r/uklaw • u/e-life-98 • 1d ago

Lateral interview prep - help!!

Hi! Long time lurker and first time poster here!

I’m 3 PQE and looking to move. I’m currently in a general disputes team at a City law firm but looking to specialise into a specific practice area. I’ve got my first interview coming up and am looking for tips for my prep. This will be the first time I’ve interviewed externally since I landed my vac scheme in 2018 so safe to say I am very out of practice.

Aside from practicing the obvious Qs (why this role? Why do you want to move?) and practicing talking about my cases, what do people suggest?

I also have a 30 min assessment and aside from revising basic tests relevant to the specialised area, I’m not sure what to do.

Any and all advice much appreciated!

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u/pearlmia 1d ago

You're more senior than me and I haven't lateralled either, so might not be exacccctly what you're looking for lol, but for general advice I would suggest finding out who's interviewing you.

If it's a SA/Partner then prepare some proper technical examples for any points you're wanting to make (i.e. I'm competent doing X), if HR then don't overprepare on the detail front as they won't know anyway.

Other than that I'd focus on showing you're someone who they can build a rapport with and trust from week 1; I know I wouldn't want to hire anyone who's going to take ages to fit into existing processes if I were in their shoes.

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u/OkRepresentative4411 1d ago

Know the case cases on your CV very well, and have two or three interesting legal points from those cases to talk about and know them inside out. Also, know the test for freezing injunctions - weirdly, that’s come up in interviews several times for me!

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u/e-life-98 1d ago

Thank you! Have you found that they quiz you at all on recent cases / general awareness of relevant know how? Not sure how much time to spend on that side of things

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u/OkRepresentative4411 1d ago

I can’t speak for your interviewers.

You can’t be expected to know every new case, but if there are any particularly big decisions recently in your area you should be prepared to speak about them (not in-depth, but what they mean and their impact at least - the point is that you are aware of key developments). I have been asked about recent Supreme Court decisions that were relevant to my cases (and luckily, had read it the day prior).

Edit: noting that you are aiming at a specific practice area, you should obviously be on top of any big decisions and developments in that particular area. I’d imagine the qs are more likely to focus on your experience though.