothing can compare to actually a mock interview and talking to a human being and getting that sensory interaction with the person across from you, because that's what an interview is going to be like.
So one of the best things that you can do for yourself in the law school admissions process is find a buddy that you trust. Maybe it's a partner, a friend, a parent, a professor, someone who you can say, "Hey, can we do a mock interview?" Give them a series of questions that you want to practice, and then ask them for their feedback. Ask them, "Hey, what was my why law answer?" And see if they can summarize it back to you. See if you use things like verbal tics or are you too florid with your hands when you're talking.
Have them concentrate on not just the content of what you're saying, but also how you're saying it. It's a super valuable trick. It will also help calm you down. It'll get you used to what it's like to answering these questions. You do have to fight through the initial awkwardness. If you ask your best friend to repeatedly, randomly ask you why law school, the first couple of times you do it, it's going to feel funny. You're both probably going to laugh, and that's totally okay.
But as you get farther into it, you will feel more relaxed when you're getting that question. Your brain will get more comfortable knowing, "This is what I want to start with. This is what I want to end with." So practice really is something that can very much come in handy in interview prep, so focus on it.
Anna: That's such great advice. I mean, so much of what you're talking about is getting comfortable with the process, with how you're talking about these things. All of the points about figuring out the logistics and the technology beforehand, preventing yourself from feeling that stress in the moment, being able to focus on your answers to the questions and focus on telling the interviewer what you already know about yourself, and this research that you are already doing about the schools that are on your list.
But preventing or circumventing these various factors that can cause you to clam up, to get really nervous, to express these things that you do already know about yourself in a way that isn't ideal, in a way that you know you could do better, all of these things. And to some extent, like the whole preparation process goes toward being able to have that comfort and that confidence as you are expressing these things. What do you recommend if somebody is prepping really last minute? Like maybe they only have an hour or two. How would you spend that very limited time?
Meg: I do think that the very first thing is to knock out the logistics. You never know how long that's going to take. And since this is ultimately an employability scan, you really are demonstrating professionalism and maturity. So making sure that you've got that piece in line, knowing that you're going to be ready for that, is the absolute first place to start.
Outside of that, review your resume. Get that locked down because that's what you know, that's who you are, and you don't want to make a silly mistake by forgetting something or clamming up when someone asks you about a job experience and acting like you never had that internship. That will jump out, so take a peek at that resume, take a peek at your personal statement, and then think back about why you applied to that law school to begin with.
You don't necessarily have to deep dive into the archives of the news and events and everything like that. Focus on a few key pieces. I think one of the best ways is to focus on triads. These are a rhetorical device. Our brains love thinking in threes. So I think if it was me, and I was thinking my why X law school in a very short period of time, focus on getting three bullet points out there. And I would focus the first one on the academic side of things, I would focus the second one on the career side of things, and I would focus the third one on what it's actually going to be like to be at that law school. Show that you value community. Think about how that's an important element of who you are.
[28:54] Anna: I want to dive a little bit deeper into this question of why this specific law school. Because as I've kind of been alluding to, a lot of this is stuff that is just about you, that you already know, and it's just a matter of organizing your thoughts about it and how you're presenting it. But there are things that are unchangeable about you and your past experiences and that you already know. The question of why are you interested in this specific law school is something that is going to require, for the vast majority of people in the vast majority of situations, some additional research.
I will say most law school interviews ask some variation of that question: "Why are you interested in our school specifically?" So I'm curious, when you were interviewing applicants, what sorts of research and what sorts of answers stood out to you as really positively differentiating that applicants who are preparing for an interview could potentially emulate?
Meg: Sure. I think actually one of the most important elements, and this goes to the why X law school, but I think it also broadly affects every element of the interview process, is that oftentimes applicants lose the element of self-advocacy in the answers that they're giving.
So there's a lot of repeating a website, thinking that they're going to nail this answer because they remembered the seven-word name of the clinic that they're really interested in.
And there is some value in that. I'm not going to say that there's not value in it. But for standing out in the process, for really making the big impact that you're hoping to in the interview, focus in on self-advocacy. So being able to say that you are interested in X clinic because it reminds you of the work that you did in your internship or the research that you did in your thesis.
Being able to pull your strengths and the skillsets and experiences that you have into those answers is something that's super valuable, and that is something that will make you stand out. So whether it is the why X law school or any of these other questions, I think oftentimes because we get so sucked into law school land, we kind of forget what the elemental purpose of an interview is.
