What should you ask an insurance defense attorney in an interview? Questions and what good answers sound like
An employer-side question bank for interviewing an insurance 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 an insurance defense attorney are the ones that separate lawyers who have run carrier-appointed files from lawyers who have only sat near them: skills questions tied to real dockets and adjuster reporting, behavioral questions on judgment, confidentiality and deadlines, a short exercise on a mock file, and a script that stays clear of the questions employment law makes risky.
That is the bank below, with what strong answers sound like.
Before the interview
Write the questions before the first candidate sits down, and decide what the seat actually is: the loss types the firm defends, bench and jury trial expectations, first-chair time, panel reporting requirements and the number of files an associate carries here all change which answers should score well.
A written insurance defense attorney job description keeps the whole panel grading against the same seat.
Clear what a lookup can answer before anyone speaks, so interview time goes to judgment: bar status, and a conflicts map that covers lateral candidates — including crossovers from plaintiff-side practices — before the second round.
Our guide to how to hire an insurance defense attorney walks through both.
Then hold every 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 every 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 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 seat, that means testing first-report judgment, plain-language communication with an insured and short argument, not trivia recall.
The FLSA is the other reason to keep it mock: employ includes to suffer or permit to work, so a candidate producing real, usable work on one of your matters can be an employee owed wages.
Score a short exercise on a hypothetical file instead.
Which skills questions reveal real insurance defense attorney experience?
Walk me through one file you defended from the answer through resolution. What did you do personally at each stage?
What to listen for: Courts and loss types named, the stages of the file in order — answer, written discovery, depositions, experts, mediation or dispositive motion — and a clean line between what the candidate did and what the team, the paralegal and the adjuster did.
A theme with no docket under it (I defend lawsuits and protect carriers) is the weak version of this answer.
What is the most recent dispositive motion you wrote or argued, and what did it turn on?
What to listen for: Strong answers name the issue the motion decided, the factual fight underneath it, the ruling and what it changed for the file — resolved it, narrowed it, or positioned it for mediation.
Weak answers stop at winning the motion.
A newly insured defendant lands on your desk this morning under a liability appointment. What happens in your first week?
What to listen for: Docket the answer deadline first, read the file and the policy papers, verify service, then the first report with an early liability and damages assessment.
Strong answers move in a specific order and can say why.
Weak answers start at the first court date.
What goes into your first report on a new file, and what would you never wait to report?
What to listen for: Strong answers describe an early assessment of liability and exposure, a plan and a budget, and bad facts flagged up front rather than discovered later — plus a clear line on what gets reported immediately, like a demand at policy limits or a deadline in trouble.
Weak answers describe whatever form the carrier sends back.
How do you prepare an insured for their deposition, and how is that different from preparing to take one?
What to listen for: Strong candidates distinguish defending a deposition from taking one, prepare the witness in plain language, protect the record, and can state the line between preparing a witness and scripting one.
Weak answers cannot separate the two roles.
Which behavioral questions test judgment, confidentiality and deadlines?
Tell me about a time holding a client's information close cost you something — a referral source's goodwill, a co-counsel's trust, speed. What did you decline to share, and what did it cost?
What to listen for: Defense files carry the insured's information and the carrier's case evaluations, and crossovers from plaintiff firms carry their former clients'.
Strong answers describe what they declined to share without actually sharing it.
A candidate who re-tells the confidential detail while answering the question has answered it — and will treat your files the same way.
Describe a court or reporting 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: docketing checks, status-report triggers, escalating to the partner or the adjuster early.
Weak answers blame a clerk, the court or the adjuster — and change nothing.
Tell me about an assessment you had to give that your client did not want to hear. How did you deliver it?
What to listen for: Strong answers describe the valuation or liability opinion delivered plainly, and in writing, at the time it mattered — not reshaped after the fact.
A lawyer whose reports have only ever carried good news has either been lucky or has not been candid.
Tell me about the month your caseload was heaviest. How did you triage, and what gave?
What to listen for: Strong candidates triage by court deadlines and reporting dates, 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 took over mid-litigation from another lawyer. What were your first three moves?
What to listen for: Strong answers start with the calendar and the people — what is due next, the insured, the adjuster — before re-examining the predecessor's choices.
Weak answers start by relitigating the predecessor.
What practical exercise or test should an insurance defense attorney complete?
The first-report exercise. Give a hypothetical claim file — the complaint, the insured's incident summary and the correspondence to date — and ask for the first report: liability assessment, damages exposure, plan and budget.
What to listen for: Strong submissions read before they write, flag bad facts as plainly as good ones, give exposure reasoning rather than a bare number, and set a plan with dates.
Weak submissions summarize the complaint back to you and commit to nothing.
The plain-language exercise. Ask for a short letter to the hypothetical insured explaining a properly served deposition notice and what they should do before the date.
What to listen for: Strong letters lead with what the insured must do and when, 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 argument on a motion in 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 an insurance defense attorney candidate ask you, and what does it signal?
What does the docket for this seat look like — how many active files, which loss types, and how much is first-chair?
What to listen for: Signals a candidate thinking about preparation load and courtroom reps, not just the title.
Answer from your current dockets, not an aspiration — and note that a candidate who asks nothing about the work is telling you something too.
Who reviews my reports and filings, and how does the adjuster relationship actually run here?
What to listen for: Signals someone who expects file review and feedback — easier to supervise than someone who resents it.
Name the reviewing attorney, the review cadence and how the firm handles carrier feedback; 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 — and for defense seats the question cuts both ways, because candidates arrive from plaintiff firms and from firms that defended the same carriers.
Have an answer ready: under the ABA Model Rules, a conflict under Rules 1.7 or 1.9 of any one lawyer in a firm is imputed to all the firm's lawyers 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 non-consensual 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 position's pay scale on reasonable request regardless of firm size, and Nevada must give an applicant the wage or salary range after 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 travel, the court calendar, the deposition load — 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, part of the NYC Human Rights Law since October 27, 2015, 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 reaches 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 page 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 many cities and other states 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.
Litigation 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 and loss types named, the candidate's own role separated from the team's, bad facts volunteered as readily as good ones, 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: defending lawsuits and protecting carriers, with no ruling, no docket and no number attached.
An assessment that has only good facts in it.
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 confidential material while answering your confidentiality question has answered it.
Close the loop before the offer.
Call the references who actually watched the work — the partner who reviewed the files, not only a former colleague.
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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