TCLA Vacation Scheme Applications Discussion Thread 2024-25

[annalisekeating]

Hi @Jessica Booker

I have sent you a direct message regarding an urgent query.

I would really appreciate your help once you get the time.

Thanks so much!

 

[Ram Sabaratnam]

Thank you! Just got an email this morning saying that it'll be competency/ motivation & commercial awareness based, so hopefully not too wildly different from anything I've done before.

I'm not too familiar with capital markets and find it quite confusing - is there any way you could simplify the concept and the type of work they do? That would be extremely helpful. And with the commercial awareness, would I benefit from talking about something more finance-based/ a particular M&A deal for instance, or could I speak about something broader like the current tariff war & its implications on PH's clients? If the former is preferred, what kind of things can I speak about that won't just sound like I'm regurgitating knowledge on how a deal is funded/ operates? Thanks so much!

Hiya @legallyrach

I'm sure @Andrei Radu would have much more to add here, but I wanted to get something to you in the meantime.

Capital markets are platforms where businesses raise funds by issuing financial instruments like stocks and bonds to investors. In the UK, capital markets lawyers often advise both companies (the "issuers" who typically issue stocks and bonds) and financial institutions (the "underwriters", i.e. often the banks who manage the process, price the shares or bonds, and even promise to buy anything investors don’t). Capital markets lawyers will thus advise companies/institutions on everything from Initial Public Offerings, bond issuances, and other securities offerings. When I was applying I found this particular Chambers Student article on capital markets really helpful.

While both capital markets and finance lawyers deal with financial instruments and funding, a firm's finance lawyers typically handle private financing arrangements and loans and can focus on a broader spectrum of financial transactions, including bank lending, project finance, and acquisition finance. This last point about finance is particularly important to bear in mind with respect to PH, given their sizeable strengths in areas such as leveraged finance and real estate finance.

In terms of preparation, I think it's a good idea to be familiar with both recent developments in capital markets (e.g. like how tariffs are affecting IPOs) and one or two specific deals the firm has advised on. Showing that you understand how wider economic or political developments like tariffs (or any other development) impact these markets will signal strong commercial awareness. At the same time, being able to talk about recent deals Paul Hastings has worked on and why you found them interesting helps demonstrate that you’ve done your research and are genuinely interested in the firm’s practice.

Hope this helps and good luck!

 

[Wannabe_Lawyer]

Anyone heard from Faegre Drinker? Or know when we can expect to hear?

Have you heard from them since?

 

[clay pulse]

Orrick PFO post-AC

 

[mg42guy32]

Have you heard from them since?

I haven’t yet; I’m not sure if that’s good bad or means nothing haha

 

[Toomanypfo]

has anyone done an ac on topscore? Does it record you during a written exercise

 

[legal18]

has anyone done an ac on topscore? Does it record you during a written exercise

It doesn't

 

[Andrei Radu]

Thank you! Just got an email this morning saying that it'll be competency/ motivation & commercial awareness based, so hopefully not too wildly different from anything I've done before.

I'm not too familiar with capital markets and find it quite confusing - is there any way you could simplify the concept and the type of work they do? That would be extremely helpful. And with the commercial awareness, would I benefit from talking about something more finance-based/ a particular M&A deal for instance, or could I speak about something broader like the current tariff war & its implications on PH's clients? If the former is preferred, what kind of things can I speak about that won't just sound like I'm regurgitating knowledge on how a deal is funded/ operates? Thanks so much!

Just to add to the great response from @Ram Sabaratnam to understand capital markets I think you need to understand how it contrasts to banking. Both capital markets and banking are fundamentally about the same same things: one party will provide capital to another party that needs it, expecting to obtain some sort of return in exchange. However, in general banking and finance, that comes in the form of loans, which you will already be quite familiar with: you will borrow money from a creditor (normally a bank; or, more recently, private credit funds) who will in return be entitled to periodic payments representing a percentage of the total borrowed sum plus an interest payment. Unless you become default and the loan is also unsecured (ie you have provided no asset as collateral), the creditor should recover the initial sum and obtain a return on it.