If you are interviewing for a job, you would be very mindful of using examples from your past to demonstrate that you are fully capable of doing the job that you have applied for. You're really in that advocate mindset of you are advocating for yourself. Oftentimes in law school, because I think it's just the sheer volume of information that is out there and that we can take in, we kind of lose sight of the self-advocacy component of it, but you still need to, in every answer that you are giving, frame it in a way that you are the star of the show and that your strengths and your experiences and that you as a great person, because we know that you are, is front and center.
So when you're thinking about that why X law school question, really refocus it on yourself. This is where the ghosts of Christmas and kind of thinking through some of your why law and other answers can really come in handy. But being able to make that connection between, "This is what the law school has to offer. This is what I have to offer. This is what me, as an applicant to this law school, has to offer," being able to marry those two together, that's when an interview answer really lands, and it's that combination that I really encourage you to seek out.
Anna: That is such a good point, and I think that's a really common mistake. I would love to talk about some other common mistakes that applicants make when preparing for their law school admissions interviews. Can you talk a little bit about that?
[31:55] Meg: Sure. So there's some obvious ones: having a very unprofessional background, getting very easily distracted. I know that oftentimes it's hard to find a quiet space to do your interviews, but I would really encourage you to seek them out so that your best friend is not making faces at you behind your Zoom screen while you're interviewing for law school.
I think actually one of the biggest mistakes that I see is actually that people make mistakes in the interview. So they start an answer, and they abandon it halfway, and they really lean into the mistake. Take that beat, take a deep breath, reset, and say, "Let me start over." I think that that, to me, was one of the things where I can tell you that there are plenty of law students running around right now who took that beat, restarted their answer, and actually came out much stronger as opposed to just rolling with it or saying, "Oh, that was a mistake," and just leaving it be.
During the pandemic, there was a person that I was interviewing. They were giving this really strong answer, and in the background, I could see that their kid was coming down the stairs, and I watched this applicant's face change when they saw that because I'm sure that they had taken every precaution possible. They said, "Would you mind if I take a moment to deal with this situation?" They went on mute. They turned off their camera. They dealt with whatever it was for about 30 seconds, came right back on, apologized, got right back into the answer, and it was one of the most professional handlings of something that they definitely didn't anticipate, and they certainly didn't want to handle.
So knowing that we understand you're going to make mistakes. I make mistakes all the time. That certainly happens. But when you take that deep breath and reset, that, to me, is when you can really lean into the mistake. You make what can feel bad that you might give yourself grief about later feel so much better because you know that you took the time to get that good answer out. That's certainly one of them.
I think research is another big one. This is one where there are going to be certain things about law school that are idiosyncratic to that place. So a classic example of this: There are certain law schools that are going to be quarter systems, like the University of Chicago, like Stanford. There are schools that are on the quarter system. This is not something that is going to absolutely break you. But if you were talking about how excited you were for the semesters X, Y, and Z in a Chicago interview, that shows that you didn't do that depth of research to demonstrate that you were actually looking forward to Chicago. Those are small mistakes.
Another one where you see that is where certain law schools are connected geographically to a place, but they're not actually in that downtown. So making sure that you've got a handle on some of those idiosyncratic things, like location, like the type of schedule that they have, maybe there are certain terms that are used very heavily at that law school. I guarantee you that those are very easy to find on their websites, and if you were doing a little bit of research over time, you would find them. So those are things that are small mistakes.
Other things are some of the more obvious ones, and these are just interview horror stories. Have a snack before you do your interview. I had an interview once where they were eating popcorn while I was doing the interview, and I about died. First of all, I was like, "Can you share some through the Zoom screen? It looks great." But that was just demonstrative of they are not taking this interview seriously. They are not respecting me, they are not respecting my law school, and they are not respecting this process.
So if you find yourself in a situation—I joke about the snack, but maybe you're really sick, or maybe there's something going on where, like, you just know that you are not going to be able to respect that interview—reach out to the admissions office. It is going to be our fervent goal that if you have scheduled an interview, that you will take it, but life happens, and all of us understand that. So if you find yourself in a situation like that, do the professional thing and ask to reschedule, so that you don't take your interview for an unnecessary reason.
