How to Get a Clerkship at a Top Tier Law Firm

I got my job at a top tier firm by completing a clerkship at the firm. I was also relatively successful in applying for clerkships broadly. Now on the other side of the process, I observe what applicants do well and not so well. I also have learnt how top tier firms approach and make decisions regarding the recruitment process. This is a definitive guide on how to give yourself the best chance to secure a clerkship at a top tier law firm.

1. Preparation

Below are some things you can do to put your best foot forward come application time. Don’t worry, not doing one of these will not be fatal to your clerkship chances, but they are some general ideas of ways you can work towards clerkship applications.

Get legal experience. Whether paid at a commercial law firm or unpaid volunteering for a community legal center – it is all valuable experience to learn the practical application of law and to speak to your interest in law in applications and interviews.

Get good grades. Most firms will have a grades cut off around 60-65%. To make sure your application is at least being reviewed by HR or a partner, make sure you meet the cut off. For a clerkship at a top tier firm, you should aim to have a WAM of at least 70%+ (this is a guideline, and not a hard cut off – I know graduates who had mid 60s WAMs). Structure your degree optimally to maximise your grades for clerkship applications.

Be interesting. Have hobbies, interests and experiences outside the law. Code in your spare time, work a hospitality job in a nightclub or take a gap year and go backpacking around South America. These will all be of interest to application reviewers (to make them want to interview you and hear more) and interviewers (who will want to talk about anything other than your legal studies).

Learn about the firms. From first year, start to learn about the firms with offices in your city. Get an idea for the type of work each firm does in the offices in your city. Read your university law society’s career handbook. Participate in pre-penultimate programs. Attend careers fairs to start getting a vibe of the culture of each firm. Put the name of the law firm in a podcast app and listen to interviews with lawyers and HR from the firm. Create a Apple Note or Notion database, and jot down notes about each firm. Note the type of work of each firm, the people from the firm you have met and the opportunities at the firm (e.g. interstate, international and pro bono). This information will be invaluable for writing your applications as later discussed.

Be familiar with the timing of applications. In most states, applications open and close according to standardised dates – generally around July and August (e.g. New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia). Familiarise yourself with these dates so you can be prepared to make good quality applications broadly.

2. Applications

Once applications open, it’s time to get to work. Firms will use any combination of resumes, cover letters and/or specific questions in the application. The below questions should guide you in making your applications.

How many applications do I make?

Before rushing into completing applications, you should first decide how many applications you are going to make. There is no golden number. But there is a balance between applying widely and putting sufficient effort into each application. For most, around 12 applications is the sweat spot – 6 top tiers, 2 upper mid-tiers, 2 internationals and 2 mid-tiers.

We have a helpful list of Australian law firms to work through. It includes details of which firms offer clerkships, which locations they have offices in and the availability of international opportunities.

How do I write a resume?

The resume is simple – you should be able to use the same resume for every application. A good resume should have:

education history – tertiary and high school studies, including average marks and relevant extracurriculars;
work experience – legal and non-legal, breaking down the relevant skills or achievements associated with those experiences;
interests and hobbies; and
details of at least 2 referees.

How do I write a cover letter? How do I answer these application questions?

The cover letter and application questions are to be more tailored. Both are to act as sales pitches. You want the application reviewer to read the cover letter and/or application questions and want to find out more about you (or at least be impressed). Don’t worry too much if the application feels like boasting, just make sure your tone is professional and factual. Use the information you gathered about the firms (as discussed above in section 1) to inform you application to demonstrate your interest in the firm you are applying to.

A cover letter should focus upon relating your experiences, skills and interests to the role of a lawyer and/or the firm. There are different ways you can do this. Think about how your legal interests relate to a unique practice area the firm practices or does well. Talk about your interest in a matter the firm worked on (but ensure you know enough to speak on the matter). Talk about how your job in retail managing difficult customers developed your skills in managing difficult clients.

Answers to application questions should also relate your experiences, skills and interests to the firm or your suitability for the role of a lawyer, even more so if the application does not require a cover letter. But make sure you answer the question being asked. Most answers will be limited to around 250 – 400 words. Discuss a new skill, experience or interest of each questions. Here are some examples of questions from past year’s applications for top tier firms:

Please tell us something outside of the law and your studies that you are passionate about.
Do you have an interest in a specific practice area? If so, why?
Why would you like to work for [name of firm]?
What legal transaction, matter or story has interested you in the last 12 months and why?

Draft your application answers in a Word document and save a copy locally. It will allow easier editing of you answer, including spell check, and allow you to repurpose answers for other applications with similar questions.

How much effort / how long should I spend on each application?

