Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz Superday Prep

Behavioral and fit interviews

Typical scenarios. Navigating compressed deadlines, managing conflicting partner demands, defending your choice of law over other elite corporate careers.

Common failure modes. Sounding rehearsed, appearing fragile when interrupted, or pivoting to work-life balance.

Tactical advice. Match the interviewer focus, speak in crisp declarative sentences and avoid buzzwords or vague management frameworks.

Resume and writing-sample discussion

Typical scenarios. A partner opens your sample to page 6, highlights a footnote on a standard of review or statutory exception, and asks why you did not argue an alternative theory.

Common failure modes. Being unfamiliar with your own submission, blaming a professor for flaws, or conceding too quickly.

Tactical advice. Re-read your entire writing sample and every cited authority the night before; be ready to explain facts, issue, thesis and counterarguments with total confidence.

Practice-group interviews

Typical scenarios. Corporate: analyzing a hostile-takeover defense or a shareholder-activism fight. Litigation: breaking down a recent Chancery fiduciary-duty ruling or a federal securities decision.

Common failure modes. Faking technical knowledge. Guessing at a Delaware General Corporation Law provision you do not know results in immediate rejection.

Tactical advice. If hit with something outside your knowledge, pivot openly: "I have not studied that specific exception, but from first principles under a duty-of-loyalty framework I would look at the following two factors."

Partner / senior partner interview

Typical scenarios. A conceptual discussion of broad economic trends, the future of antitrust enforcement, or shareholder primacy versus stakeholder governance.

Common failure modes. Being intimidated by the partner stature, offering superficial answers, or lacking an informed point of view.

Tactical advice. Treat it as a peer-to-peer conversation; speak calmly, acknowledge complexity and do not back down from your core argument just because the partner pushes.

Lunch with current associates

Typical scenarios. Casual conversation about Manhattan, professors and outside interests, interspersed with subtle probes about stamina and work ethic.

Common failure modes. Letting your guard down, complaining about your school or other firms, or treating it as a non-evaluated social break.

Tactical advice. Stay professional; ask about the level of responsibility they got as first- and second-years, not about lifestyle perks.

Corporate / M&A track (offer accepted)

Prep. Prepared to discuss valuation methodologies given an undergraduate finance major.

Experience. Six 30-minute rounds plus lunch. In round two a junior corporate partner saw my finance background and launched into valuation in appraisal-rights litigation, pushing on why a court might favor DCF over market trading prices in an illiquid market. I did not get defensive and walked him through the principles step by step, and it became an engaging intellectual exercise. The lunch was casual but focused on how I handle stress and an unpredictable schedule.

Outcome. Offer call from a senior partner at 6:30 PM the following day.

Litigation track (offer accepted)

Prep. Re-read a 1L honors brief on a complex Civil Procedure issue line by line.

Experience. Interviewers focused entirely on my writing sample, which a senior litigation partner had clearly read line by line. He targeted a procedural choice and spent twenty minutes systematically dismantling my position to see how I would respond. I did not panic or back down; I acknowledged the critique but laid out the policy goals and precedents behind my approach. He smiled and said, "Good, you can take a punch."

Outcome. Formal offer by phone the next morning.