It happens every year. Know that there are lots of schools that are going to handle it just fine. You're probably going to be talking to someone like me or someone else on the admissions team on the other side. They also know that life happens, so they're going to give you that grace. Those are the big interview mistakes that we see. I will say that outside of that, the traditional interview mistakes people make are things like talking and talking and talking and talking, then joking about talking so much, but not actually stopping your answer and continuing to talk, talk, talk.
Answers should be relatively quick. These interviews are only about 15 to 20 minutes, maybe a half hour, so you really don't get a ton of time to get all of your answers out. So you want to make sure that you're succinct; you want to keep it nice and crisp. And if you find yourself saying, "Ooh, that was a long answer," it was a long answer, so tie it up as you move forward into the interview process.
[36:07] Anna: The one thing that I will highlight from what you have talked about before in this podcast episode, but that I want to talk about here also, is that one very common mistake for interview prep and the preparation process specifically is overpreparing your answers, as Meg was talking about earlier. Writing out every single word and then going over it over and over again so that you can say that exactly verbatim, memorizing your answers. These can really harm what might be really great content, but it's distracting, the fact that you are reading it off of a page or that you are clearly reciting something that you have memorized.
As we've been talking about, this is an interview that part of the purpose is that interviewers want to see that you are going to be able to interview well for jobs, because that is happening earlier and earlier in students' law school career. So that's one thing also where you want to make sure that you're not super overpreparing.
Meg: One of the most important things that I think that we need to be thinking about interview prep is that with the dawn of AI and our good friends at ChatGPT, everybody loves using it. I am certainly guilty of that. But please know that I used to love asking ChatGPT, "Why should I go to UChicago Law School?" to see what it would answer, and then see if that language appeared in interviews. And I can tell you, with increasing frequency, word-for-word answers that I was getting from ChatGPT that weren't from the website, because that's one thing. If it's coming from a website, fine. But word for word, phrases like that were coming from ChatGPT.
So a word of caution, as in all things with law school land and AI, make sure that if you are using a tool like that, you are also taking the time to put things in your own words and to think it through so that I don't think that I am interviewing a chatbot; I think I'm interviewing you.
Anna: That's such a good point, and something that I think is so great to have your perspective of really recently doing these interviews. It's totally fine to use these tools for your research, but law schools want to see that you have thought about that yourself, you have synthesized that yourself, you have connected that to your own experiences and your own interests, as opposed to just taking the answer and reading it off a page without even necessarily thinking about it yourself. So great point.
I would like to talk through a few different specific concerns or difficulties that applicants might have as they're preparing for law school admissions interviews, things that certain individuals may want to do some intentional work on addressing to improve their interview skills generally. For one example, I've talked to a lot of applicants who struggle with interviews due to a lack of confidence. They might have amazing, wonderful things to say, but the difficulty is having the confidence in themselves to be able to talk about that in an effective way. What advice would you give to someone who's done interviews in the past and found that their confidence in themselves is a major barrier to their success?
Meg: Sure. I think the very first thing that I would start with, and this is for every single applicant out there, if you have gotten an invitation to interview at a law school, that means at the bare minimum they are interested in you for law school. So, like, hold onto that nugget. Let that be the confidence boost, or one confidence boost that you have rolling into this process because interviews are tough, man. I've done thousands of them, and I would spend hours a day doing them. If we were not interested in you, we wouldn't have taken the time because these are staff-intensive things to do. So at a minimum, hold onto that.
But outside of that, I think this is where practice really comes in handy. Getting that familiarity with interview questions, building up that muscle memory, because I do think it is muscle that comes into this. Not maybe literal muscle, but the idea of knowing what the interview process is like. I also think that some of the things that you can think through when you're thinking about your confidence is, is it particular parts about you that you are lacking that confidence? Is it that it's your GPA that you're worried about or your LSAT? Is there a specific thing in mind that knocks you off your perch, that makes you think about that?
If that's the case, identify it and then think through what your answer would be. At the end of the day, you are in a law school interview because you want to be a lawyer. One of the most important elements of being a lawyer is argumentation. You need to be able to think through something and come up with an argument for it. You are your first client here. So if you're thinking through, "All right, well, I'm worried about my GPA," think through all of the other things that demonstrate your academic acumen, right?
Maybe it's the work experience that you've had. Maybe there was literally one small thing that knocked you off on your GPA, but the rest of your, you know, major GPA is that much stronger, right? Hold onto those positives, but be intentional about thinking through that. Be intentional about, "All right, this is where I feel that I'm lacking in that confidence. Here's what I can do about it."
