SAN FRANCISCO — When first-year lawyer Canek Acosta was interviewing for a secondment at Apple Inc., it came down to one question: “Do you know how to use Excel?”

Acosta laughed—and got the job. A double-major in computer science and mathematics, Acosta found himself writing scripts to automate tasks for the tech company's legal department, such as filling in huge budget spreadsheets. “Every week that I worked at Apple, I automated a task that used to take [staff members] a single week to do.”

Acosta is pretty sure the stint at Apple helped him get a job as a litigation associate at O'Melveny & Myers, not a usual landing spot for a Michigan State University College of Law graduate.