Ask 4 future trainees ANYTHING! *New TCLA Team Members*

[Amma Usman]

@Ram Sabaratnam @Amma Usman @Andrei Radu
I am curious to know your thoughts on a question I am currently trying to write up an answer to. The question is asking me to describe a recent setback I faced. I am currently choosing between two situations I can write about:

1) Throughout university I always wanted a journal publication - on my first two attempts I got rejected - but then on my third attempt I chose a more topical theme, improved my research and analysis methods and then managed to secure publication - i was also quoted by a very prominent legal organisation

2) While social media officer for an event committee, I was not meeting my event registration targets - In response, I analysed our marketing stats, started making more personalised and tailored social media posts, conducted in-person marketing as well as online marketing, and encouraged my team members to come with me on campuses to do group marketing - In the end, the campaign achieved record LinkedIn engagement and the event had record attendance

I am struggling with picking which situation to talk about - I would be super grateful if you could let me know which situation you think is better to write about and demonstrates the most resilience

Hey @lawyersum , thanks for the question. Just before @Ram Sabaratnam and @Andrei Radu get back to you as well, I’ve included a few points below;

• Any situation you choose is fine. Ultimately, the weight and impact of your answer is dependent on your ability to appropriately describe the situation, your contributions to tackling the setback, and the result.
• Both examples are outstanding, but I would personally go with the first. The reason is because I believe the reason is more unique to your experiences and interests, whereas I‘ve reviewed quite a few applications with event management being a core discussion to answers on questions of this type.
• In answering the first question, explain why you were rejected twice - this demonstrates self-awareness and heightens the impact of your ability to overcome the setback. The HR team will ideally want more detail on the setback itself. Further, why did you want to write a journal publication? What led you to choosing a more topical theme? What were these research and analysis methods you used? How were they different to what you used last time? What was the publication on? Is it on law/business? How can you briefly relate it to the role of a trainee solicitor/and(or) your ability to succeed in the role. Which legal organisation was this? Include this and show off your achievements.
• The STAR analysis will help you provide a clean structure for this answer.

Goodluck!

 

[lawyersum]

Hey @lawyersum , thanks for the question. Just before @Ram Sabaratnam and @Andrei Radu get back to you as well, I’ve included a few points below;

• Any situation you choose is fine. Ultimately, the weight and impact of your answer is dependent on your ability to appropriately describe the situation, your contributions to tackling the setback, and the result.
• Both examples are outstanding, but I would personally go with the first. The reason is because I believe the reason is more unique to your experiences and interests, whereas I‘ve reviewed quite a few applications with event management being a core discussion to answers on questions of this type.
• In answering the first question, explain why you were rejected twice - this demonstrates self-awareness and heightens the impact of your ability to overcome the setback. The HR team will ideally want more detail on the setback itself. Further, why did you want to write a journal publication? What led you to choosing a more topical theme? What were these research and analysis methods you used? How were they different to what you used last time? What was the publication on? Is it on law/business? How can you briefly relate it to the role of a trainee solicitor/and(or) your ability to succeed in the role. Which legal organisation was this? Include this and show off your achievements.
• The STAR analysis will help you provide a clean structure for this answer.

Goodluck!

Thank you very much @Amma Usman for such a detailed explanation and breakdown - it's amazing. I will definitely be using this example now!

 

[Ram Sabaratnam]

@Ram Sabaratnam @Amma Usman @Andrei Radu
I am curious to know your thoughts on a question I am currently trying to write up an answer to. The question is asking me to describe a recent setback I faced. I am currently choosing between two situations I can write about:

1) Throughout university I always wanted a journal publication - on my first two attempts I got rejected - but then on my third attempt I chose a more topical theme, improved my research and analysis methods and then managed to secure publication - i was also quoted by a very prominent legal organisation

2) While social media officer for an event committee, I was not meeting my event registration targets - In response, I analysed our marketing stats, started making more personalised and tailored social media posts, conducted in-person marketing as well as online marketing, and encouraged my team members to come with me on campuses to do group marketing - In the end, the campaign achieved record LinkedIn engagement and the event had record attendance

I am struggling with picking which situation to talk about - I would be super grateful if you could let me know which situation you think is better to write about and demonstrates the most resilience

Hiya @lawyersum

I completely agree with @Amma Usman here. Either of these approaches could work really well to answer the question and showcase your skills. That said, as Amma suggests, I’d also lean towards the first option. It’s such a unique and impressive achievement, and one that’s genuinely difficult to accomplish! Beyond highlighting the resilience it took to finally have your submission published, you can also use this opportunity to demonstrate how you improved your research and writing skills to achieve a publishable standard. I wanted to suggest some ideas that you might want to explore to help you shape your answer whilst addressing the question:

• Topic Formation: Publishing often requires making a meaningful contribution to the "existing literature" in a field. Compared to your earlier attempts, how did you approach selecting a topic this time? As you mentioned, you found a topic idea this time to write about, but how did you do this? Did you consult with anyone (e.g. a professor, a colleague) to pinpoint under-explored areas? Did you examine past issues of the journal to identify gaps or overlooked themes in their previous publications? Highlighting how your approach to topic formation evolved will help make this answer address the question.
  