Capital markets is also about bringing together parties with lots of capital seeking to generate a return on it (however, here we have a way wider set of investor, from pension funds, hedge funds, and PE firms to retail investors) and parties who are in need of said capital. The basic distinction here is between debt capital markets (DCM) and equity capital markets (ECM). The difference is what is being given in exchange for the capital: either debt most often in the form of bonds for ECM (a promise to give a certain sum of money in return for the supplied capital) - or equity for ECM (a part of the shareholding of a given company).

DCM's bonds might seem at first virtually indistinguishable from loans finance and banking - both involve a party with capital giving it to another in exchange for a legal entitlement to be paid back the initial sum + interest. However, there are a number of crucial differences you should understand:

1. Bonds are (to introduce another bit of jargon) classified as securities, which essentially just means that they are tradable financial instruments. If you have purchased a bond from a company X, you own an entitlement to certain payments from X and you can easily sell that entitlement to other investors. Thus, I could purchase that bond from you and now company X owes me the payment instead. This is a significant advantage for many investors, as it makes bonds highly liquid assets (which is another term of jargon just referring to the fact that they can be easily turned into cash if need be). Loans, on the other hand, are not by themselves tradeable; they have to first undergo a process called 'securitization' - which just refers to their repackaging into securities that can be similarly traded. Following the 2008 crisis, this is a highly regulated are of finance, which means that the trading of debt in the form of loans involves a more difficult process.
2. Bonds take a different form to loans: imagine company A needs 1 million dollars to fund a project and wants to pay the debt to a creditor B over a period of 1 year and pay an interest of 5%. Now, if the money is provided in the form of a loan, supposing A agrees on monthly payments, A will need to pay every month 1/12 of the borrowed sum of 1 million (around 83,000 dollars) + the 5% interest of that 1 million (around 4000 dollars). If the capital is provided via the purchase of a bond instead, A will only need to pay back the interest monthly (the 4000 dollars) and then will pay the initial lump sum of 1 million (for which the jargon term is 'the principal') at the end of the year (the jargon for which is 'the maturity date'). While in this scenario the total sum paid back would be 1,050,000 dollars irrespective whether this is a loan or a bond, for many companies the details of when exactly they have to make large payments by matters a lot. In particular, if they expect large increases in revenues at a later date, a company can prefer the later payment of the principal required by a bond.
3. Commercial loans are more often than not secured over assets, while bonds are more often than not unsecured, making the latter prima facie riskier.

Turning to ECM, I think Ram has already explained well how an initial public offering (IPO) works. The only thing I wanted to add here is that another major part of ECM is secondary offerings: when a company that is already publicly listed wants to issue additional shares to the market - a move that will once again dilute current shareholding in exchange for capital. This can sometimes result in very significant transactions. For instance, Boeing recently raised around $21 billion from a secondary offering.

Finally, as for the work done by the lawyers in both ECM and DCM, it essentially involves the legal work necessary to set up an offering of shares/bonds/other securities in compliance with regulations and on advantageous terms for their clients. To get a clearer picture as to the actual tasks this involves, I would advise you to read this Chambers Article on work in capital markets.

 

[trainee4u]

Has anyone completed the sky group interview? Wondering what the format is in terms of timing and how it works interviewing with a group. Thanks!

I did it but not in a group. Was disappointed tbh, would have liked to hear others' answers. It's just 3 VI-style questions, no follow-up, maybe a couple of minutes per question (entirely up to you). Had i been in a group it would have been the same but you'd have got to hear other peoples' answers first (or not, if you are the first one to answer).

 

[Andrei Radu]

Hey all,

Really excited to say that I have received an offer! The partner called last week offering the role. At the end, he said that I have his number now, and I think he said to reach out for any questions or help (which I am pretty sure is what he said, but I was really excited, so idk if I understood it wrong 😭). Would it be appropriate to reach out to arrange a short call because I genuinely have some questions to ask, and it will also help to build rapport? Thanks

@Jessica Booker @Andrei Radu @Amma Usman @Ram Sabaratnam

As @Jessica Booker said I think this will depend on the details of your situation, but I think if you have genuine questions that a partner would be well-placed to answer it would likely be fine to take them up on the offer. I was in this situation as well last year when following the VS a partner at a firm called me and offered to keep in contact and answer any questions during the period I was deciding on the TC offer. We ended up having two 15/20 minute conversations which helped me understand the firm's market position, competitors, and strategy in a lot more depth. I could tell the partner did not mind speaking with me at all about this; if anything, they seemed to actually enjoy helping me out.

