Boutique Law Firms, Interview Stories, Rudeness, Supreme Court Clerks

Interview Horror Stories: SCOTUS Clerks Can Be Really Rude

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Supreme Court clerks, aka “the Elect,” are gods and goddesses of the legal profession. But as our latest interview horror story shows, they aren’t perfect — at least not all the time. Sometimes SCOTUS clerks let their lofty status go to their heads, treating the Great Unwashed like “the little people.”*
Check out our latest law firm interview war story:

Setting: Very mid-size city in a flyover state.
Firm: Litigation boutique where two members of the “Elect” worked.

Interviewee shows up for his interview and is forced to wait. His interview is with a name partner of the firm, a member of the Elect.

After waiting fifteen minutes or so for the partner to show up, his secretary escorts the interviewee into the partner’s office, where he’s finishing a call. As the secretary brings the interviewee in to sit, she also hands the partner his mail.

After a minute or two, the partner ends the call. The interviewee has been sitting there quietly the whole time, completely unacknowledged by the partner.

The partner then picks up his mail and starts going through it, while the interviewee sits there. The partner still has not said a word to the interviewee.

After several more minutes of the silent treatment, the interviewee finally gets up and leaves. At the reception desk, the interviewee is asked where he is going. His response, as he walks out the door: “I have seen everything I need to see to know about whether I want to work here.”

* If Leona Helmsley had clerked on the Supreme Court, her famous phrase would have been: “Only the little people don’t get $200,000 signing bonuses.”
Earlier: Prior Interview Horror Stories (scroll down)

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