Plan to complete an application a day for a period of roughly 2 weeks. Spacing out 1 to 2 hours for each application will allow you to give sufficient effort to each application. For the first couple of applications, complete the applications for firms you are not as interested in. This will allow you to start getting a feel for completing the applications and to build up template answers for questions. Spend more time on the applications for the firms you are really interested in. Use the ‘save application’ feature on the application portals if you want to sleep on an application or revisit with a fresh set of eyes. You generally have a month to apply, so don’t rush. The firms do not take notice if you applied early in the application window.

If you are struggling for motivation through the mundane process of applications, a helpful exercise I used was I asked myself “how would I feel if I didn’t put as much effort into this application as I could and then didn’t get an interview because of it?”. Whether healthy or not, the fear of regret and failure got me into gear.

3. Networking / cocktail nights

Great, you got an invite to an interview! As a precursor to interviews, most firms will do a networking or cocktail night. These are generally structured into 2 segments – an information session and a networking session.

The information session will involve HR talking through information regarding the structure of the firm’s recruitment process and a few lawyers talking about their working experience at the firm. This component is simple – sit there and listen. If you have a question, ask, but don’t feel the need to ask a question. No one will remember whether you asked a question. It will not get you a clerkship. But people may remember if you asked an unnecessary and poorly thought out question just to be heard.

I will continue this tough love tone when talking about the networking component. You will not get a clerkship based on the networking component either. But you can definitely lose a clerkship. The networking component will involve the broader firm having drinks and nibbles with the candidates. Use the opportunity to get a vibe of the wider firm, especially the junior lawyers that you won’t get much exposure to during the senior-driven recruitment process. Don’t worry about who you talk to and don’t talk to. Have a few polite conversations. Introduce yourself with a smile (and an optional handshake if you want). Be interested in the people you talk to – find out about their experience at the firm. Take advantage of good food and have a light drink or two (if you’re into that, don’t feel obliged, especially if you’re not used to drinking). Avoid being the last man standing, make your exit about half an hour into the event of when people start trickling out. Say thank you to HR on the way out if you can, they put a lot of effort into these events. And then job done – proud of you.

As pessimistic as it sounds, there is more to lose then gain at these events. It’s normal to feel uncomfortable in the artificial environment of a networking night, but try to keep your chill. You’ll be fine. Just remember, less is more.

4. Interviews

This is where the rubber meets the tire – or whatever that saying is. It’s game time.

What is the structure of interviews?

Different firms structure interviews in different ways. However, most firms will tell you the structure beforehand. Most interviews will involve a HR representative and a partner. Some variations to this traditional model include having another partner or senior associate in the room, or even having 2 separate mini-interviews each with a different partner and senior associate. Although uncommon, some interviews may also involve an assessment center component which will test your written abilities and/or your ability to communicate a solution to a proposed problem.

Some firms may tell you your interviewers beforehand. It doesn’t hurt to look them up on Google and LinkedIn beforehand but obviously don’t go in asking questions like you’ve just read their dossier.

What will we talk about?

Interviews will generally involve a balance of application-type and behavioural/situational questions. Unlike professions like investment banking or consulting, you are unlikely to be asked technical questions (e.g. what are the elements for a legally enforceable contract). Some firms will ask more application-based question and others more behavioural/situational. Application-based questions will look like “why do you want to work at [law firm]” or “why are you interested in becoming a lawyer”. Behavioral/situational questions ask you to reflect on past experiences or what you would do in a future hypothetical situation. These questions try to assess soft skills as ability to communicate or follow deadlines, work in a team, or organise yourself. Similar to you application answers, relate your answers

Often interviewers will ask a couple of application-based or behavioural questions out of obligation, but then try and have a conversation. If this happens, this isn’t the interviewers being uninterested, lean into it. The interviewers much rather have a back and forth and talk about your interests then hear the same cookie cutter answer about the time you worked in a team.

How many interviews should I attend?

Don’t overload yourself – at the end of the day, in most states you can only take a maximum of 3 (maybe 4) clerkships. I would recommend 6-8 as a manageable number of interviews. You want a few backups at minimum. For the interview offers you are not going to take, send a courtesy email to the HR of the firm informing them and thanking them for their consideration of your application. It’s nice to be nice and the legal industry is small.

In what order should I book in interviews?

Similar to applications, position a couple of interviews first up for firms you are not as interested in relatively. This will allow you to practice your interviewing skills and get familiar with common interview structures. It will also allow you to practice answers which will likely be able to be morphed into answers for similar questions in future interviews. You will surprise yourself with how routine these answers will become the more interviews you do, but ensure you are still tailoring your answer to the question and the firm asking the question.

How can I prepare?

