That's because you are looking at an interview like having a discussion with a friend, it isn't. Nobody is dumb enough to say racist things in an interview, if that was the bar you have to pass to get hired the interviews would be a mere formality.Lawlcat wrote:I'm not quite seeing the connection between talking about how a class was good because of a great professor and Asperger's. I can understand how "The prof was really nice and told a lot of jokes!" would be irrelevant, and not as good as something that lets you segue into your interests or strengths, but I'm similarly not quite grasping how this would "ruin the interview". When I hear "ruin the interview", I think more like, "Well, the problem with CivPro was that my prof was a Negroid."
Put yourself in the partner's shoes. When you hear a kid say, "my favorite class was X because I really liked Y prof." The hiring partner will reach several conclusions, 1) this kid needs outside motivation to get into a subject because they aren't really passionate about the law, that sucks because they are going to get thrown into the deep end when they start at my firm without a lot of friendly hand holding. 2) this kid bases their enjoyment of assignments off of the disposition of the person doing the assigning, that's not good because I, the partner, can be a huge douchebag. 3) 90% of the time your best grade will be your favorite class, so the partner is going to look at your transcript and think you only like people who give you good grades and don't appreciate the stern taskmasters who are more critical of your work (like bosses who pay you money). Etc, etc. This isn't to say you can't bring up certain professors with recruiters who graduated recently from your school, this just isn't the best time to do it necessarily. There are always exceptions and if you are actually good at interviewing, and not just at making friends with peers, then saying you liked a prof wouldn't be a game changer because you would probably add details to make it an appropriate answer.
The point is that the question is a softball lobbed up for you to smash out of the park, why waste it by talking about a professor who nobody cares about when you can talk about your strengths, and bring the recruiter into a normal conversation with you, and make a solid impression?
And it was my first law school exam. Good times.
