What should you ask a contract attorney in an interview? Questions and what good answers sound like
An employer-side question bank for law firms interviewing contract attorneys — skills questions with answer guidance, behavioral questions, a mock-file exercise, and the questions that are risky to ask.
Screen a contract attorney with questions that make them show how they work: what they reviewed and coded, how they handled privilege calls, what they drafted, and how they hit a deadline someone else set.
This contract attorney interview question bank covers skills questions, behavioral questions, a mock-file exercise and the questions some jurisdictions restrict — with what strong and weak answers sound like for each.
Before the interview
Write down what this hire must actually do at your firm — first-pass review on a production, privilege calls, discovery responses, research memos, overflow briefs while your team is at trial — and turn that into a scorecard before the first candidate sits down.
Start from the contract attorney job description you posted: every question below should trace back to a duty on it.
Ask every candidate the same core set, in the same order, so the answers stay comparable.
The full process, from scoping the engagement through supervision and onboarding, is our guide to how to hire a contract attorney.
Build any work sample on a mock file.
Federal wage law defines "employ" to include "to suffer or permit to work" (29 U.S.C.
203(g)) — so a candidate doing real, usable work for the firm, such as drafting language that ends up in a brief the firm files, may be an employee owed wages for it.
An exercise on a fictional file keeps the sample real and the relationship on safer ground.
If you require a test as part of the process, the EEOC's position is that it must be necessary and related to the job, and must not exclude people of a protected group or people with disabilities.
And if an applicant with a disability needs an accommodation to apply for the job — a sign language interpreter, for example — you are required to provide it so long as it does not cause significant difficulty or expense.
Two more pieces of groundwork.
Start the conflicts check before the first interview, not after: under ABA Model Rule 1.10(a), a conflict under Rules 1.7 or 1.9 that any one lawyer associated in a firm carries is imputed to every lawyer in the firm unless an exception applies.
Whether a contract attorney counts as associated with your firm for that rule is a question this page's research did not settle, so treat the prior clients they bring from other engagements as something your conflicts team needs to know about.
And settle the rate and pay structure you are prepared to offer before the interview — in California, an applicant can request the position's pay scale on reasonable request, whatever the firm's size.
Where your jurisdiction lands on salary history and criminal history is covered in the risky-questions section below.
Which skills questions reveal real contract attorney experience?
Walk me through the largest document review you have worked on — your role in it, how the review was structured, and what you coded against.
What to listen for: A named role: first-pass reviewer, second-level reviewer, privilege lead.
They describe the protocol — responsiveness categories, privilege and confidentiality calls, tagging rules — and how close calls moved up the chain.
A document count with no protocol, no structure and no stated role is the weak answer.
A document looks privileged but is not clearly so. What do you do?
What to listen for: Stop, flag, escalate to the review lead or supervising attorney — plus a reason: the cost of a wrong privilege call lands on the firm either way, and close calls are not a reviewer's to gamble on.
Making the call solo, or "it depends on my gut," is the weak answer.
Tell me about the last substantive piece of writing you delivered on a contract engagement — a memo, a brief section, a discovery response. What was the assignment, and what came back?
What to listen for: An assignment they can restate in a sentence, citations they checked themselves, and edits they describe without defensiveness — including what they changed afterwards.
A candidate who cannot reconstruct one deliverable, or who has only review work when your role needs writing, is answering your real question.
You get a new assignment Monday in a practice area you have never touched. How do you ramp up?
What to listen for: A sequence: read the operative pleadings and the case schedule first, then the firm's templates and prior work product, then ask the supervising attorney to put the scope in writing.
"I know how to research" with no sequence is the weak answer — ramping fast is a core skill of the engagement model.
What does your work look like before you hand it to the supervising attorney?
What to listen for: Self-review: citations verified, confidential material checked against the protocol, formatting clean, and a cover note stating assumptions and open questions.
You are listening for a reviewer who packages work so a partner can use it in minutes, not one who hands over a raw draft and hopes.
Which behavioral questions test judgment, confidentiality and deadlines?
Tell me about a deadline you nearly missed on an engagement. What happened, and what changed afterwards?
What to listen for: Ownership without blame-shifting, a specific cause, and a system fix — a docket with reminders, earlier check-ins with the supervising attorney.
"Nobody told me it was due" with no fix attached is the weak answer.
How do you keep one engagement's confidences separate from the next — client identities, case strategy, documents — when the engagements sit at different firms?
What to listen for: This is a test the right candidate passes by declining: work product never crosses engagements, nothing about a current matter gets named in an interview, and prior-firm clients are described in generalities only.
