2020-21 Vacation Scheme Applications Discussion

[Daniel Boden]

Macfarlanes Vacation Scheme

Huge congrats @Ricky! Extremely well deserved - hope you've been able to celebrate a bit this evening!

 

[Daniel Boden]

This may be a silly question, but is it OK to repeat what you said in your cover letter/application answers in your video interview? E.g. repeating your reasons in the VI for "Why Law?" or "Why this firm?" that you already listed in your application (not word for word obviously).

Also, does anyone know if we can re-record VI answers for the V&E VI this year?

Thank you!!

Yes that's never been an issue for me in past video interviews. If you have the time feel free to expand on your original points but otherwise don't worry too much

 

[Maculay]

I personally would always wear a jacket; though I did actually take it off in my Travers interview when I was in the room as it was roasting!

Generally speaking though, collar and tie, full suit (2 pieces is absolutely fine, I personally find 3 pieces overkill but it's a personal thing) and formal shoes is the way to go!

Surely formal shoes wouldn't be required for a virtual AC/interview... I probably will not be wearing my dress shoes for any interview that isn't in person.

 

[Jony]

Surely formal shoes wouldn't be required for a virtual AC/interview... I probably will not be wearing my dress shoes for any interview that isn't in person.

It's joggers and suit for me!

 

[Emily Kate]

Does anyone know what questions are being asked on the Vinson & Elkins video interview?

 

[Daniel Boden]

I'm considering talking about GameStop and its stocks if I'm asked about a commercial story at my interview - has anyone got any thoughts on the implications of it / how law firms might be relevant?

A law firm's corporate/regulatory practice springs to mind here given that the SEC are potentially looking at any wrongdoing on the part of the daytraders

 

[Daniel Boden]

Surely formal shoes wouldn't be required for a virtual AC/interview... I probably will not be wearing my dress shoes for any interview that isn't in person.

Whatever makes you more comfortable - for me I found it helpful to get me in an interview mode/mindset during my virtual scheme but this didn't last particularly long into week 2 haha

 

[Jacob Miller]

Surely formal shoes wouldn't be required for a virtual AC/interview... I probably will not be wearing my dress shoes for any interview that isn't in person.

For a virtual AC, I'm wearing my slippers! Smart shoes (hell, even bottoms to an extent) are unnecessary if they'll only see your top half. For my virtual ACs I opted for a smart shirt (tie on day 1, then I ditched it thereafter when I realised it was unnecessary), comfy chinos and a belt just so my shirt stayed tucked in and didn't blouse out. On my feet was either my slippers or Yeezys (which are basically slippers lol)

 

[Daniel Boden]

There are actually quite a lot of legal issues. Changes in capital requirements are being brought in by various regulatory departments in the US. Class action lawsuits have been filed by individuals. The questions of legality of stopping trading or selling of specific stocks and the issue of market manipulation both by Reddit individuals (looking at the language they’ve used and whether it can be considered advice or not) and the trading platforms themselves. Personally I think this topic is so interesting and I have lots of thoughts about this but that could be me being a nerdy econ student!

Those class actions won't be very successful imo vs the likes of Robinhood because it is literally in the small print of the trading platforms' contracts with their users that Robinhood can limit the trades of their users

 

[MizM]

Has anyone taken the Ashurst online test? Is it something you can prepare for (WG style etc.) or is it more situational?

 

[Jessica Booker]

Does anyone who has used TopScore for a written exercise know if you can highlight on the documents or copy things from them onto the exercise? GR didn’t want to tell me

Let me have a quick look at the candidate doc (can’t attach it here as it is too big). Update - unclear whether you can copy/highlight the documents you are given (most likely not as I think they are secure so you can’t copy them).

Looks like you’ll have similar formatting to this forum though when you write.

 

[Legal_rawn]

Those class actions won't be very successful imo vs the likes of Robinhood because it is literally in the small print of the trading platforms' contracts with their users that Robinhood can limit the trades of their users

Agreed! Wouldn’t advise telling Reddit that though 😂

 

[Jacob Miller]

Those class actions won't be very successful imo vs the likes of Robinhood because it is literally in the small print of the trading platforms' contracts with their users that Robinhood can limit the trades of their users

I think folk forget that RobinHood are essentially brokers, meaning they make their money out of spreads, commission and hedging against 95% of their users.

For anyone who's interested, Anton Kreil (Institute of Trading and Portfolio Management) delivered this guest lecture a few years ago (I think at LSE?) where he absolutely rinses retail brokers. Although he's primarily talking about forex, the same is also applicable to outfits like RobinHood:

 

[rose63]

Does anyone know roughly how long Macfarlanes take to get back to you? Applied the day before the deadline for VS so assuming it'll be a little while before I hear anything yet.

