The interview process presents an opportunity for us to get to know you -- your experience, your background, your interests, your personality. It also gives you a chance to learn about our firm. We trust you’ll already have looked over our web site to get a feel for who we are and what we do. But there’s a great deal about any firm that a person can learn only by being in the office, observing the interactions and meeting with the firm’s lawyers. The interview is the place to do that. If you’re interviewing with us, either on campus or in one of our offices, we recommend that you take a little time to think about the questions you might want to ask our attorneys. Choosing a firm is an important step, and part of making the right decision is gathering as much useful information as you can about each firm you’re considering.

The hiring partner in our Washington office, Tony Jones, has some suggestions for a few of the questions you might ask when interviewing with any firm. He also gives you a leg up by providing a short version of the answers you are likely to get from us.

Question:
How do you decide which summer associates get offers?

At RDB, we don’t limit post-graduation job offers to a preordained number or percentage of summer people. And, over the years, the vast majority of our summer associates have earned offers. While there is no magic checklist for receiving an offer, we do expect a summer associate to demonstrate the ability to do the work of a first-year associate, including the necessary intellectual and organizational skills, as well as a commitment to excellent work and the capacity for good judgment. We also expect that a summer associate will treat everyone at the firm with courtesy and respect, and will generally contribute to the life of the firm. Summer associates who’ve met those expectations have always gotten offers in the past, and we expect they’ll continue to do so in the future.

Question:
All law firms have people who leave. Where do people go when they leave your firm?

We are happy to say that we rarely lose lawyers to other firms in our home cities. That is not to say it doesn’t happen sometimes, but most attorneys who leave RDB have decided that they don’t want to be in private practice and wind up going to the government or public interest organizations. Some have become professors, or have headed off to another part of the country. Others have left the practice of law for other professions, such as becoming a high school teacher or newspaper reporter. While we hate to lose our friends and colleagues to other employment, we are always happy for them if they find an opportunity that they think is just too good to turn down. On a number of occasions we have welcomed back some of those people after a few years.

Question:
What does it take to succeed at RDB?

While a precise list of characteristics of RDB lawyers is impossible to create, some things stand out. Of those, probably most important are a commitment to providing outstanding legal services and a willingness to treat every firm employee with courtesy and respect. While the first is probably pretty obvious (strong writing and analytical skills, an ability to think creatively to solve or prevent clients’ problems, etc.), the second may not be. Put bluntly, someone can have a brilliant legal mind and amazing abilities and they will not succeed at RDB if they are disrespectful of secretaries, other attorneys, paralegals or other staff. How we treat each other is a hallmark of who we are.

Question:
How does your associate evaluation process work?

In addition to the informal feedback that takes place on a daily basis, we annually give formal evaluations. It starts with the associates identifying the significant work they did in the past year. Next, the lawyers who supervised them fill out forms, providing narrative comments about their performance. The associates receive a compilation of all the comments and a composite evaluation that the entire partnership signs off on. Finally, a team of partners sits down to discuss the evaluation with each associate. It’s incredibly time-consuming for the partners, but we think it’s worth it.

In the end, it won’t be just the answers to your interview questions and your other research that should guide your decision. Most lawyers who are happy with the firms they chose will tell you that the firm simply "felt right" -- that some combination of the people, the office, the atmosphere, and the energy told them that this was where they belonged. It certainly felt that way for me when I interviewed here, and it still does. If you come to interview with us, I hope you’ll find that we’re right for you, too.

-- Tony Jones, Hiring Partner.