What should you ask a criminal defense attorney in an interview? Questions and what good answers sound like
An employer-side question bank for interviewing a criminal defense attorney at a law firm: skills and behavioral questions with answer guides, a practical exercise on a mock file, and the questions to keep out of the room.
The questions to ask when hiring a criminal defense attorney are the ones that separate courtroom experience from courtroom vocabulary: skills questions tied to real files, behavioral questions on judgment, confidentiality and deadlines, a short exercise on a mock case, and follow-ups that stay on the right side of interview law.
This page gives you the question bank, what strong answers sound like, and what to keep out of the room.
Before the interview
Write the questions before the first candidate sits down, and decide what the seat actually is: the felony and misdemeanor mix, expected first-chair trials, jail visits, appointed work and weekend motion coverage all change which answers should score well.
A written criminal defense attorney job description keeps the whole panel grading against the same seat.
Answer what a lookup can answer before anyone speaks, so interview time goes to judgment.
Bar status and a conflicts map for lateral candidates are the two big ones — our guide to how to hire a criminal defense attorney walks through both.
Then hold each candidate to the same core script: you cannot compare answers to questions that changed.
If you use the exercise below, send it in advance with the same instructions and the same mock file to each candidate, and tell them how to request what they need to complete it.
Under EEOC guidance, an employer must provide an accommodation a disabled applicant needs to apply for a job unless it causes significant difficulty or expense.
Keep the exercise itself hypothetical.
Under EEOC guidance, a required test must be necessary and related to the job and must not exclude people of a protected group or people with disabilities — for this role, that means testing first-meeting judgment, plain-language client communication and short argument, not trivia recall.
And under the FLSA, employ includes to suffer or permit to work: a candidate producing real, usable work on your matters can be an employee owed wages, so a short exercise on a mock file is the safer design.
Which skills questions reveal real criminal defense attorney experience?
Walk me through your last trial from first appearance to verdict. What did you do personally at each stage?
What to listen for: Specific courts, charge levels, witnesses cross-examined, motions argued — and a clear line between what the candidate did and what the team did.
A theme with no docket under it (I try cases, I connect with juries) is the weak version of this answer.
What is the most recent suppression issue you argued, and what turned on it?
What to listen for: Strong answers name the issue, the factual fight, the ruling and what it changed for the case.
Weak answers stop at winning the motion — no issue identified, no facts, no consequence for the client.
How do you prepare a client to choose between a plea and trial?
What to listen for: Strong answers describe laying out both roads in plain language, documenting the conversation, and the client making the call.
Watch who the I is in the answer: a lawyer who says they decide has the relationship backwards.
You have a new client in custody as of this morning. What happens in your first two days?
What to listen for: Jail visit, family contact, evidence-preservation requests, calendar check, early discovery review — strong answers move in a specific order and can say why.
Weak answers start at the next court date.
How many first-chair trials have you taken to verdict, and where?
What to listen for: A real answer distinguishes jury from bench and felony from misdemeanor, and names the courts.
A total that quietly folds in second-chair work deserves a follow-up before you credit it.
Which behavioral questions test judgment, confidentiality and deadlines?
Tell me about a time holding a client's confidence cost you something — an alliance, a reporter's goodwill, a co-defendant's family's trust. What did you say, and what did it cost?
What to listen for: Strong answers describe what they declined to share without actually sharing it.
A candidate who re-tells the secret while answering the question has answered it — and will treat your files the same way.
Describe a court deadline you nearly missed. What did you change about how you work afterward?
What to listen for: Strong candidates own the near-miss and name the system that changed: calendaring rules, docketing checks, escalating to a supervisor early.
Weak answers blame a clerk, the court or a co-counsel — and change nothing.
A client insists on a decision you believe will hurt the case. Walk me through what you do next.
What to listen for: Strong answers describe advice given plainly, confirmed in writing, and the client's decision controlling how the case is run.
Weak answers hint at steering around the client or engineering the outcome.
The skill is documenting the advice and executing the client's choice well.
