TCLA Vacation Scheme Applications Discussion Thread 2021-22 (#1)

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AP2000

Distinguished Member
  • Feb 22, 2021
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    Hello, I am preparing for assessment centres and I was wondering if someone would be interested in doing a peer to peer case study exercise with me? I was thinking someone could play the interviewer and the other one the candidate and we would prepare a case study and then switch roles. I think it would be a great simulation exercise and we could learn from each other. If anyone is interested please feel free to send me a message! :)
    Sounds like a great idea!
     
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    LegalNim

    Legendary Member
    Nov 14, 2019
    303
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    Hi everyone,
    I hope these questions are ok. I've secured four vacation schemes for this cycle: two for spring and two for summer.
    1. When should I hear back regarding a TC from the Spring firms? Will they make a decision straight after the scheme or will I need to wait until they've had their summer schemes in order for them to decide who they want to offer places to?
    2. If I hear back straight away, what happens to my summer schemes if I'm successful in securing a TC from a spring scheme? Is it standard to pull out or to complete them anyway? Would firms allow me to complete all four schemes and see what offers I get (if any) before I have to make a decision.
    3. If I get an offer from a spring scheme and they want an answer before my summer scheme, but I prefer one of my summer firms, is there anything I can do? Would the summer firms be receptive to asking them to consider making me a TC offer before the scheme or is that just insanity?
    Thanks so much.
     

    YUKI1201

    Valued Member
  • Mar 3, 2021
    124
    519
    Hi all - might be a stupid question, but how detailed should your answers to "why law" and "why firm" be? Although my previous AC was successful, my answers to these two questions were seen as too vague in a mock interview with RARE so I'm really not confident (e.g., I gave an example of interning at a law firm doing legal research, found it interesting to analyse the economic, legal and political aspects of the particular industry and help clients who needed those information, but the mock interviewer said I needed to answer what is it about the actual work that interests me - I didn't get what this meant). Would appreciate if people could share how they articulate their answers!!
     
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    Jessica Booker

    Legendary Member
    TCLA Moderator
    Gold Member
    Graduate Recruitment
    Premium Member
    Forum Team
    Aug 1, 2019
    14,516
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    Hi everyone,
    I hope these questions are ok. I've secured four vacation schemes for this cycle: two for spring and two for summer.
    1. When should I hear back regarding a TC from the Spring firms? Will they make a decision straight after the scheme or will I need to wait until they've had their summer schemes in order for them to decide who they want to offer places to?
    2. If I hear back straight away, what happens to my summer schemes if I'm successful in securing a TC from a spring scheme? Is it standard to pull out or to complete them anyway? Would firms allow me to complete all four schemes and see what offers I get (if any) before I have to make a decision.
    3. If I get an offer from a spring scheme and they want an answer before my summer scheme, but I prefer one of my summer firms, is there anything I can do? Would the summer firms be receptive to asking them to consider making me a TC offer before the scheme or is that just insanity?
    Thanks so much.
    1) could be anything from fairly immediately or until the end of the summer recruitment window. It should be one question to ask each firm.

    2) Some firms will give you four weeks to accept the offer, some may give you to mid September (in line with the code of best recruitment practice). It is completely up to you whether you want to renege your summer vacation schemes but it is something you can do if your preferred firm is one of the spring VS firms. You don’t have to renege and in most cases will be able to continue to complete the remaining schemes. A few firms have a clause in their VS contracts stating you cannot have accepted a TC elsewhere, but this is rare. As your employment with the TC firm does not start until the first day of your TC, there should not be any restrictions from your TC provider to complete VS elsewhere.

    3) several options: 1) accept and then renege ; 2) decline the offer from the outset and take the risk you don’t secure another offer; 3) ask the firm whether the deadline of your TC offer can be extended until you complete your summer VS
     

    Rob93

    Legendary Member
    Dec 29, 2020
    627
    1,677
    I have a question on acquisition finance, if anyone can help. Apart from debt and equity, what are the other forms of financing a M&A?
    It's basically just debt and equity, but those can work in a few ways.

    Most straightforward is cash, which you use to buy out the equity and might raise by borrowing and attaching debt at various points in the capital structure. Generally speaking the acquirer will think of their own cash as the 'equity' component of the deal and the rest as debt, but some of the cash raised by way of debt could and often will go towards purchasing the equity held by the seller. Hope that makes sense.

    Equity and debt instruments can also be used as acquisition consideration in their own right. If you're a public company making an acquisition, you may provide your own shares to the sellers as part of the deal - this reduces your cash consideration and can be very attractive if your shares are trading well and you think that the company you're buying will be a substantial boon to your balance sheet, as dilution concerns won't be huge - ideally existing shareholders end up with more total value even if their holding is diluted.

    You can also use debt instruments like some kinds of bonds or commercial paper. Essentially, in the process of buying out existing shareholders you agree that the company you are buying will owe them a bunch of money at fairly high interest. These are basically in lieu of cash and let you gear up to a level that banks or bond underwriters might not be willing to facilitate - though restrictive covenants in loans (common) or bonds (currently less common) may limit your ability to do this. This kind of paper leverage used to be very popular in PE LBOs, I don't think it's as common these days but maybe people just talk about it less cause it's kind of dodgy.

    I guess if you're a public Corp you could also issue your own bonds to sellers to pay for an acquisition but I would imagine that's not attractive from a capital perspective unless you're a megacap corp taking over another megacap corp. There may be tax reasons to do this in some cases, but I'm not sure.
     
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    ar2r

    Star Member
    Nov 8, 2020
    46
    88
    does anyone have tips for Slaughter and May VS interview?
    practice reading articles from the guardian/ ft etc and summarise them. Pick out which bits you found interesting or disagreed with and think about potential questions an interviewer could ask about the article. I would recommend then talking about the article with someone if you can! Be clear about your opinion of the article and stick to it, my feedback was that I didn't have a strong enough opinion when questioned. Hope this helps :)
     

    Lilz

    Esteemed Member
    Dec 16, 2020
    97
    96
    if my vi expires at 0.00 on the 7th jan is that efficiently 23:59 tonight? :)
    If it says midnight 7th jan, I would take that as tomorrow’s midnight, even though technically speaking it would be today. Just from the past when it has been worded like that, it has usually been the following day. However, don’t take my word for it! Good luck ☺️
     
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