And I think that interviewing, maybe it is just literally the interview itself. In that instance, I think that you can really take some time to go through mock interviews, but set yourself up with a mock interview maybe from somebody like your career services, your pre-law advisor, maybe a trusted friend or a faculty member, someone who is in a little bit more of an authority figure to you so that it feels a little bit more like an interview process, and then ask them for their feedback. And again, think through that feedback and practice what they're telling you. And there's all kinds of other really helpful tips out there. I think, Anna, you've got some that you're going to share as well.
[41:09] Anna: Yeah. I wanted to go through this great exercise that we got from an incredible individual who we had on our podcast, Dr. Guy Winch. He did one of my favorite episodes that we have ever published. It's phenomenal. I highly recommend going and listening to it. It's not specifically with law school admissions expert or about the LSAT or anything like that. But he does a lot with, like, personal well-being, and I think that everything he has to say is so incredibly insightful and wonderful.
But one thing he gave us was a confidence exercise, which I think can be so, so effective. And this is something that you can do right before your interview, or it's something that you can do over time, and it's going to be more effective if you can do it over time, but it can still be really helpful right before the interview.
So, really quickly, the sort of basics of this are: Step one, write a list of at least five qualities, experiences, or attributes that will make you a good lawyer and/or law student. And the important thing here is they have to be things that you actually believe about yourself, not just what you want to convey to law schools and interviewers, because remember, this is a confidence exercise.
Step two is to write them down, and that is with your hand, with a pen or a pencil on a piece of paper. Psychologically, that is just more meaningful and has different effects than just thinking about it. Step three, read that list every day leading up to the interviewer. Don't just gloss over it; ponder it, internalize it, and then review it one more time right before the interview. That's our great exercise from Dr. Guy Winch.
Meg: I love that. I think that first of all, it feels like daily affirmations that could be good for everybody's regular life. Maybe not why I'm going to be a good lawyer, but that could come in handy. I was thinking about it as you were sharing that. I think it's something that law students could really value from. Hold onto that list, actually. When you are in law school, and you've kind of forgotten the whole law school admissions process, you're going to go through interviews to get jobs, and I think having that list handy. You know, you're not starting from scratch when you're going into on-campus interviewing and that. So go through the exercise and hold onto it.
Anna: Love it. Keep doing that. So another difficulty or concern that law school applicants might have is what if you are someone who tends to use a lot of filler words like, um, uh, like, and I don't mean like a normal non-distracting amount. You can talk to brilliant law professors and admissions deans and lawyers and hear plenty of filler words, but if it's to the point that it's something you're self-conscious about or people point it out to you or you think it's distracting from what you're saying, do you have any tips for how to practice in the lead-up to interviews to try to cut down on the number of filler words that you're using?
[43:36] Meg: Sure. I do really want to highlight what you've said at the very beginning of this, though. There are plenty of people out there who will use verbal fillers. So the very first thing that I will say is to make sure that you grant yourself a little bit of grace. There is not going to be a single law school interview out there that is going to be tanked because you used the word, um, so long as you have done the rest of the practice, the rest of the research, to demonstrate that you've got the strong answer. So give yourself a little grace.
The second thing I will say is that you should record yourself. Make sure that you can see patterns. Are there certain times when, "Oh, it's when I'm talking about X that I discover that I get into the verbal filler pattern," or "I can discover that when I start talking really fast, that's when this happens, or when I'm buying time." One of the best tricks that I would highly recommend for everybody in the interview process is to know that when I ask a question as an interviewer, you can always take a beat. You can always say, "Hey, do you mind if I think about that for a moment before responding?" Right? That shows that you're thoughtful. It shows that you're thinking through the question. It is not a weakness.
Anna: That's great, because I do think that that's a really common time when people can fall into using a lot of filler words or more than they typically do, more than they're comfortable with, is when they are buying that time to think about the answer, right? Like kinda hedging at the beginning.
I have one sort of intentional exercise to add, and I will say I'm using sort of as a filler right now. That's one of my common ones. For this exercise, you will need a friend or family member or someone else to help you out. Probably you don't want a professor or a pre-law advisor or career services officer for this one. But have this person ask you a random question, something you don't know beforehand or have time to prepare for. Could be anything. It could be about your hobbies, a recent vacation, a book you read, whatever. Ask them to listen as you respond and fully just interrupt you anytime you use a filler word by repeating that word back to you immediately.
