As a former associate at a "white shoe" law firm and having been part of the recruiting/interviewing process, I can vouch for most of the observations the article makes.
The Process:
1) HR (and the hiring partner + his helpers) looks through the piles of resumes and decides who to interview or give a full-day callback
Aside: Many top law schools have job fairs where students bid on law firms to interview with and law firms have to accept interviews with those students who bid highest. The schools set this up so that low-GPA students can still get interviews and hopefully impress the interviewer with his/her passion/personality. Surprisingly, this can work out quite well in many instances for the low-GPA students, so long as the stretch isn't too big. Law firms agree to these terms or otherwise, schools deny them access to the job fair. Maybe the recent economic turmoil has changed the dynamic, but I'm not sure.
2) The initial interview (at a job fair or otherwise) is just one person who interviews you and decides whether or not to give you the opportunity for a full-day callback interview on site.
3) On site, there are usually 3-4 one-on-one interviews with a mix of partners and mid to senior level associates. Then its a lunch interview (at a high-end restaurant) with a couple of junior associates.
Any one of the aforementioned people can kill the interviewee's chances with a strong "No", though there are always exceptions when a partner has strong feelings the other way.
From my experience and talking with partners and associates, the only real criteria interviewers tend to consider:
(i) "Gut feel" - meaning whether you like the interviewee and view him/her as an enthusiastic likeable person (remember that you'll likely have to spend lots of late nights working with this person),
(ii) School/grades - knowing how everyone in the legal industry knows how important law school pedigree is in the profession, someone making it into top law schools is considered a huge indicator. Even young associates are very congnizant of law school because we know how hard we tried to get into the top schools because we knew how important it was (much much more important than for undergrad). And don't forget that this is a prestigious law firm with lots of white-haired conservative Yale and Harvard old men.
[Note: This will often have a hard/soft cutoff which will reject an applicant no matter how great the personality or extracurricular]
iii) Exceptional extracurriculars/interests - only things that really make an applicant memorable are worth anything because anyone with half a brain can come up with a list of activities/interests.
iv) Physical attractiveness for women - given that senior management in the legal profession is still dominated by men and that the most attractive women generally don't end up being lawyers, I think this can sometimes come into play (and lets not pretend that it doesn't in the rest of the world).
The Process:
1) HR (and the hiring partner + his helpers) looks through the piles of resumes and decides who to interview or give a full-day callback
Aside: Many top law schools have job fairs where students bid on law firms to interview with and law firms have to accept interviews with those students who bid highest. The schools set this up so that low-GPA students can still get interviews and hopefully impress the interviewer with his/her passion/personality. Surprisingly, this can work out quite well in many instances for the low-GPA students, so long as the stretch isn't too big. Law firms agree to these terms or otherwise, schools deny them access to the job fair. Maybe the recent economic turmoil has changed the dynamic, but I'm not sure.
2) The initial interview (at a job fair or otherwise) is just one person who interviews you and decides whether or not to give you the opportunity for a full-day callback interview on site.
3) On site, there are usually 3-4 one-on-one interviews with a mix of partners and mid to senior level associates. Then its a lunch interview (at a high-end restaurant) with a couple of junior associates.
Any one of the aforementioned people can kill the interviewee's chances with a strong "No", though there are always exceptions when a partner has strong feelings the other way.
From my experience and talking with partners and associates, the only real criteria interviewers tend to consider:
(i) "Gut feel" - meaning whether you like the interviewee and view him/her as an enthusiastic likeable person (remember that you'll likely have to spend lots of late nights working with this person),
(ii) School/grades - knowing how everyone in the legal industry knows how important law school pedigree is in the profession, someone making it into top law schools is considered a huge indicator. Even young associates are very congnizant of law school because we know how hard we tried to get into the top schools because we knew how important it was (much much more important than for undergrad). And don't forget that this is a prestigious law firm with lots of white-haired conservative Yale and Harvard old men.
[Note: This will often have a hard/soft cutoff which will reject an applicant no matter how great the personality or extracurricular]
iii) Exceptional extracurriculars/interests - only things that really make an applicant memorable are worth anything because anyone with half a brain can come up with a list of activities/interests.
iv) Physical attractiveness for women - given that senior management in the legal profession is still dominated by men and that the most attractive women generally don't end up being lawyers, I think this can sometimes come into play (and lets not pretend that it doesn't in the rest of the world).