The one who offers up another firm's client list or a figure from an active file may do the same to yours.
Tell me about a time you were pushed — or tempted — to go beyond your assignment, say advising the client directly. What did you do?
What to listen for: They recognized the scope boundary, routed the question back to the supervising attorney, and kept the client relationship intact.
Improvising client counsel on an engagement that never authorized it is the weak answer.
Tell me about carrying more than one engagement with overlapping deadlines. How did you decide what got your attention first?
What to listen for: Triage by deadline and consequence, and early notice to the affected supervising attorney when capacity runs short — not silent overextension and not a peek at the other firm's matters to explain the crunch.
The strong answer includes asking for help before the crisis, not after.
Tell me about a mistake you caught in your own work — a miscoded document, a missed citation. What did you do?
What to listen for: Prompt disclosure to the review lead or supervising attorney, a fix that someone else verified, and a process change so it does not recur.
Candidates with no mistakes, or whose mistakes are always someone else's, have not done the reflection this work needs.
What practical exercise or test should a contract attorney complete?
Set a small mock review: a short stack of fictional documents, a one-page protocol, and a timed window to code them for responsiveness and privilege.
What to listen for: Protocol-following: codes track the document you gave them, not their habits from other engagements, and close calls are flagged to you instead of guessed.
The flag is the strongest signal the exercise gives you — it is exactly how they will behave on your production.
Ask them to walk you through their calls: why is this one responsive, and that one not?
What to listen for: Reasoning against the protocol line by line, distinctions drawn between documents, and a genuine position change when you point to a line they missed.
Coachability on a correction is the trait that keeps a review clean; rehearsed answers collapse here.
If the role is writing-heavy, add a short research memo or discovery response on the same fictional file, timed, in the room or on a video call.
What to listen for: Organization under time pressure: the question presented, a short answer up front, support behind it, and assumptions stated where your facts run out.
Keep the sample short — you are sampling their writing, not collecting free work, which is why the file stays fictional.
Close by asking what they would need from the supervising attorney to do the real assignment well.
What to listen for: Scope in writing, the protocol, a named person who takes escalation calls, access to templates and prior work product.
A candidate who asks these questions is describing how they actually run an engagement — or revealing that they never have.
Which questions are illegal or risky to ask?
Keep interview questions to what is essential to deciding whether the candidate can do the work — the EEOC's position is that questions about race, sex, national origin, age and religion are irrelevant to that decision.
Federal law does not clearly forbid every question touching those traits, but the answers can be used as evidence of an intent to discriminate unless the question is justified by a business purpose, so treat them as risky rather than merely awkward.
Two areas carry actual bans in the jurisdictions verified for this page — salary history and criminal history.
One more is specific to this engagement model: if your firm engages contract attorneys as independent contractors rather than employees, the EEOC notes that independent contractors are not covered by the federal anti-discrimination laws it enforces, but deciding who is a contractor is complicated, so confirm the structure with employment counsel.
The statutes below are the ones this page's research verified, not a complete list.
- “How much are you making now? What did your last firm or agency pay you?” California's Labor Code 432.3 bars seeking an applicant's salary history — compensation and benefits included, orally or in writing — at employers of any size. New York bars relying on an applicant's wage or salary history and requesting it as a condition of being interviewed, considered, hired or promoted (Labor Law 194-a). Illinois bars screening applicants by salary history and requesting it as a condition of an interview or offer (820 ILCS 112). Massachusetts bars seeking it from the candidate or a current or former employer (G.L. c.149 s.105A). Connecticut bars asking about a prospective employee's wage and salary history unless the applicant volunteers it, Virginia's Code 40.1-28.7:12 bans seeking salary history, and so does Nevada's NRS 613.133. Cities and states beyond the statutes verified for this page have their own rules — check yours before you interview. Ask what rate or salary the candidate expects for this engagement instead, which California's law expressly allows; if a candidate volunteers prior pay unprompted, California lets you consider it, and New York lets you confirm it only after you have made an offer with compensation and the candidate cites prior pay to support a higher number.
- “Have you ever been arrested or convicted?” Each jurisdiction verified for this page restricts when you may ask it, and the timing differs. California's Fair Chance Act (Gov. Code 12952) applies to employers with five or more employees and bars asking about or considering conviction history until after a conditional offer. New York City's Fair Chance Act — part of the NYC Human Rights Law since October 27, 2015 — makes pre-offer inquiry unlawful for most employers. Illinois's Job Opportunities for Qualified Applicants Act (820 ILCS 75/15) holds the question, for covered employers, until the applicant has been determined qualified and notified that they have been selected for an interview or, when there is no interview, until after a conditional offer. Other states and cities have fair-chance rules this research did not cover. In California, denying a job over conviction history requires an individualized assessment, written notice and at least five business days for the applicant to respond. And weigh exclusions carefully everywhere: criminal-record screens that significantly disadvantage a protected group without predicting job performance can be unlawful disparate impact under FTC/EEOC guidance.
