Hey [USER=34590]@tatianavlt[/USER]
Thank you so much for sharing your experience and I can tell you that I can totally resonate with your experience. I am an international student myself who had an undergraduate degree in politics from a university outside the UK, even though I did my master in the UK (non-law master) last year. As you can imagine it was very nerve-wracking for me applying to law firms as a non-law students and coming from another country as well (I did my undergraduate degree in Italy).
I did not let this stop me and I studied the whole process inside and out and managed to secure multiple vacation scheme offers and I ended up converting the first that I did and now I am a future trainee solicitor which feels very surreal to say.
I think that by just reading your experiences and background, I am pretty sure you are more than capable of securing training contract offers from top law firms. You have the right experiences and your international background will definitely be appealing to many law firms, especially US law firms (that was my experience!).
What I would say is that you might be asked to do the PGDL, the law conversion course, even if you studied law. Unfortunately, because it is not law from the UK, law firms will ask you to do it before completing the SQE, which personally speaking it is better as the PGDL prepares you well for the SQE. This was the experience of many people I know who were in your same situation (with a law degree from another country and maybe an exchange semester/year in the UK (unfortunately those modules will not allow you to escape the PGDL).
I think you are taking the right steps, and the first one I would have recommended would have been using TCLA! This is such a cool platform that will allow you to meet people with similar backgrounds and interests, and it will allow you to have updates and news about the law firms you are applying for!
What I would think about is the fact that you will not be able to do vacation schemes without a student visa so, if this is something you might be interested in, I would suggest applying for an LLM or a master of your choice (potentially to a university which offers scholarships, for instance I went to LSE and I got a 50% scholarship). This will allow you to be in the UK, be able to go to in-person events to law firms, do open days and network as well as learn more about the legal industry in this country. Moreover, it will allow you to apply to vacation schemes in the spring or summer. In this way you will have the visa to be in the country and try to pursue this goal of yours!
Furthermore, I personally would recommend starting to do in-depth research of the law firms you are interested in now and do a selection of firms you might be interested. This will give you the chance of understanding what kind of areas you are mostly interested in and what firms might be for you.
I hope this is helpful and I encourage you to follow this dream you have as you can see from my experience it is totally possible!
Good luck with your journey!