There is only so much you can control about interviews. A lot is out of your hands – the questions you are asked, the structure of the interview, the demeanor of your interviewers. What you can control is knowing your application for each interview you are attending (so you can answer questions related to your application), running mock interviews with your friends and ensuring you are well rested and energised for the interview.

I have been given a buddy. What is the deal there?

Some firms will allocate you a junior lawyer as a buddy. This person will be your first point of contact for any questions during the recruitment process. They may offer to get a coffee before the interview so you can ask any questions. Get to know them, ask questions about them and hear about their experience at the firm. “What practice area do you work in?” “Any tips or tricks for the clerkship interviews?” “Is there anything unique about the clerkship process at your firm that I should be aware of?” “What makes your firm unique?”

Be aware that they are likely giving feedback about you as part of the recruitment process. If you are interested and friendly to them, this information will get passed back in your favour. Don’t underestimate how much seniors listen to juniors in respect of the recruitment process.

How should I feel or act during an interview?

Nerves are normal. Recognise them and try to embrace them. Present the best version of yourself while still being true to you. Be interested in your interviewers – it doesn’t have to be a one way conversation. People love to talk about themselves (especially lawyers). Ask them about the firm, their legal career and any other interests of theirs that they might bring up. You both went to New Zealand recently – great! Ask them about it and take interest in the shared experience. “How did you find it?” “What cities did you go to?” “What was your favourite tourist attraction?”

Feel comfortable talking about yourself in interviews. You need to sell yourself to the interviewers in a polite and modest manner as to why you are suitable for a clerkship. If the interviewers want to dig deeper into something yourself, engage with their question and go on the tangent.

5. Offers

Today is the day – here is how to approach it. Good luck!

How do offers work?

Offers day is generally a standardised day according to the recruitment dates published by your state’s law society. On the morning of this day, firms will call offering clerkships. Most firms will likely start calling earlier than the time they are supposed to start calling at under the standardised recruitment dates, so be up early. Usually the partner who interviewed you or HR will interview you offering you a clerkship.

How do I decide which offers to take?

You should do this thinking before offers day. List out all the firms you interviewed at an list them from 1 to last. In creating these rankings, feel free to assign a numerical value to things you consider important and weight them accordingly to arrive at your ranking. For me, I ranked according to the strength of the practice area I thought I was interested in, the availability of international opportunities and the illusive concept of ‘vibes’. Each was assigned a ranking of 1-5 and these factors affected my aggregate ranking of each firm according to the weighting assigned to each factor.

Now dealing with offers is easy. If your firm offers 3 clerkship periods, you can accept the offer of any of the top 3 firms immediately as they call. If anyone outside of your top 3 calls, tell them you are still considering your offers and ask if you can get back to them. In the meantime you can hold out for offers from firms you are more interested in.

How do I decide when to do each clerkship?

A lot of states will have clerkships running in 2 summer periods during December (summer 1) and January (summer 2), and a winter period in June-July. The optimal order in which you do your clerkships is likely subjective. In hindsight, my preference would be do my first ranked clerkship in summer 1, my second ranked clerkship in summer 2 and my third ranked clerkship in winter. Summer 2 is generally a quieter time for work in most offices as people return from holidays, so summer 1 will give you a greater variety of work to complete and people to meet. Compared to winter, summer 1 and 2 will allow you a greater period of time to develop a relationship with the firm, and even come back and paralegal, in an attempt to secure a graduate role.

Can I do 4 clerkships?

Law firms are willing to bend the rules for good talent. Once you have locked in the number of clerkships you can undertake during the formal periods, I would recommend asking the other firms whether you can undertake an ‘off-cycle clerkship’ with them. This is an informal clerkship undertaking generally during university semester where you essentially paralegal in a team for a period of time. This will give you another point of comparison when deciding amongst graduate roles, and if nothing else, another line for the CV and money for a post-graduation holiday.

It went well!

Congratulations! Take this time to celebrate your win with your friends and family. It is important to celebrate the wins! Make sure you are considerate of others when talking about your success with other law students. Be there for your mates. Recruitment is a competitive and sometimes ruthless process so make sure you support others who might not have been as lucky.

It didn’t go as well as I hoped.

The recruitment process is brutal. An underrated component of successful candidates is luck. This really isn’t the end of the world. If you got some offers, focus on the wins and looking forward to smashing those clerkships. The hardest part about law is getting the first job. Once in, especially with a couple of years behind you, it is pretty easy to jump to whatever firm and role you want due to a huge fall-off in lawyers around 2 years in. Look after yourself (sleep, exercise, journalling) and let yourself feel the emotions in a healthy way. Feel free to reach out to me on this website if you need to – I am happy to talk. If you are persistent and continue to work hard, you will get there.

Questions

That’s all for now. If there is anything else you want me to cover, comment your questions below.

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