 

[dolchii]

Gateley VS offer!!!

Did they email you or was it over the phone? Also how long after your AC?

 

[Wannabe_Lawyer]

In relation to Faegre Drinker's vac scheme - does anyone know how long it is or the dates? The information on the website was very limited.

 

[legallyrach]

Just to add to the great response from @Ram Sabaratnam to understand capital markets I think you need to understand how it contrasts to banking. Both capital markets and banking are fundamentally about the same same things: one party will provide capital to another party that needs it, expecting to obtain some sort of return in exchange. However, in general banking and finance, that comes in the form of loans, which you will already be quite familiar with: you will borrow money from a creditor (normally a bank; or, more recently, private credit funds) who will in return be entitled to periodic payments representing a percentage of the total borrowed sum plus an interest payment. Unless you become default and the loan is also unsecured (ie you have provided no asset as collateral), the creditor should recover the initial sum and obtain a return on it.

Capital markets is also about bringing together parties with lots of capital seeking to generate a return on it (however, here we have a way wider set of investor, from pension funds, hedge funds, and PE firms to retail investors) and parties who are in need of said capital. The basic distinction here is between debt capital markets (DCM) and equity capital markets (ECM). The difference is what is being given in exchange for the capital: either debt most often in the form of bonds for ECM (a promise to give a certain sum of money in return for the supplied capital) - or equity for ECM (a part of the shareholding of a given company).

DCM's bonds might seem at first virtually indistinguishable from loans finance and banking - both involve a party with capital giving it to another in exchange for a legal entitlement to be paid back the initial sum + interest. However, there are a number of crucial differences you should understand:

1. Bonds are (to introduce another bit of jargon) classified as securities, which essentially just means that they are tradable financial instruments. If you have purchased a bond from a company X, you own an entitlement to certain payments from X and you can easily sell that entitlement to other investors. Thus, I could purchase that bond from you and now company X owes me the payment instead. This is a significant advantage for many investors, as it makes bonds highly liquid assets (which is another term of jargon just referring to the fact that they can be easily turned into cash if need be). Loans, on the other hand, are not by themselves tradeable; they have to first undergo a process called 'securitization' - which just refers to their repackaging into securities that can be similarly traded. Following the 2008 crisis, this is a highly regulated are of finance, which means that the trading of debt in the form of loans involves a more difficult process.
2. Bonds take a different form to loans: imagine company A needs 1 million dollars to fund a project and wants to pay the debt to a creditor B over a period of 1 year and pay an interest of 5%. Now, if the money is provided in the form of a loan, supposing A agrees on monthly payments, A will need to pay every month 1/12 of the borrowed sum of 1 million (around 83,000 dollars) + the 5% interest of that 1 million (around 4000 dollars). If the capital is provided via the purchase of a bond instead, A will only need to pay back the interest monthly (the 4000 dollars) and then will pay the initial lump sum of 1 million (for which the jargon term is 'the principal') at the end of the year (the jargon for which is 'the maturity date'). While in this scenario the total sum paid back would be 1,050,000 dollars irrespective whether this is a loan or a bond, for many companies the details of when exactly they have to make large payments by matters a lot. In particular, if they expect large increases in revenues at a later date, a company can prefer the later payment of the principal required by a bond.
3. Commercial loans are more often than not secured over assets, while bonds are more often than not unsecured, making the latter prima facie riskier.

Turning to ECM, I think Ram has already explained well how an initial public offering (IPO) works. The only thing I wanted to add here is that another major part of ECM is secondary offerings: when a company that is already publicly listed wants to issue additional shares to the market - a move that will once again dilute current shareholding in exchange for capital. This can sometimes result in very significant transactions. For instance, Boeing recently raised around $21 billion from a secondary offering.

