The scenario: three tracks, one starting point
A third-year associate is quietly exploring an in-house move, has a government agency posting bookmarked from a friend who works there, and hasn't ruled out lateraling to another firm either. None of the three is developed enough yet to warrant pasting in a specific posting, and there's no single resume bullet that would anchor a resume-based session productively across all three paths.
What helps at this stage is rehearsing the answer to why law and how ambiguity gets handled, the two questions every one of those three interviewers is going to ask in some form, regardless of which door opens first.
What a general session covers here
Expect an opening question about motivation, then a behavioral prompt, a disagreement with a supervisor, a mistake that had to be owned, a project that didn't go as planned. None of it assumes a firm's billing structure, an in-house team's business context, or an agency's mission, because there's no document behind the session.
What it tests is whether the underlying case for law, not litigation specifically, not corporate specifically, holds up said out loud, which tends to be the first thing any of the three tracks is actually listening for beneath the standard opening question.
Scoring
How the scores read without a posting to grade against
Communication does most of the work in a general round for this role, since a lawyer's ability to state a clear position without hedging is exactly what open-ended motivation questions expose. Behavioral gets a full workout through the standard situational prompts, with the same STAR-structure expectations applying here as anywhere else.
Technical stays lighter in this session than it would once a specific track narrows the questions toward litigation, transactional, or regulatory work, since there's no practice area to measure an answer against yet.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to have picked a track, firm, in-house, or agency, before starting this?
No. The general interview type runs on standard background and motivation questions that don't assume any specific track, so it works while all three are still open.
Will this session ask about a specific practice area, like litigation or corporate?
No. With no job description or resume behind it, the general type stays at the level of motivation and behavioral situations rather than a specific practice area.
What's the next step once I settle on a specific posting?
The job-description interview type takes over from there, building its questions around that specific firm or agency posting's stated requirements.
Is this still useful once I've picked a track but before I've found a specific opening?
Yes. The motivation and behavioral questions in this session apply broadly enough to still be worth rehearsing even after a track is chosen, before a specific posting narrows things further.
Related pages
Start a general AI interview as a lawyer
Practice the standard round of background and motivation questions while a firm, in-house, or agency track is still undecided.