Ask TCLA's New Community Managers Anything!

[futuretraineesolicitor]

Hello, guys. It's me again. Hope you are doing well and sorry for pestering you every now and then. Could you please help me figure out what "A time you failed?" is trying to assess? I have failed a lot, but I'm not always sure about the reason why I failed. For example, I've tried thrice to secure an internship at a firm and each time, I've considerably improved my application to the best of my abilities but I never got the internship. Now there could be a thousand reasons why I didn't get the role but because there is no way to find that out, I have no clue how I could use this internship application failure for my "A time you failed?" question. To be honest, I think I never got the internship because I was not good enough but I fail to understand how this will help me answer the question better. If I knew that I wasn't good enough, failing should have never been a big deal in the first place? Plus, there was nothing that I learnt from failing to get an internship because IMO I had already put in my best application and had improved it every time. I think I'm probably overthinking this but I would be grateful for your help.

Thanks.

 

[Jessica Booker]

Hello, guys. It's me again. Hope you are doing well and sorry for pestering you every now and then. Could you please help me figure out what "A time you failed?" is trying to assess? I have failed a lot, but I'm not always sure about the reason why I failed. For example, I've tried thrice to secure an internship at a firm and each time, I've considerably improved my application to the best of my abilities but I never got the internship. Now there could be a thousand reasons why I didn't get the role but because there is no way to find that out, I have no clue how I could use this internship application failure for my "A time you failed?" question. To be honest, I think I never got the internship because I was not good enough but I fail to understand how this will help me answer the question better. If I knew that I wasn't good enough, failing should have never been a big deal in the first place? Plus, there was nothing that I learnt from failing to get an internship because IMO I had already put in my best application and had improved it every time. I think I'm probably overthinking this but I would be grateful for your help.

Thanks.

It is trying to assess how you deal with failure. You will fail a lot in a law firm. You’ll lose clients, you’ll fail in negotiations, you’ll lose cases in court. You need resilience and an ability to bounce back after failure. Firms are checking you have this ability - without it you are a major risk to any law firm.

The firm is also looking for self-drive and self-development. You’ll also need to be someone who drives their own self development forward. They will be looking for how you have not only picked yourself back up from failure but whether you have had the drive/initiative to improve yourself so you don’t fail in the same way again.

I personally wouldn’t use recruitment as an example of failure. Pretty much every candidate could claim the same. Try to show something that is more unique to you.

 

[futuretraineesolicitor]

It is trying to assess how you deal with failure. You will fail a lot in a law firm. You’ll lose clients, you’ll fail in negotiations, you’ll lose cases in court. You need resilience and an ability to bounce back after failure. Firms are checking you have this ability - without it you are a major risk to any law firm.

The firm is also looking for self-drive and self-development. You’ll also need to be someone who drives their own self development forward. They will be looking for how you have not only picked yourself back up from failure but whether you have had the drive/initiative to improve yourself so you don’t fail in the same way again.

I personally wouldn’t use recruitment as an example of failure. Pretty much every candidate could claim the same. Try to show something that is more unique to you.

Thank you so much, Jessica.

 

[futuretraineesolicitor]

Hello, guys. I hope you all are doing well. My apologies for another question around competency questions (I'm sure I'm overthinking these but I just want to be sure) but could you please help me in understanding what "When have you displayed teamwork?" is asking for? I think there are 2 interpretations to this.

One is that the firm is looking for an instance wherein I was working with a team of let's say 5 members and we were all shooting for the same goal- just that all the 5 members had different roles and the goal required them to work with each other- think of maybe a due diligence section specifically on the finance issues of a company where all 5 members belong to the finance department and are working on different points that go into the DD section "Finance"

My second interpretation is that you are a person whose job is to go around and work with different teams as a solo player. What I mean is, let's say you are in the M&A department and your role is to co-ordinate the deal - so one day you ask for progress from the Finance team, another day you ask for cost estimates from another team etc. (basically you liaise across all the different teams that are out there)

Just wanted to ask, which one of these interpretations is correct? Or is either fine because it's just about collaboration at the end of the day?

Thanks.

 

[Jessica Booker]

Hello, guys. I hope you all are doing well. My apologies for another question around competency questions (I'm sure I'm overthinking these but I just want to be sure) but could you please help me in understanding what "When have you displayed teamwork?" is asking for? I think there are 2 interpretations to this.