Finally, as for the work done by the lawyers in both ECM and DCM, it essentially involves the legal work necessary to set up an offering of shares/bonds/other securities in compliance with regulations and on advantageous terms for their clients. To get a clearer picture as to the actual tasks this involves, I would advise you to read this Chambers Article on work in capital markets.

Thank you both @Ram Sabaratnam and @Andrei Radu for such detailed explanations! This is so incredibly helpful, I can't thank you both enough for taking time out of your days to respond

I will definitely check out the article, thanks again!

 

[Andrei Radu]

Thank you for this Andrei, like you have stated, I doubt these issues would affect their satellite offices (mainly London) in terms of recruiting policies, but it’s quite interesting how they have removed/ changed their DEI policies or reworded them, to appease the Trump admin.

Also wouldn’t this potentially affect client relationships, considering some of these client companies may be invested in some of these causes which have now be compromised, and now may not seemed to be aligned with these firms.

On a surface level, it seems like a targeted measures towards firms, that were aligned with the Democratic party, i.e., the Paul, Weiss Partner whose name escapes me (I think his name is Brad something).

Yes, I believe this could and will affect relationships with clients who are very invested in these causes, but it should be kept in mind that a wider distancing from DEI is taking place in corporate America following the election results. Before anything started happening in the legal industry, the biggest players in the tech like Meta and Amazon had already started rolling back on DEI policies.

As for your last point, in Paul, Weiss' case connections to the Democratic party could definitely be a reason they were targeted, as Brad Karp (the firm's chairman) orgainsed a fundraiser for Kamala Harris' campaign, one of the firm's partners coached her for the presidential debates, and other partners were associated with the Robert Muller investigations and claims related to the January 6th events. The same probably applies to Willkie - as I mentioned previously, Kamala Harris' husband is a partner at the firm. However, I would not infer from that that the firms with no strong ties to the Democrats have no reason for concern.

The White House published a list of 20 firms that were being investigated for their employment practices: Debevoise, Cooley, Goodwin Procter, Kirkland, Latham, McDermott, Milbank, Morgan Lewis, Morrison & Foerster, Perkins Coie, Reed Smith, Ropes & Gray, Sidley Austin, Simpson Thacher, Skadden, White & Case, Freshfields, Hogan Lovells, A&O Shearman, and WilmerHale. Some of the firms on this list who are already reportedly looking to strike deals with the Administration, such as Kirkland, are not thought to be particularly close to the Democratic party.

 

[OliverTwist]

Hey! They said they'd reimburse but it might take a while because they have a huge backlog. But you'll deffo hear back.

Hey, thanks for the response. Did you just email grad rec, or was there a special email for their finance dep't. I lost the piece of paper I jotted the details down on...!

 

[helenaskelton]

Hey, thanks for the response. Did you just email grad rec, or was there a special email for their finance dep't. I lost the piece of paper I jotted the details down on...!

You email grad rec just attach a screenshot and proof

 

[Justin]

Has anyone completed the sky group interview? Wondering what the format is in terms of timing and how it works interviewing with a group. Thanks!

I'm also not sure about the process, since its AS interviewing us and not Sky.

 

[User5678]

Has anyone heard back from sharpe Pritchard yet?

 

[toad92]

finally got a VS offer 😭 was starting to lose all hope that i can start training in 2027

 

[1123tripod]

Just got feedback post AC, and I was rejected because my interviewers were "uncertain about my commitment to the UK" (international candidate, recent graduate from RG London, some work experience in my home country). I am not sure how my interviewers assumed that given: I was not asked anything about my commitment to the UK, and I did make a case about training in the UK (spoke about how I chose to study law in the UK in the first place, cited diversity and opportunities to deal with international law) while answering "why our firm". I was told I was a "fantastic" candidate otherwise, with a unique background and fresh perspectives. Not only am I unsure how to deal with this going forward, but this remark has left a sour taste - it feels like a cop-out, biased way to reject international candidates.