  
• Research Strategies: Did you adopt any new methods for conducting research? For example, if the topic was law-related, did you deepen your engagement with case reasoning or secondary scholarship? Did you need to master any new skills, such as quantitative or qualitative analysis, or refine how you identified and distinguished credible sources? Share how you revamped your research process to elevate your work, as research often requires particular skills and this question lends itself well to demonstrating how you did this.
  
  
• Editing and Feedback: Finally, you might want to discuss how you improved your ability to edit and refine your writing to ensure it met a publishable standard. For instance, did you take a new approach to sharing drafts with others for feedback? How did you incorporate suggestions or address challenges raised by editors? If you worked with editors, did you adapt how you responded to their comments or tackled revisions?

Again, these are just a few angles to consider when drafting your answer and reflecting on how you persevered through initial rejections to eventually achieve the publication. Best of luck with your application! 😊

 

[lawyersum]

Hiya @lawyersum

I completely agree with @Amma Usman here. Either of these approaches could work really well to answer the question and showcase your skills. That said, as Amma suggests, I’d also lean towards the first option. It’s such a unique and impressive achievement, and one that’s genuinely difficult to accomplish! Beyond highlighting the resilience it took to finally have your submission published, you can also use this opportunity to demonstrate how you improved your research and writing skills to achieve a publishable standard. I wanted to suggest some ideas that you might want to explore to help you shape your answer whilst addressing the question:

• Topic Formation: Publishing often requires making a meaningful contribution to the "existing literature" in a field. Compared to your earlier attempts, how did you approach selecting a topic this time? As you mentioned, you found a topic idea this time to write about, but how did you do this? Did you consult with anyone (e.g. a professor, a colleague) to pinpoint under-explored areas? Did you examine past issues of the journal to identify gaps or overlooked themes in their previous publications? Highlighting how your approach to topic formation evolved will help make this answer address the question.
  
  
• Research Strategies: Did you adopt any new methods for conducting research? For example, if the topic was law-related, did you deepen your engagement with case reasoning or secondary scholarship? Did you need to master any new skills, such as quantitative or qualitative analysis, or refine how you identified and distinguished credible sources? Share how you revamped your research process to elevate your work, as research often requires particular skills and this question lends itself well to demonstrating how you did this.
  
  
• Editing and Feedback: Finally, you might want to discuss how you improved your ability to edit and refine your writing to ensure it met a publishable standard. For instance, did you take a new approach to sharing drafts with others for feedback? How did you incorporate suggestions or address challenges raised by editors? If you worked with editors, did you adapt how you responded to their comments or tackled revisions?

Again, these are just a few angles to consider when drafting your answer and reflecting on how you persevered through initial rejections to eventually achieve the publication. Best of luck with your application! 😊

Thank you @Ram Sabaratnam for this equally amazing advice and your kind words!! Your advice will also be super helpful for any competency question asking me to discuss how I have developed my research/analysis skills

 

[Ram Sabaratnam]

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

I have a VS coming up and one of the tasks is a pitch exercise - what sort of things are good to bear in mind and what should be included for a successful pitch? I believe we have to pitch a practice group to partners about a commercial issue that will affect a client, would it be a good idea to try and simulate a real pitch as much as possible (include stuff around the firm's pro bono, D&I etc, as clients care about that), or focus on the commercial aspects more. Thanks in advance!

Hiya @aspiringlawyer12

I just wanted to build on the already excellent advice you've received from @Jessica Booker. Jess is completely spot on about tailoring your pitch to the client rather than focusing on the firm.

One complicating factor here could be that the client you're expected to make the pitch to could be either real or hypothetical. At some firms, I was asked to come up with a pitch for a business that had been a longstanding client of the firm. At other firms, I was given purely hypothetical clients, none of whom were real but who (on the facts that were supplied to us) clearly had a profile that was similar to some of the firm's own client base. In both situations, it helped that I had done prior research and tried to get a sense of the types of issues faced by standard clients of the firm (usually by researching clients in similar industries and the key challenges they were facing at the time). The key is to show some understanding of their industry, challenges, and priorities. I'd suggest looking into recent news, sector trends, or regulatory pressures they might face, as well as having a think about the type of work the firm might have previously done for similar clients in the past.

In terms of structuring the pitch, I'd suggest beginning by introducing the issue and explaining why it’s significant to the client. Then, analyse its commercial or legal implications, highlighting the risks and opportunities it presents. You essentially want to propose a solution that is practical and focused on addressing the client’s priorities effectively. The remainder of the pitch could end by explaining why the firm is uniquely suited to help, referencing any relevant experience.

The last thing I want to say is about the point @Jessica Booker made about working with your team to ensure the presentation feels 'seamless'. I've had experiences at ACs in the past where different team members were responsible for different aspects of the pitch such that, when it all come together, it could sound too disjointed. When this happened, it was obvious to our interviewers that there hadn't been adequate collaboration and little reflection on things like transitions between speakers and ensuring everyone was confident in their role during the pitch. You'll want to avoid this as much as possible, so get talking to one another!

Hope this helps! Best of luck with the pitch! 😊

 

[Hghasvision]

Hi there, can I ask how long it takes for membership to get approved so we can see past applications. Bought bronze a while ago, with no access

 

[Jessica Booker]

Hi there, can I ask how long it takes for membership to get approved so we can see past applications. Bought bronze a while ago, with no access

If you send me a private message with proof of purchase, I can get this access sorted for you.