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Subject Expert
Congrats on the offer!
If i were you id want to know what practice group they are placing you in or if they have a rotational system.
Ultimately there arent a whole lot of questions to ask at this stage that really matter (imo). I would just accept it if it is your top choice.
Coach
Ask to have follow up meetings with some folks who would be your peers in your practice and office.
Subject Expert
And ask them if they are happy, what they like best about the firm, if they plan to stay, etc. you’ll be able to tell from body language if they are selling you BS.
Seconding that you should confirm if you have flexibility to try Lit vs Corp (to extent you are undecided) and what practice group placements or rotations would look like.
If you’re undecided on practice group (particularly on the Lit vs. corp dimension), I would heavily bias towards a firm that offered flexibility over the summer with how early recruiting has shifted.
Ahh congrats! Questions about substantive work are great but honing in on what and who will shape your first year of practice are questions I wish I had asked (was at v10, now at the gov):
-If you’re at a free market firm, ask people what the advantages vs disadvantages they found about it in their first year and how they navigated them
-If you’re excited about a specific practice group, meet people in other practice groups too to get a broader cultural sense. You want to like these people too because you may work with them on certain matters (e.g., tax if you’re corporate, appellate if you’re a trial litigator)
-Ask about how often transactions or litigation teams are cross-border / across time zones (e.g. working with London office for early mornings or LA for late night calls?) or if most of the team is mainly based in a different office? NYC vibe is wildly different from Dallas or DC in my experience
-Meet the midlevels and senior associates for coffee!!! That’s who you will mainly be working with. If they are insufferable, it will make the job 50 million times harder. Ask the recruiter to set it up so they don’t ghost
-Ask the midlevels how many people are left from their summer class
-If possible, and definitely phrased delicately, find people with whom you have a connection (like law school alumni) from that firm who left and ask to connect about their time there.
Hope this helps!!