It's really annoying. Then you restate the sentence without that filler word, and you move on. I would probably only do this one if you really have trouble with this. I don't think that this is something where your typical person really needs this kind of thing. But if it's something that you're struggling with, if it's something that you're self-conscious about, this can be a really effective exercise. And just be sure to tell your friend beforehand, "I know that this is going to be annoying. I know that it's going to seem like you are being really annoying, and that's okay. That's the point." And keep in mind that pauses are okay. You don't need to fill every moment.
Okay, so what about if someone has trouble with articulation and speaking clearly in a way that is readily understandable to any given interviewer?
Meg: Sure. I mean, I would say encourage some of the natural things that you think about when you're talking. So make sure that you've got good posture. Make sure that you are taking deep breaths. Oftentimes I think breathwork and talking really fast is probably the thing that we see the most in interviews. So if someone tells you that you speak fast or that you're talking fast, you should be mindful and thoughtful about that. And oftentimes the best way to slow yourself down is to actually physically take a deep breath before you answer the question or be thoughtful about your breathwork while you are answering the question.
Outside of that, I do think that, going to what I was saying before, everyone is human in this process, short of the Kira interviews, I guess. But for the most part, everyone that you're speaking to is a human, and they will understand that if you need to restart an answer, if you want to take a break, that happens. And again, I often view that as a sign of strength, not as a sign of weakness. It shows that you are thoughtful about the process.
Also know that, and this is something that I saw happen not too frequently, but every once in a while, it would happen. You can ask a question to someone, and they just cannot come up with an answer; their mind is kind of going blank. Good interviewers are going to see that. They'll let it happen for a little bit, and they'll move on. They'll say something like, "Let me ask you about that later. Why don't we circle back to that?" Or you personally can say, "Do you mind if I circle back to that answer a little bit later?" and they will ask you a different question.
A lot of interviewers, myself included, if you find yourself in that deer-in-the-headlights situation, we're going to try to redirect you, and I can tell you that my favorite way to redirect an interview is to actually go to someone's interests on their resume. The best way to reset someone is to ask them about something that they know it inside and out. So I've learned more about football and F1 and science fiction than I ever dreamed of because I would ask questions along those lines to help someone reset.
And I can tell you that it always, always, always stood out to me when someone who did ask, "Do you mind if I circle back to that answer?" I typically would not follow up and re-ask the question later in the interview. I would let it go. And the successful ones would actually come back to it a little bit later on and say, "Hey, you know, I know I left that question hanging. Can I give you the answer now?"
I thought, again, that's a sign of strength. It's a sign that you're able to adapt in real time, which is something that is important for a lawyer, right? Lawyers aren't always going to have the right answer. They're not always going to have it immediately cued up. But it is that confidence that comes from revisiting something, especially something that you yourself view as a weakness. There is some strength in that. That really jumped out to me. I loved it when applicants would do that.
[48:30] Anna: Hmm, that's a great tip. I will throw out just a few quick ones. If you find yourself often having to repeat yourself because people don't understand or because people didn't quite catch what you said, if you have trouble with expressing your words, tongue twisters can be great. You can look up vocal warm-ups for actors. Actors before plays will often do vocal warm-ups just so that they are articulating their words really well. Take those, steal those.
Another one, if you are preparing over a longer period of time, is that you can read aloud and record yourself and then listen back for any mumbling or slurring or missing sounds, and then just repeat it back, practicing the relevant words, practicing the relevant sounds. So regardless of what your preparation timeline has looked like, what tips do you have for the last 24 hours? What would you do during those 24 hours leading up to an interview to set yourself up for as much success as possible?
Meg: Sure. I think one of the big ones, and we haven't discussed it yet, but for every interview, you should be prepared to have questions at the end. Almost every single law school interview that you're going to go into, they're going to leave about anywhere from three to five minutes at the end to come up with questions.
Questions do not need to be this like earth-shattering "I'm going to be able to reinvent the Supreme Court decision" kind of a question. They're really designed for you to demonstrate your interest and to learn more about the school. You also, again, want to be thinking about them from that advocacy component, so you want to use those questions as an opportunity to engage with your interviewer, right?
So one way that I like thinking about it is when you are in the interview process, actually listen to what people are saying and how they're answering questions and what they're talking about. Ask a follow-up question. I think that's the easiest way to do it. But engaging with the interviewer, saying, "I'm really interested in this particular type of clinic.
