Community Guidelines and navigating TCLA - your input requested

[Jessica Booker]

My pleasure! And yes, you're not wrong, my PMs have been very busy over the last year or so haha

If there is any particular wording/guidance around PM’s I’d appreciate your thoughts (even if it is in a PM to me). We obviously see the forums and can gauge guidance there - with my PMs I am here to answer questions so it’s more difficult for me to gauge that from a member’s perspective.

 

[Jessica Booker]

The other issue that occurs to me is the direction in which Jaysen intends to take TCLA - if he wants future collaboration with firms, like the previous Sherman & Sterling grad rec Q&A.

I wonder if that would be rather harder to achieve if firms disliked TCLA due to its posting case studies/interview experiences in far too much detail. Firms clearly aren't happy when that happens, as per Jessica Booker's earlier mention of TSR in this thread.

Most firms know information Is shared on many different levels - from their own employees, to TSR, to Wikijobs and Glassdoor. Some even provide information like this on Inside Buzz on Targetjobs! I think the vast majority wouldn’t have an issue with 99% of the content on here. If they do, it’s rather short sighted in my opinion (but I am biased).

I think I have got to clarity on where information sharing is appropriate and where integrity of recruitment processes is compromised and how we can get that difference across in the guidelines - the posts so far have really helped with that. It won’t stop people sharing information beyond this privately though (which I suspect we will just have to say is at their own risk).

 

[Karin]

Community guidelines:

Earlier in the summer the conversation around putting together some community guidelines for TCLA came up. Having spoken to Jaysen, I will be working on pulling something together in time for the start of the next academic year.

We are keen to ensure the community guidelines are built with your (the Community!) input. Given this, I'd be keen to hear from anyone who has any ideas on what the guidelines should contain.

In particular, I'd like to understand more about how you find communicating with one another through the forum and through private messages. I am pretty relaxed about this as ultimately it is my job to answer people's questions, but I understand that the dynamic between members might be very different, so I'd like to hear the positive and negative experiences from forum users to try and work out the best guidelines around this particular topic.

We are also aware that different people have different views on how much information should be shared in regards to people's experiences in interviews/assessment centres. We are keen to ensure we pitch this right in the guidelines, without limiting the great amount of information that is shared within this community, but at the same time keeping the integrity of firm's recruitment processes. Your views on this would also be appreciated.

Any further ideas of what the Community Guidelines should consist of would be appreciated too!

Any comments/opinions/views in this thread would be greatly appreciated. If you would prefer to PM me, then happy for you to do this too. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

While I haven't had any experience with bad message from people, as the community grows, I think it could be good to create a reporting system which would require you to also post evidence of the thing you are reporting. You could have had 3 strikes before being banned as I am a bit worried people could get falsely reported & evidence falsified (?) but guess it will be needed in the future

 

[Karin]

Great minds think alike . I am thinking of creating a "bookmark" thread - almost like an alphabetical list of subjects/questions that links to posts already created that covers the topic well.

That sounds great! I always try to search for my questions but found the search engine to be a bit tricky - e.g. when I typed "HSF" or "A&O" sometimes nothing would come up. If the search engine was improved, it could be a bit easier to search for forum specific questions as well (e.g. search only in GR thread, i think it is available now but hasn't worked that well for me)

 

[Karin]

Navigating TCLA

I will also be creating an intro guide to navigating the TCLA forums. We understand that as the forum has grown there is more content, and that sometimes things can be a little tricky to navigate as often points cross over different forums and threads.

Although I have learnt my own tricks for navigating the forums with time and experience, I'd be keen to hear if anyone else has any thoughts on how best to approach this, especially thinking about anyone who might be joining the forum for the first time and trying to get their head around what is where.

I think sometimes it

We are going to be doing some guides on these type of topics as they aren't really things that are discussed as such, we just get a lot of specific questions about "how to" do one thing or other.

maybe when posting, you could also have an option to add your post to a specific thread - so even if you were to post in a "wrong thread" you could change this if you see that there is something more suitable without having to delete it. Also, if going even more high tech, the web could detect key words in your post and suggest where to post this (this is for very lazy people )

 

[Karin]

Thanks for your input - that was my thinking too.