One is that the firm is looking for an instance wherein I was working with a team of let's say 5 members and we were all shooting for the same goal- just that all the 5 members had different roles and the goal required them to work with each other- think of maybe a due diligence section specifically on the finance issues of a company where all 5 members belong to the finance department and are working on different points that go into the DD section "Finance"

My second interpretation is that you are a person whose job is to go around and work with different teams as a solo player. What I mean is, let's say you are in the M&A department and your role is to co-ordinate the deal - so one day you ask for progress from the Finance team, another day you ask for cost estimates from another team etc. (basically you liaise across all the different teams that are out there)

Just wanted to ask, which one of these interpretations is correct? Or is either fine because it's just about collaboration at the end of the day?

Thanks.

I feel like I have to be brutally honest here.

You are over thinking this and you are thinking too rigidly by trying to “perfect” your answers. A question as broad as “when have you displayed team work” is just looking for that - it’s looking for examples of you working in a team - they are not looking for either of the specific scenarios you have mentioned above. It is nothing more narrow or specific than evidence of you working well with other people.

The reality is teamworking questions tend to be much more specific. It will often include phrasing like “when did you lead a team” or “when did you work with a diverse group” or “when did you have to persuade a group of people to your thinking” (there are 100s of variations of this, these are just some examples). In those instances, certain scenarios will be better than others.

 

[futuretraineesolicitor]

I feel like I have to be brutally honest here.

You are over thinking this and you are thinking too rigidly by trying to “perfect” your answers. A question as broad as “when have you displayed team work” is just looking for that - it’s looking for examples of you working in a team - they are not looking for either of the specific scenarios you have mentioned above. It is nothing more narrow or specific than evidence of you working well with other people.

The reality is teamworking questions tend to be much more specific. It will often include phrasing like “when did you lead a team” or “when did you work with a diverse group” or “when did you have to persuade a group of people to your thinking” (there are 100s of variations of this, these are just some examples). In those instances, certain scenarios will be better than others.

I feel like I needed to hear this. Thank you for the honesty, I think I should stop preparing for such questions now.

 

[Jessica Booker]

I feel like I needed to hear this. Thank you for the honesty, I think I should stop preparing for such questions now.

My advice is just not to over engineer your answers. Preparation is important, but 1) I think you can prepare when you know you have interviews coming up and 2) you can prepare based on more of the specific of the role/firm you are applying to.

What you can do is think about the examples you have from your experiences more broadly (which I suspect you have already done to some level).

Trying to nail your specific answers now could be a lot of wasted effort. You don’t know what the specifics are yet. Once you know more about what type of interview you are going for and the firm it is with, you will know more of the specifics and then you can then tailor your broader examples into a more refined and specific answer for that particular opportunity.

 

[futuretraineesolicitor]

My advice is just not to over engineer your answers. Preparation is important, but 1) I think you can prepare when you know you have interviews coming up and 2) you can prepare based on more of the specific of the role/firm you are applying to.

What you can do is think about the examples you have from your experiences more broadly (which I suspect you have already done to some level).

Trying to nail your specific answers now could be a lot of wasted effort. You don’t know what the specifics are yet. Once you know more about what type of interview you are going for and the firm it is with, you will know more of the specifics and then you can then tailor your broader examples into a more refined and specific answer for that particular opportunity.

Thank you so much, Jessica.

 

[futuretraineesolicitor]

Hello, guys. I hope you are doing well. Could you please tell me what the 'reflection' is for in the STARR framework? I mean does it only have to include potential areas where you could have improved or can it also include bits that you were proud of or is it a mix of both? I have found conflicting answers to this and even though the reflection bit is not a requirement, I think it's a great way to end your answers.

Thanks.

 

[AvniD]

Hello, guys. I hope you are doing well. Could you please tell me what the 'reflection' is for in the STARR framework? I mean does it only have to include potential areas where you could have improved or can it also include bits that you were proud of or is it a mix of both? I have found conflicting answers to this and even though the reflection bit is not a requirement, I think it's a great way to end your answers.

Thanks.

I think you can do either or both, although doing both may yield a more accurate, big picture reflection. In any case, reflection is a broad term and will include any retrospective analysis of the things mentioned in your STAR structure.

 

[futuretraineesolicitor]

I think you can do either or both, although doing both may yield a more accurate, big picture reflection. In any case, reflection is a broad term and will include any retrospective analysis of the things mentioned in your STAR structure.

Thank you so much, Avni.

 

[Jessica Booker]

Hello, guys. I hope you are doing well. Could you please tell me what the 'reflection' is for in the STARR framework? I mean does it only have to include potential areas where you could have improved or can it also include bits that you were proud of or is it a mix of both? I have found conflicting answers to this and even though the reflection bit is not a requirement, I think it's a great way to end your answers.