Can you tell me what you have heard from law students about their clinical experience?" You want to kind of keep the question broad because you're not sure exactly how much interaction that particular admissions officer is going to have with that clinic.
But keeping it broad like that, keeping it in line with the "what has your interactions been like with those law students" will allow the interviewer to answer the question from a way that they're able to speak from their perspective. Other great questions to ask, and there's lots of different podcasts that we have and articles that you can look at on questions to ask interviewers, but I always love, "Hey, what's your favorite part about being a member of the community?" or, "What's one of your favorite memories from that?" That connection, that sort of personalization.
So thinking through your questions, making sure that you have them, I think, is my first piece of advice for the 24 hours before an interview. The next piece of advice is to keep it in perspective, and this is especially important as we roll into so many important things in this law school admissions process. Keep this interview in perspective. It is 15 minutes. It is 20 minutes. This is not the rest of your life. This is one opportunity among many that you have in this process to show who you are and to show that you are good at law school. So make sure that you don't build this up into an insurmountable mountain in your head, because then you are just going to be nerves, nerves, nerves, and that will come out in the interview.
So the night before the interview, make sure that you get that release, that you take that deep breath. Watch that TV show. Go for a walk. Like, make sure that you are taking care of yourself on a human level and keeping it in perspective so that you can wake up and really knock it out of the park because that's what really counts. We want to know that you're a cool person. We want to know that you're human on the other side of this application. So keeping that perspective can really give you the opportunity to shine in the interview.
[51:43] Anna: That's all great advice. One thing that I want to really emphasize that you talked about was the notion of taking care of yourself in the broadest ways. Things like eating well, making sure that you have, you know, a meal that day and that you're not forgetting to eat, getting a good night's sleep, watching that TV show or doing some physical activity, getting those nerves out. All the things that generally help someone to have a healthy day, healthy outlook.
I think any given individual on their worst day could give a horrible interview compared to their best day when they're just having a great day and, you know, might have given a wonderful interview. So set yourself up for success in terms of having that best day.
Meg: Going along with that, it often gets lost in the application process because it's so high-stress and it's high intensity, and it's compacted into just a few months. People actually forget that this is the on-ramp to law school, and it's not going to be that much different when you are in law school. So one of the best things that you can do to prepare yourself for an interview is actually one of the best things you can do to prepare yourself as a law student and then a successful lawyer, and that is develop self-care habits. Know how to reset. Know how to take care of yourself because you probably are going to have a tough answer in an interview or get something that you didn't want out of the law school admissions process.
That's going to continue in law school, and it's definitely going to continue in your career as a lawyer. So if you develop that muscle memory of how to reset, how to clear the slate, get your mind right back into it, that will make you a better applicant, it will make you a better law student, and it will ultimately make you a more successful lawyer.
Anna: Wonderful advice. I want to end with: If an applicant is listening to this and they have an interview coming up soon, what last words of advice or encouragement would you give them?
Meg: Sure. I think that the first one, the most important one, is something that we said a little bit earlier. We would not interview you if we were not interested in you. So hold onto that, right? You are in the running. You've got this. So make sure that you are allowing yourself to feel that. Get that confidence boost out there.
And the single biggest piece of advice I would say is, when you're in that Zoom waiting room, when you're in that 10, 15 minutes before you're getting on that Zoom, take some deep breaths. I actually had a doctor who told me this, so it's got to be true, right? People discount how calming the ABCs can be because you learn them when you're about two years old, and I've got toddlers, so I have lots of ABCs happening in my household. But it is something that you have had in your brain since you were two years old, and what that does is it actually slows you down. It's something that can really slow your heart rate. It distracts your mind.
And maybe it's not the ABCs. Maybe it's counting backwards from 100 or whatever it may be. But it is something that is a distraction, that is not allowing you to lean into every other piece of noise that you have around you. It calms you. It centers your heartbeat. It centers your blood pressure. That's a really great thing to think about in the very few minutes before you are starting this interview because I promise you, those bullet points that you have dutifully created in your interview prep are not going to be landing in your mind in the five minutes before you do that interview. So the best thing that you can do in that period of time is actually just center yourself. So ABCs, that's my piece of advice there.
Anna: Love it. Love it. That seems like a great place to end. Thank you so much again, Meg. And as always, thank you to our listeners. Feel free to follow us for more advice and strategy and updates all cycle along. Bye, everyone.
Meg: Good luck.
.png)
