Law Firm Verbal Reasoning and Situational Judgement Test Preparation
Prepare for the psychometric and aptitude tests used by law firms with JobTestPrep’s comprehensive practice materials. We offer a range of verbal and numerical reasoning practice tests, along with assessment centre exercises, situational judgement tests, and personality tests. These materials are designed to help you through the challenging recruitment processes used by law firms today.
- The largest practice resource for law aptitude tests
- Score reports, timed tests, and study guides
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Practise These Tests and Get Hired by Top Law Firms
Most law firms and companies with large legal teams use online tests as part of their recruitment processes. While these tests can pose a great challenge, you can improve your performance and achieve a high score with the help of JobTestPrep's practice tests and study guides. We offer practice solutions for some of the most commonly used psychometric tests in the recruitment of legal positions, including critical thinking tests, verbal and numerical reasoning tests, and situational judgement tests.
The purpose of legal aptitude tests is to assess a candidate's abilities against the set of skills essential for every lawyer. In particular, most law firm applicants can expect to take a verbal reasoning test or the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal. Read on for more information about legal psychometric tests and how to prepare for them. If you are interested in becoming a Barrister, read up on the Bar Course Aptitude Test.
Law Verbal Reasoning Test
The ability to assess the logic contained in written information is a key skill for many lawyers. Verbal reasoning tests assess an applicant's ability to understand, analyse, and interpret the information provided in a written text. On a legal verbal reasoning test, this information is likely to be presented in some form of a legal passage, or the question may ask you to use legal ideas to answer. You will either be asked to answer multiple-choice questions or to assess whether a statement following the text is true, false, or you cannot say based only on the information contained in the text.
Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal
The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal is a hig-level analytical test provided by Pearson TalentLens. Thinking critically involves considering a range of information from a variety of sources, processing that information—logically but creatively—analysing it, challenging assumptions, and finally coming to a set of conclusions backed up by what you have read. On a Watson-Glaser test, you are presented with a text and asked to assess whether a subsequent statement is true, probably true, inadequate data, false, or probably false. Prepare for Watson-Glaser tests with our preparation pack.
The Suited Assessment
Suited is a provider of AI-driven pre-employment exams for the law and finance sectors. Their assessments differ from one firm to the other, but they will typically include Suited's flagship products: the Essential Competencies Assessment and the Suited Psychometric Assessment. Learn more about the Suited Assessment.
Situational Judgement Test Law
Situational judgement tests for legal positions look at how you respond to situations that may come up in your everyday life as a corporate lawyer. This is a common test in the law firm recruitment process. Lawyers must be able to judge a situation well and decide on the best course of action going forward, often in a very short amount of time, and the situational judgement test for lawyers is one way of measuring this skill.
On a legal situational judgement test, you are presented with scenarios you may encounter as a trainee lawyer. Following the scenarios is a list of options on how to respond. Your task is to choose the correct course of action. Situational judgement tests are untimed, giving you time to consider each question carefully. The legal situational judgement skills the test examines are alluded to in the law firm's competencies and person profiles, but they usually include problem solving, teamwork, communication skills, and negotiation skills. Preparing for a situational judgement test can help you hone the underlying skills needed when assessing a situation.
Legal Psychometric Tests
In addition to verbal reasoning and critical thinking tests, you may be asked to complete other legal assessments in the course of your recruitment process. These assessments are explained in more detail below:
- Personality tests – Personality tests are designed to assess the fit between a candidate's personality and work style with the person profile of his or her desired firm. Again, the person profile is your starting point for what the firm you are applying to is looking for, but note that most law firms are looking for specific personal skills, such as a cool head or a good team player.
- Logical reasoning tests – Logical reasoning tests measure a candidate's lateral thinking skills through shapes and patterns rather than words or numbers. On this test, you are presented with a set of shapes and asked to identify the pattern connecting them in order to complete the sequence. Identifying patterns and thinking laterally about problems are key skills for lawyers.
- Numerical reasoning tests – While rare in most law firm applications, numerical reasoning tests may be applied in certain cases. These tests assess a candidate's ability to work with numerical information—including tables, graphs, and charts—and to pick out the relevant details to create a picture or state a case.
- Written exercises – This exercise is often employed during an assessment centre. Written exercises often involve a candidate reading over one or more pieces of information, followed by a task based on what he or she has read. This task usually involves summarising the information, writing a briefing note, or compiling a report.
- Group exercises – This is another popular assessment centre exercise. Group exercises assess any number of skills, including communication, negotiation, teamwork, team leadership, and the ability to listen to others.
Testing Companies and Law Firm Aptitude Tests
Two testing companies, CEB's SHL and Pearson TalentLens, provide the majority of law firm assessments. Read more about some of the companies that use these tests.
| Testing Company | Tests | Law Firms |
|---|---|---|
| CEB's SHL | Baker & McKenzie Clifford Chance Freshfields GLS Herbert Smith Freehills |
|
| Pearson TalentLens | Watson Glaser | Clifford Chance Dentons GLS Hill Dickinson Burges Salmon Hogan Lovells Ince & Co. Irwin Mitchell Linklaters Simmons & Simmons |
| Suited |
Law Aptitude Test Practice
As with all tests, preparation is extremely important ahead of your assessment. Preparing can help you learn, refresh, or hone skills that may need sharpening. Reasoning tests are often quite different than other tests you may have taken in the past, so preparing with practice tests is necessary to help familiarise you with the requirements of the test. This will, in turn, make settling in to the test easier and enable you to answer questions quicker and more accurately.
Law School Aptitude Test
If you have not yet attended law school and are looking into the field, it is important to note that some of the leading law schools in the UK require candidates to sit the Law National Aptitude Test (LNAT). This test examines reasoning skills, the ability to make logical deductions, and the ability to interpret and analyse complex verbal information. This test also assesses how well candidates can make reasoned arguments.