Discussing a business deal in an application

[Yusuf Panah]

Hi all,

One theme that commonly appears in training contract/vacation scheme applications is discussing a recent business deal (or story) in the news that has captured the applicant's interest and how that might impact the firm and its clients.

How do you determine how a business deal might impact a firm that has no involvement in the deal? I know that some deals represent a shift in market (or regulatory) conditions, which is something that the firm could advise their clients on.

Is it preferred or standard practice to use a deal that the firm has worked on or had some sort of involvement in?

And in terms of structure, would the below be appropriate?

1. The business deal (short sentence or two)
2. Why it's captured my interest (back up with evidence of possible, e.g. completed a course on private equity)
3. How it impacts the firm
4. How it impacts the clients

Grateful for any advice and suggestions .

 

[Jake Rickman]

Hi Yusuf,

I would struggle myself to directly link an ongoing or recent deal to a firm that was not directly advising one of the parties or financial advisers. Unless it was a particularly market-changing deal (the Microsoft-Activision one is the only one I can think of off the top of my head right now that might fit the bill).

In a perfect world, you would know what the deals your target firms is advising or has recently advised on. In answering the question on how it impacts the client, I would focus strictly on what the key commercial drivers of the deal were. That is, how does the deal maximise the client's interests. This would require a fairly high level of familiarity with how the deal is structured, what the commercial context of the deal was, etc., but if you understand the deal well, you would really shine as an applicant. To this end, I cannot recommend strongly enough going straight to the primary sources, which are publicly available for any deal involving a public company: go to the company's investor relations website.

As to how it impacts the law firm, this is a pretty hard question to answer because in truth the answer is: "The law firm got paid." You might stretch this answer by pointing to how it further's the relationship between the client and the firm, and continues to shore up the firm's reputation in the market. But it does feel a little derivative.

That's why, if it were me, I would focus on the key commercial drivers of the deal as much as possible.

When it comes to finding what deals the client has recently advised on, this information may be published on the firm's website under the relevant practice group. Ideally, you would speak about a deal that the London team was involved in. See Slaughter and May's role on the Vodafone/3UK merger. You would then study the deal documents yourself as much as possible.

Some firms are less forthcoming about what deals they work on. Though I would be surprised if such firms would expect you to find a deal that they worked on if the information is not publicly available.

 

[Yusuf Panah]

Many thanks, Jake, that's very helpful advice!

 

[Fuelled By Caffeine]

This is something that I have also been thinking about as I draft answers to TC/VS applications. This is the formula that I have generally tried to apply.

I think it is worth splitting this up into two different categories of questions: 1) Why this firm, 2) Commercial awareness questions.

If you are responding to a question that is asking you to justify why you are applying to a given firm, then I think you really need to mention a deal that the firm has worked on. In this scenario, I really try and work out two things. Firstly, why am I interested in the deal (this generally capture the broad commercial dimensions of the deal: e.g. broad commercial trends, interest in a particular market, risks/opportunities that the deal poses etc.). Then I think about what work a solicitor would have undertaken on this deal: what documents would they have drafted? At what points would their advice be most useful to a client? Which bits of the law would this deal have touched on?

If you are answering a general commercial awareness question, then I think you can talk about a general recent deal; however, I would make sure that the deal is large enough to be impactful and still relevant to the law firm you are applying to. In doing this, you illustrate to the firm that you understand what they are about. I would then try and answer the same two questions as above. But then, I would go further and relate your conclusions to the firm and its clients. To take the temple given by Jake, if you explain why the Microsoft-Activision deal interests you and explain the role of the lawyer in this deal, you would then want to illustrate that you know how this deal impacts the tech/gaming/antitrust spaces and how this might alter the way that the firm in question advises their clients.