Tell me about the busiest month your caseload has handed you. How did you triage, and what gave?
What to listen for: Strong candidates triage by court dates and client impact, escalate before the miss instead of after, and can name what slipped.
Nothing ever slipped is a weak answer — so is an answer with no system in it.
Describe a file you inherited mid-case. What were your first three moves?
What to listen for: Strong answers start with the client and the calendar — contact, control dates, what is due next — before relitigating the predecessor's choices.
Weak answers start with complaining about the predecessor.
What practical exercise or test should a criminal defense attorney complete?
The first-meeting exercise. Give a police report and a client statement for a hypothetical case, and ask: list the questions you would ask this client in your first meeting, and the two things you would investigate first.
What to listen for: Strong submissions ask about the client's account before the paperwork and flag the urgent items — court dates, evidence that will not wait, who else needs to be contacted.
Weak submissions summarize the report back to you and investigate nothing.
The plain-language exercise. Ask for a short letter to the hypothetical client explaining that the court date moved, written so a client with no legal background can act on it.
What to listen for: Strong letters lead with the new date and what the client must do, explain only what needs explaining, and stay calm.
Weak letters lean on formalisms or bury the action item in the last sentence.
The argument exercise. Ten minutes of oral argument on a record you invented — and tell the candidate in advance that you will interrupt.
What to listen for: Strong candidates keep their structure after the interruption, concede the point that must be conceded, and land back on their best ground.
Weak candidates argue past the questioner or lose the thread entirely.
What should a criminal defense attorney candidate ask you, and what does it signal?
What does the docket for this seat look like — the felony and misdemeanor mix, and first-chair courtroom time?
What to listen for: Signals a candidate thinking about preparation load and courtroom reps, not just the title.
Answer from your current docket, not an aspiration — and note that a candidate who asks nothing about the work is telling you something too.
Who reviews my work, and how does supervision actually run here?
What to listen for: Signals someone who expects feedback and file review — easier to supervise than someone who resents it.
Name the reviewing attorney and the cadence in your answer; vagueness here reads as no supervision, and good candidates notice.
How do you run conflicts, and would I be screened from anything on day one?
What to listen for: Signals a candidate who has been through a lateral move before.
Have an answer ready: under the ABA Model Rules, one lawyer's conflict is imputed to all lawyers in a firm unless an exception applies (Model Rule 1.10(a)), and a lateral's former-client conflict from a prior firm is not imputed when the lawyer is timely screened and is apportioned no part of that matter's fee (Model Rule 1.10(a)(2)).
States differ on screening, so confirm your state's version of Rule 1.10 with your state bar's ethics counsel.
What is the pay range for this seat, and how was it set?
What to listen for: Signals preparation — and the law may already be on the candidate's side.
California employers must give an applicant the pay scale for the position on reasonable request regardless of firm size, and Nevada must give the wage or salary range to an applicant who has completed an interview.
Posting rules put the range in the ad to begin with: California requires employers with 15 or more employees to include the pay scale in job postings, New York requires businesses with four or more employees to list compensation ranges, and New York City has required a good-faith pay range in job advertisements for NYC-performed work since November 1, 2022.
Answer plainly; a candidate who has to force the range conversation starts the job wary of it.
Which questions are illegal or risky to ask?
Treat this as risk management, not a list of magic words.
Under EEOC guidance, federal law does not flatly bar interview questions that touch race, sex, national origin, religion or age — but those questions can be used as evidence of an intent to discriminate unless they are justified by a business purpose, and the guidance's working rule is to limit pre-employment questions to what is essential to deciding whether a person is qualified.
The flags below are what to keep out of your script, and what to do instead.
- Protected traits dressed as small talk. When did you graduate, are you planning children, where is your family from, what church do you attend — the EEOC publishes separate guidance on pre-employment inquiries about race, height and weight, financial information, unemployed status, religious affiliation, citizenship, and marital status or number of children. If a question would matter to you only because of a protected trait, it is not essential to the hiring decision.
