What should you ask a litigation attorney in an interview? Questions and what good answers sound like
An employer-side question bank for interviewing a litigation attorney at your firm: skills and behavioral questions with answer guides, a mock-file exercise, and the questions to keep out of the room.
The litigation attorney interview questions worth asking are the ones that separate real case management from case-management vocabulary: skills questions tied to depositions, discovery and dispositive motions, behavioral questions on judgment, confidentiality and deadlines, a short exercise on a mock file, 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 commercial and general civil mix, motion-heavy versus trial-heavy, document volume, deposition load and first-chair expectations all change which answers should score well.
A written litigation 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 litigation 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 deposition judgment, motion craft and plain-language client communication, 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 litigation attorney experience?
Walk me through the last case you handled from assignment through resolution. What did you do personally at each stage?
What to listen for: Named courts, real procedural posture, and a clean line between what the candidate did and what the team did.
A theme with no docket under it — I run cases end to end, I think like a trial lawyer — is the weak version of this answer.
Tell me about the last deposition you took. What was your outline, and what did you do when the witness surprised you?
What to listen for: Strong answers name the admissions they were there to get, the exhibits the outline was built around, and the adjustment when the witness went off script.
If a candidate has defended more depositions than they have taken, a precise answer says so — an answer that quietly folds defending into taking deserves a follow-up before you credit it.
What is the strongest dispositive motion you have written or opposed, and what was the close call in it?
What to listen for: Strong answers name the issue, the record problem that decided it, and the ruling — and can argue the losing side.
Weak answers stop at we won: no issue framed, no record cited, no consequence for the client.
How do you run discovery on a document-heavy case — scope, custodians, privilege review, and your meet-and-confer plan?
What to listen for: Strong candidates describe a sequence: scope agreed early, custodians prioritized, a privilege review with real staffing behind it, and problems raised with opposing counsel before they become motions.
Weak answers treat discovery as something that happens to the case while the lawyer waits for trial.
How many matters have you taken to trial or arbitration, and what was your role at each?
What to listen for: A real answer distinguishes first chair from second, jury from bench, arbitration from trial, and names the tribunals.
A total that quietly folds second-chair work or motion hearings into trial experience 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 — a faster argument, a negotiation angle, a relationship. 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 former client's strategy while answering the question has answered it — and will treat your files the same way.
Walk me through the last time potentially privileged material surfaced in your case — a produced document, a misdirected email, a draft that should not have gone out. What did you do next?
What to listen for: Strong answers describe a defined sequence — stopping use, flagging the document, raising it with the other side or the court — and can say who they told inside the firm and when.
Weak answers spend their time arguing why the document was not really a problem.
Describe a court or discovery 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 supervising partner early.
Weak answers blame a clerk, opposing counsel or the court — and change nothing.
A client insists on a course 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 being tested is documenting the advice and executing the client's choice well.
Tell me about the stretch when your docket was heaviest — several cases in discovery at once. 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.
What practical exercise or test should a litigation attorney complete?
The deposition-outline exercise. Give a mock complaint, the answer, and two witness summaries for a hypothetical commercial dispute, and ask for the outline for the first deposition: the topics, the key exhibits, and the two admissions the case needs.
What to listen for: Strong submissions target the admissions that would matter on dispositive motion, order the topics so each builds on the last, and list what they would want in hand before sitting down.
Weak submissions summarize the pleadings back to you and ask the witness nothing the documents have not already established.
The motion-section exercise. Give a short mock record — the pleadings, a handful of key documents, one deposition excerpt — and ask for the issue statement and the argument outline for the response brief.
What to listen for: Strong outlines frame the issue before citing anything, organize around the standard the court will apply, and flag where the mock record does not support an argument rather than papering over it.
Weak outlines string case citations with no record hooks and leave you to find the close calls yourself.
The plain-language exercise. Ask for a short email to the hypothetical client explaining that the mediation date moved and what the client needs to do before the new date.
What to listen for: Strong emails lead with the new date and the action item, explain only what needs explaining, and stay calm.
Weak emails lean on formalisms or bury the action item in the last sentence.
What should a litigation attorney candidate ask you, and what does it signal?
What does the docket for this seat look like — the matter mix, document volume, and who staffs discovery and document review?
What to listen for: Signals a candidate thinking about preparation load and support, 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 supervising partner 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, a conflict under Rules 1.7 or 1.9 of one lawyer in a firm is imputed to all lawyers in the firm unless an exception applies (Model Rule 1.10(a)), and a lateral lawyer's former-client conflict from a prior firm avoids imputation only if the Rule's screening conditions are met: the lawyer is timely screened and is apportioned no part of that matter's fee (Model Rule 1.10(a)(2)), the affected former client gets prompt written notice of the screen (Model Rule 1.10(a)(2)(ii)), and the screened lawyer and a partner provide certifications of compliance (Model Rule 1.10(a)(2)(iii)).
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 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 for advertised jobs, 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 litigation-attorney script, and what to do instead.
- Protected traits dressed as small talk. When did you graduate law school, are you planning children, where is your family from, what church do you attend — the EEOC publishes separate guidance pages 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 trial calendar, 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 has made it unlawful for most employers to ask about or consider criminal history before a conditional offer since October 27, 2015. 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.
- 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.
Case management you can verify, deposition and motion craft, judgment, discretion, deadline discipline — the 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: matters and tribunals named, depositions with admissions and exhibits attached, motions with the close call identified, 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 where the mock record runs out and then reason to a next step — knowing the edge of the record is a skill, not a gap.
What weak answers sound like.
Themes without files: running cases end to end, winning motions, connecting with juries, no deposition, ruling or docket 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 strategy 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 supervised the candidate's depositions and motions, not only the hiring committee.
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.
More hiring resources
Hiring a litigation attorney?
Post the opening where litigation attorneys look for firm jobs — matter mix, deposition and courtroom expectations, and the pay range up front.