 

[Jacob Miller]

Does anyone know roughly how long Macfarlanes take to get back to you? Applied the day before the deadline for VS so assuming it'll be a little while before I hear anything yet.

I know a few people have had offers, but I would just hold tight and wait for the email rather than trying to guess what it's likely to be based on others' experiences!

 

[cmaj]

Macfarlanes Vacation Scheme

AHHHHHHH I AM SO HAPPY FOR YOU!!!!!!! SO WELL DESERVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also so happy for those with V&I, Pinsent Masons, Reed Smith, TW, Baker McKenzie... all of you! I love it! CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

For those of you that feel a little sad having not received good news today, it sucks but please do not let it get to you. Your time will come and until then, carry on doing what you're doing, building your path, and developing your skills ❤️

 

[jan28]

Those class actions won't be very successful imo vs the likes of Robinhood because it is literally in the small print of the trading platforms' contracts with their users that Robinhood can limit the trades of their users

Perhaps, but I also wonder how they’ll recover from being seen as going against the very ethos of their company which is to democratise finance by limiting the trades so abruptly

 

[cmaj]

Agreed! Wouldn’t advise telling Reddit that though 😂

I must say, it's so refreshing to come on here and see this logical and sensible discussion about GameStop. I've been watching the r/wallstreetbets (wsb) thread very closely as there's no education quite like experience so I invested in a very small amount of AMC for a giggle to keep up with it hehe. What I can say from that experience is... honestly, it's like watching the end Titanic but instead of "don't let go Jack" it's "hold!!!1! to the moon daddy musk!!! 🚀😩" LOL

On a more serious note, it will certainly interesting to see the upshot from this and for how long it continues. What seemingly started as a fairly harmless situation of short sellers vs longs has morphed into this huge antiestablishment movement like nothing I've seen take off on the wsb subreddit before. At the moment, platforms aren't allowing the purchase of any memestock so it feels like an artificial decline of the 'movement' with many selling or losing interest, but one look on Reddit will tell you otherwise. In a similar way to what was seen with Trump supporters, the members of the group are promoting this real mistrust of news sources. I could even see this falling as part of the bigger move towards the regulation of social media as there is so much misinformation being spread on Reddit while the wsb subreddit has quadrupled its members (over 8m now)! This is just what I've seen though and I do not purport to be any kind of expert on financial markets

 

[hz1997]

Do either of you have gmail.com email accounts because apparently DLA Piper are having big problems with their system sending out messages to these accounts.

Yeah I’m using a gmail account. Should probably reach out to them in that case.

 

[Jacob Miller]

I must say, it's so refreshing to come on here and see this logical and sensible discussion about GameStop. I've been watching the r/wallstreetbets (wsb) thread very closely as there's no education quite like experience so I invested in a very small amount of AMC for a giggle to keep up with it hehe. What I can say from that experience is... honestly, it's like watching the end Titanic but instead of "don't let go Jack" it's "hold!!!1! to the moon daddy musk!!! 🚀😩" LOL

On a more serious note, it will certainly interesting to see the upshot from this and for how long it continues. What seemingly started as a fairly harmless situation of short sellers vs longs has morphed into this huge antiestablishment movement like nothing I've seen take off on the wsb subreddit before. At the moment, platforms aren't allowing the purchase of any meme stock so it feels like an artificial decline of the 'movement' with many selling or losing interest, but one look on Reddit will tell you otherwise. In a similar way to what was seen with Trump supporters, the members of the group are promoting this real mistrust of news sources. I could even see this falling as part of the bigger move towards the regulation of social media as there is so much misinformation being spread on Reddit while the wsb subreddit has quadrupled its members (over 8m now)! This is just my view though and I do not purport to be any kind of expert on financial markets

The closest comparable situation with brokers preventing trade transactions was during lockdown when WTI oil CFDs crashed to $-40/barrel. My broker and many others intervened and prevented me from closing my shorts on it (yes, I was v salty, cost me a lot of money) and then actually stopped me executing a hedged long when it started to stabilise from the bottom (which cost me even more money)! Would be an interesting comparison study as, to be honest, nothing really happened as a result of that as it was just an instance of brokers using Terms and Conditions to their advantage.
Another broadly comparable situation was the Swiss Franc (CHF) flash crash of 15th Jan 2015. The price of EURCHF crashed nearly 20% (2600 pips, for anyone familiar with that unit of measurement); many brokers went out of business and I think it even did for some of the bigger funds. Cost many of the institutions countless billions. There was a lot of discussion after that surrounding liquidity requirements/ brokers' rights/ market regulation which could provide some interesting parallels to the current situation.