How do I screen Legal Counsel candidates before interviewing?

Send every applicant one link that carries 4 skills tests (Business Ethics and Compliance, GDPR and Privacy, Risk Management, Critical Thinking), a personality inventory and 5 one-way video questions. springhire scores everything automatically and ranks the candidates, so you interview the top few. The free plan covers 10 candidates a month.

How long does the Legal Counsel screening take a candidate?

About 42 minutes for the tests, plus 10 to 15 minutes for the video questions. Candidates complete it on their own time, on any device.

What should a Legal Counsel job description include?

A short brief, key responsibilities, must-have and nice-to-have skills and the requirements. The JD generator writes one for this role in a minute.

Which interview questions work best for a Legal Counsel?

Questions that ask for a specific past example and a walkthrough of how the candidate thinks. This page lists 8 with sample answers, and the full bank has more.

Yes. The free plan includes every screening tool with 10 candidate credits a month and no card. Paid plans start at $39 a month.

Legal & Compliance

How to hire a Legal Counsel

What the role does, the job description, the interview questions, and the 42-minute screening pack that tells you who can do the job before you book a single interview.

Screen Legal Counsel candidates free See the pack

The role

What a Legal Counsel does

A Legal Counsel sits in the Legal & Compliance function. The sections below give you the job description, the interview questions and the screening pack for the role.

Screen before you interview

The Legal Counsel screening pack

Ethics, privacy, risk and rigorous reasoning. Every applicant gets one link. You get one ranked report.

Skills tests · 42 minutes total

Personality & behaviorBusiness Ethics and Compliance Test10 min · 20 questions · IntermediateThe Business Ethics and Compliance Test shows you how candidates handle the gray areas of working life: vendor gifts, conflicts of interest, pressure to bend numbers, sensitive data, and disrespectful behavior. Through 20 realistic scenarios, it scores four dimensions of practical ethical judgment so you can hire people who do the right thing when nobody is watching.HR & adminGDPR and Privacy Test10 min · 20 questions · IntermediateThe GDPR and Privacy Test helps hiring teams assess practical privacy knowledge for HR and admin roles. It is suited to candidates who handle personal data, respond to customer requests or support compliance work, and need a working grasp of lawful basis, data subject rights and breach handling.Finance basicsRisk Management Test10 min · 20 questions · IntermediateThe Risk Management Test is an intermediate assessment for hiring teams that need to evaluate how candidates spot, assess, and respond to common business risks. It fits roles where people must prioritise likely issues, judge impact, and choose practical controls before problems grow.Cognitive & aptitudeCritical Thinking Test12 min · 24 questions · AdvancedThe Critical Thinking Test shows you whether a candidate can reason rigorously under time pressure. Across 24 questions it measures deduction with syllogisms, sound inference from business passages, recognition of hidden assumptions and fallacies, and the ability to judge which evidence strengthens or weakens a claim.

Personality inventory

Integrity and Reliability TestThe Integrity and Reliability Test helps hiring teams assess how entry-level candidates are likely to respond to workplace rules, deadlines and responsibilities. It is useful for roles where showing up, following process and taking ownership are essential to daily performance.

One-way video questions · answered on camera, scored by AI

1
How do you advise a team that wants to move faster than the law allows?
2
Walk us through how you review a vendor contract.
3
Describe a compliance issue you identified before it became a problem.
4
How do you explain legal risk to executives in plain language?
5
Where do you draw the line between legal advice and business judgement?

Send this pack to your applicantsFree plan, 10 candidates a month, no card.

Interview questions

Legal Counsel interview questions

For the candidates who pass the pack. Each comes with a sample answer on the full page.

01
Tell me about your legal background and the areas you focus on.
02
Why do you want to move in-house, or into this in-house role specifically?
03
How do you see the role of legal counsel in a growing company?
04
How do you keep current with changes in law and regulation?
05
How do you approach reviewing and negotiating a commercial contract?
06
Describe your experience advising on data privacy and regulatory compliance.
07
How do you manage legal risk when advising the business?
08
How do you decide when to handle something internally versus using outside counsel?