Harrison Barnes' Legal Career Advice Podcast · Harrison Barnes

Part 6 - How to Answer the 'Do You Have Any Questions for Me' Interview Question: Harrison Barnes Legal Recruiter from BCG Attorney Search

·34 min·2 clips

Harrison Barnes says attorneys are either “filling fountains” or “draining fountains.”

The anxiety starts with questions. The host treats interview research as a tool, useful when it helps you understand the people and work in the room, less useful when it turns into a tour of problems the employer already knows. Do not poke at wounds. If a company or law firm has obvious trouble, he says to ask questions that show preparation without making the conversation feel like an audit. Then he widens the point. Attorneys who were fired or are stuck in a job search, in his view, need to apply much more broadly than schools tend to teach. Almost nobody does it, which is why he thinks it works. Some employers may not be getting many direct inquiries at all. Letters and faxes get special praise here because they land in the physical world. An email can disappear in one click; a letter has to sit somewhere before someone deals with it. The advice is not delicate: stop waiting for the obvious opening, and get in front of employers other candidates ignore. A listener brings in a rough first week. The office seemed to have only a senior associate, that senior associate gave notice, and a boss screamed at him for taking what sounded like a better job at a bigger firm. The host does not smooth it over. He pushes back by saying every law firm has people quitting, leaving, or getting fired. His answer keeps circling back to value. The attorney people remember is the one who makes the work feel lighter, not heavier. Positivity, in this version of the world, is not decoration. It is part of the job. He ends with a law school classmate who was upbeat, helpful, and excited, then uses that memory to argue that adding value can matter even when the grades are not the shiny part.

As heard by us

Blunt career advice on interviews, research, and applying widely.

The episode treats interview prep as practical work, not theater: do the research, ask better questions, and use what is learned about the people and the firm to shape responses.

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Need a sharper answer to 'Do you have any questions for me'?

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