- “How is your health? Any gaps in your history for health reasons?” Employers should not ask medical questions before a conditional job offer; FTC/EEOC guidance treats certain medical and genetic information as the exception to an otherwise general rule that asking about an applicant's background is not illegal. The small-talk version counts too — a candidate's own treatment or injury history is a medical topic, so leave it out of a pre-offer interview.
- Ordering a background report without the required steps. If you buy a report from a background-check company, the FCRA path runs: a stand-alone written disclosure (not inside the application), the candidate's written permission, and — before any adverse decision — a copy of the report plus “A Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.”
- “Which firms have you reviewed documents for? Whose files were they?” You do not need the identities behind a candidate's prior engagements to decide whether they can do your work, and the EEOC's position is that pre-employment questions should be limited to what is essential. You learn what you actually need about prior clients from your conflicts process, not from the interview — and the candidate who volunteers other firms' client names in your interview is telling you what they may do with yours.
- “Where are you from originally? How old are you? Who watches your kids while you are on a review? What church do you attend?” The EEOC publishes guidance on pre-employment inquiries about race, height and weight, financial information, unemployed status, religious affiliation, citizenship, and marital status or number of children, and its position is that race, sex, national origin, age and religion are irrelevant to whether a person is qualified — so “are you between engagements right now?” sits on that list too. If the concern behind the question is real for this role, ask about the work: availability for the review window, remote setup, turnaround under deadline.
After the interview
Score while it is fresh.
Rate each candidate against the same scorecard right after the interview, before the next one starts.
Across every question above, the strong-versus-weak pattern holds: strong answers are specific — the review's size and the candidate's role in it, the protocol the calls were coded against, the deliverable and the edits it came back with, the system fix after a near-miss.
Weak answers stay generic: documents counted instead of work described, no protocol named, deliverables that cannot be reconstructed, mistakes that are always somebody else's.
A candidate who declines to hand over confidential specifics from a current engagement is passing a test, not failing one.
Document review experience — strong: first-pass and second-level roles named, coding against a written protocol, close calls escalated; weak: a document count with no protocol, structure or role described.
The privilege gray area — strong: stops, flags the document, escalates to the review lead; weak: makes the call solo and cannot reconstruct the reasoning.
Confidentiality between engagements — strong: declines to name clients or share figures from active files; weak: names other firms' clients or quotes numbers from an active matter.
Writing — strong: question presented, short answer up front, citations checked, assumptions stated; weak: a summary with no question, no conclusion and no sources.
A deadline nearly missed — strong: owns the cause and names the system fix adopted afterwards; weak: "things got busy," with no cause and no fix.
Expect questions from the candidate — they carry signal too.
A strong contract attorney asks about scope (review only, or writing as well), who supervises and reviews the work, and how a close call reaches a human quickly.
They may also ask how you would screen them.
Whether a conflict under Rules 1.7 or 1.9 that a contract attorney carries is imputed to your firm under ABA Model Rule 1.10(a) turns on whether they count as associated with it — a question this page's research did not settle for temporary lawyers.
Be ready with a real answer: for a lateral, Model Rule 1.10(a)(2) does not impute a former-client conflict from a prior firm when the lawyer is timely screened and is apportioned no part of the fee from that matter, prompt written notice describing the screen goes to the affected former client, and the screened lawyer and a partner certify compliance at reasonable intervals on the former client's written request and when screening ends — but states differ on non-consensual screening, so describe your own process, check your state's version of Rule 1.10 and confirm with ethics counsel how it applies to a contract attorney.
Questions about the engagement's length, the chance of extension, remote setup and how hours are verified come from someone picturing the work — answer concretely.
Rate-and-hours questions with nothing about the work, or no questions at all, are the weaker signals.
Before you offer, close the loop you opened in the interview: check what you heard against references, put the rate, the scope and the review window in writing, and see how to hire a contract attorney for the screening and onboarding steps that follow.
This page is employer information, not legal advice. Interview and screening rules — salary history, criminal history, medical inquiries, background reports — change and vary by jurisdiction. Confirm yours with the EEOC, your state labor agency and employment counsel before you interview.
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