- Medical questions before an offer. FTC and EEOC guidance is blunt: employers should not ask medical questions before a conditional job offer. Ask about the job's demands — the court schedule, the travel — and keep health conditions and disabilities out of the question script.
- Salary history, asked directly. What were you making at your last firm is barred by name in California, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia and Nevada: California Labor Code 432.3 bars all employers, of any size, from seeking an applicant's salary history — compensation and benefits included — orally or in writing, personally or through an agent, and from relying on it in hiring and pay decisions. New York Labor Law 194-a bars relying on wage or salary history and requesting it as a condition of being interviewed, considered or hired, including seeking it from a current or former employer. Illinois (820 ILCS 112/10(b-5) and (b-10)) makes it unlawful to screen applicants by salary history or to request it as a condition of an interview or offer. Massachusetts (G.L. c.149 s.105A(c)(2)) bars seeking it from the candidate or a current or former employer. Connecticut bars asking about wage and salary history unless the applicant volunteers it. Virginia (Virginia Code 40.1-28.7:12) and Nevada (NRS 613.133) also ban seeking salary history.
- Salary history — what you can do instead. Ask expectations, not history: California Labor Code 432.3 expressly allows asking an applicant about their salary expectation for the position, and an employer may consider salary history the candidate volunteers without prompting. New York allows confirming history only at the offer stage — when you have made an offer with compensation and the candidate responds by citing prior pay to support a higher number. Massachusetts allows confirmation only after voluntary disclosure or after an offer with compensation has been made.
- Criminal history, asked too early. California's Fair Chance Act (Gov. Code 12952) bars employers with five or more employees from including conviction-history questions on an application, or otherwise inquiring into or considering conviction history, until after a conditional offer. New York City's Fair Chance Act makes it unlawful for most employers to ask about or consider criminal history before a conditional offer. Illinois' Job Opportunities for Qualified Applicants Act (820 ILCS 75/15) bars covered employers from asking until the applicant has been found qualified and notified they are selected for an interview — or, when there is no interview, until after a conditional offer. This one matters in defense hiring specifically: a candidate's own record is exactly the question these statutes postpone.
- The step after a conviction question becomes lawful. In California, an employer that plans to deny a job over conviction history must make an individualized assessment, notify the applicant in writing, and give at least five business days to respond before a final decision.
- Assuming size exempts you. Federal anti-discrimination law covers private employers with 15 or more employees for Title VII, the ADA and GINA, and 20 or more for the age discrimination law (ADEA) — in each case counting employees who worked at least 20 calendar weeks in the current or prior year. The federal numbers are not the whole test: California's Fair Chance Act reaches employers with five or more employees, and this page's research did not confirm a size threshold for every state and city statute named above. Confirm coverage with employment counsel.
- Treating this as the whole map. This page names only the jurisdictions its research covered; it is not a count of the states and cities with salary-history or fair-chance rules, and other jurisdictions have their own. Before you finalize your script, have employment counsel check the rules where your firm and each candidate sit.
After the interview
Score the same day, on the same axes.
Courtroom experience you can verify, judgment, discretion, deadline discipline — the four things these questions were built to test.
Grade each interview alone before the panel compares notes, so the loudest voice in the room does not set the scale.
What strong answers sound like.
Specificity you could check: courts named, charge levels distinguished, the candidate's own role separated from the team's, and at least one thing they would do differently.
In the exercise, strong candidates say they do not know and then reason to a next step — in defense work, knowing the edge of what you know is a skill, not a gap.
What weak answers sound like.
Themes without files: winning motions, connecting with juries, no courtroom or ruling attached.
A candidate who cannot describe a single mistake has either a short career or a short memory.
And one who volunteers a former client's strategies while answering your confidentiality question has answered it.
Close the loop before the offer.
Call the references who actually watched the courtroom work.
Keep the offer conversation on this seat and its expectations — not on the candidate's prior pay — and put the terms in writing.
This page is employer information, not legal advice. Interview-question rules come from EEOC guidance and from state and city statutes that differ and change; have employment counsel review your question script and exercise before you use them.
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