Ultimately we can’t stop people sharing things privately and to be frank this happens all the time with people who are friends/family anyway.

However, we want to ensure the community is one the benefits collectively and that we share as much information at the same time. One idea of the forum is to make this profession more accessible and so we need to ensure there is a balance (hence the community rules!).

We also don’t want to drive people to relying on PMs and potentially harassing others for information. We know of at least one incident where someone tracked someone off the forums who secured a TC down on LinkedIn and sent a string of messages that got more aggressive when the person didn’t respond/or provide the information the individual expected. We want to stop that happening too.

We do have to keep in mind the integrity of firm’s recruitment processes too. We don’t want firms contacting us saying we have undermined their process (I had to do this with TSR back in the day when someone posted a copy of one of the exercises we used).

So it is about finding the right balance for everyone and pitching it right - which is why we want as many views as possible on this subject.

Thank you for taking the time to give me yours

I understand that some people feel bad about others sharing specifics, but it will rarely be an exact format and even if it is, I don't think the testimonials are so specific that you would be so prepared it would make you that much a better candidate. I know someone mentioned candidates coming to VS and starting to write without even reading the texts provided - that is worrying but that is not something you could do with the info provided on TCLA.

For me, for example, who hasn't known many (if any) people who went through the process, this was invaluable. Not only that I had a more insight into how the day was run, but I also knew a bit more about how to prepare and what to expect; and it calmed me down.

I guess you could allow for candidates to give testimonies with a certain degree of detail, not mentioning the specifics of a case study, as someone above suggested. If someone wants to find out more, they can always PM the person and then it is privately up to them what they disclose and what they don't.

 

[Jaysen]

That sounds great! I always try to search for my questions but found the search engine to be a bit tricky - e.g. when I typed "HSF" or "A&O" sometimes nothing would come up. If the search engine was improved, it could be a bit easier to search for forum specific questions as well (e.g. search only in GR thread, i think it is available now but hasn't worked that well for me)

Hey Karin - do you mean the search functionality within TCLA? There is actually an upgrade we can do, so we can definitely look into this!

 

[Karin]

Hey Karin - do you mean the search functionality within TCLA? There is actually an upgrade we can do, so we can definitely look into this!

Yes, exactly - when you use very short words it doesn't perform the search and generates error (see screenshot below when I searched hsf)

 

[Jessica Booker]

We will be finalising the community guidelines in the next couple of weeks and hope to share this with you soon. We hope this helps to put clearer guidelines on what we deem acceptable and unacceptable behaviour in the forums and in private messages.

Ahead of us publishing the community guidelines, I want to give you the heads up that a very small minority of members' behaviour is currently not what we would expect. I have been contacted by a number of members who have received persistent lines of questions from other members on this forum and through other social media platforms, predominately LinkedIn.

There have also been a small number of messages that completely lack the integrity needed in the legal profession, including language that borders on harassment and even worse requests for people to take psychometric tests on behalf on the person messaging. This behaviour is not acceptable and if it continues we would need to consider appropriate actions against the members that are choosing to message in this manner.

I want to stress that this is a very small minority of our membership. We are really proud of how the vast majority of our members conduct themselves in the forums and we really appreciate a community that manages to balance support, advice and updates with ensuring they demonstrate the values, such as integrity, needed in a solicitor/lawyer.

I personally don't mind being bombarded with questions - its ultimately my job on here to answer questions for any member, whether in forums or in private message. But other members have no responsibility to respond to questions you ask them, let alone respond in the timeframe you expect. I would encourage everyone to consider utilising other members' time effectively and efficiently rather than extensively. I would also encourage you to consider your own expectations - not everyone can respond to something as quick as you would like them too. I would also like to remind members that they are responsible for their own research - getting people to always tell you the answers to everything is not helping you in the long term. If you start to think about all these points, you will be developing yourself into a stronger solicitor/lawyer - as a Trainee you won't be able to ask endless questions to your supervisors, you won't get immediate responses from clients/other parties' lawyers, and you won't always be told the answer to something.