Thanks.

Reflection can include:

- what you learnt
- recognising what you enjoyed
- recognising what was difficult

It doesn’t necessarily need a “how could I have improved it” unless the question is asking for this.

 

[futuretraineesolicitor]

Reflection can include:

- what you learnt
- recognising what you enjoyed
- recognising what was difficult

It doesn’t necessarily need a “how could I have improved it” unless the question is asking for this.

I actually never knew this, I'm glad I asked. Thank you, Jessica.

 

[futuretraineesolicitor]

Hello, guys. Hope you all are doing well. I was actually struggling with something related to case-studies so I'd be grateful if you could please help me out with it. I was wondering, how should we go about applying what we read in newsletters like Little Law and the TCLA newsletter, to our case study interviews? For example, I recently read a wide variety of news pieces ranging from how Netflix is losing subscribers to how Santander transferred money into random accounts by mistake to how consumers actually don't understand the risks of Buy Now Pay Later schemes. Now, to be honest, if it's a news story that goes over how the CMA had asked Facebook to find a new buyer for Giphy (the GIF service), I understand that we can reference and slide this news story while talking about Competition issues (if we encounter any in our case study), but these types of landmark news events are quite rare and most news letters cover one-off events like Netflix losing subscribers or Santander making mistakes. I was wondering how we can actually read the news with the mindset of getting as much information possible that we could directly apply to case-study exercises.

Thanks.

 

[George Maxwell]

Hello, guys. Hope you all are doing well. I was actually struggling with something related to case-studies so I'd be grateful if you could please help me out with it. I was wondering, how should we go about applying what we read in newsletters like Little Law and the TCLA newsletter, to our case study interviews? For example, I recently read a wide variety of news pieces ranging from how Netflix is losing subscribers to how Santander transferred money into random accounts by mistake to how consumers actually don't understand the risks of Buy Now Pay Later schemes. Now, to be honest, if it's a news story that goes over how the CMA had asked Facebook to find a new buyer for Giphy (the GIF service), I understand that we can reference and slide this news story while talking about Competition issues (if we encounter any in our case study), but these types of landmark news events are quite rare and most news letters cover one-off events like Netflix losing subscribers or Santander making mistakes. I was wondering how we can actually read the news with the mindset of getting as much information possible that we could directly apply to case-study exercises.

Thanks.

Hi @futuretraineesolicitor!

It has been a little while since I interacted with you last, so it is lovely to hear from you 😇

This is a little difficult to answer in the abstract. However, my advice would be to think about the stakeholders involved in the stories you are reading. Consider the potential wider impact of the event/theme being described. Here are some questions you might consider asking yourself when you are analysing an article which might help (although not all of them will be applicable).

I would then advise you to consider the same questions when you are going through your case study. If there is then a crossover or clear link, then try to incorporate this/these insight(s) into your answer.

I hope that helps 🚀

 

[futuretraineesolicitor]

Hi @futuretraineesolicitor!

It has been a little while since I interacted with you last, so it is lovely to hear from you 😇

This is a little difficult to answer in the abstract. However, my advice would be to think about the stakeholders involved in the stories you are reading. Consider the potential wider impact of the event/theme being described. Here are some questions you might consider asking yourself when you are analysing an article which might help (although not all of them will be applicable).

I would then advise you to consider the same questions when you are going through your case study. If there is then a crossover or clear link, then try to incorporate this/these insight(s) into your answer.

I hope that helps 🚀

Thank you for your answer, George. Actually, I am unable to access the link because I need some sort of an approval from the TCLA account. Could you please add me there?

Thanks.

 

[George Maxwell]

Thank you for your answer, George. Actually, I am unable to access the link because I need some sort of an approval from the TCLA account. Could you please add me there?

Thanks.

Hey @futuretraineesolicitor,

I have now edited the link. It should now work.

Sorry about that 😅

 

[futuretraineesolicitor]

Hey @futuretraineesolicitor,

I have now edited the link. It should now work.

Sorry about that 😅

Hey, George. Unfortunately, the link still doesn't work for me. Could you please check it again?

Thanks.

 

[Jessica Booker]

Hey, George. Unfortunately, the link still doesn't work for me. Could you please check it again?

Thanks.

Here is the link: TCLA Vacation Scheme Applications Discussion Thread 2021-22 (#1) | The Corporate Law Academy Forum

 

[futuretraineesolicitor]

Here is the link: TCLA Vacation Scheme Applications Discussion Thread 2021-22 (#1) | The Corporate Law Academy Forum

Thank you so much, Jessica.