TCLA Vacation Scheme Applications Discussion Thread 2024-25

[OliverTwist]

anyone know how to remove autism during interviews 🙏

Maybe a prescribed benzodiazepine, I'm obviously not medically trained, neither do I have autism, just a thought!

 

[Andrei Radu]

I hope everyone is well!

1) I have an assessment centre and need to prepare a case study presentation. How can I best prepare?
2) I also have a mark-up exercise. Again, how can I prepare?
3) How do I research and structure a question on what case interests you? How can I best prepare when there is limited info on their website for each case eg they just outline the outcome and what teams worked on it.

@Andrei Radu @Ram Sabaratnam

Hi @futuretrainee2025 to take your questions in turn:

1. There are two elements that I think go into preparation for any AC exercise, including case studies: (i) developing and improving the relevant assessed skills; and (ii) practicing. Of course, the two overlap, in that practicing will also develop your skillset - but the first category is wider than that, and specifically your general commercial awareness will come into play here. As such, I would do my best to work on that before the AC. For the practice part, I think you want to design mock assessments for yourself that are as similar as possible to the known details of the exercise. Based on the information shared here, have (ideally) someone you know with interviewing experience, but if not even just a friend, select an FT/Economist/etc article or set of articles for you to read for a 20-30 minute period. The articles should be around a common topic, and ideally one you can make an argument on (so, something that can be discussed and debated). Then, you can split the presentation between a period in which you simply summarize facts, a period in which you advance arguments for your view, and one in which you are asked questions by the person interviewing you.
2. Markup exercises will mostly engage your attention to detail skills, as they will involve reviewing everything on a legal document. @Jessica Booker made a great post on what to particularly look out for, I will quote it bellow. Besides that, I will link some online resources providing you with proofreading exercises to practice on - take a look here and here.
3. Researching cases can be quite difficult - as you mentioned, sometimes there is not a lot of information online. That said, I think it is normally the case that law firms do not publish a lot of information about their matters on their websites. However, in many cases, particularly for high-value transactions and cases, such information is readily available on the wider web - as both the legal and the broader business press will be reporting on them. As such, I advise you to take a look at the firm's listed expertise and identify the cases that seem most important (whether simply for reasons of the sums involved or because of political/regulator implications etc). Then, take the name of the case and look it up (using different variations of keywords) on Google and LinkedIn (you will find some posts there with information that is harder to find on your own). You should be able to find enough information about it to construct a basic image of what happened and why, which should be sufficient for interviewing purposes. Alternatively, you can try looking up searches involving the name of your firm and keywords like 'case' or 'matter' and see what you find on the web. This could short cut your way into identifying the cases the firm worked on that are in the press. Finally, if you have the time and/or if none of this works (which I think it is quite unlikely), you can always reach out to trainees/junior associates at the firm and ask, among other things, about a case they worked on that they found very interesting.

A mark-up exercise will literally be you needing to scrutinise every little detail of a document. You'll need to look out for anything out of the following:

• Typos
• Mispelling
• Inconsistencies in spelling (e.g. names like Thompson/Thomson)
• Grammatical errors
• Transposed numbers
• Incorrect dates
• Incorrect headings/titles/subject lines
• Incorrect identification of parties/people (e.g. referencing the client as the other party in a deal or vice versa)
• Language - where sentences or bullet points are ambiguous, unclear, or over-written
• Structure - where things could be reordered to make a more logical/clearer layout (might be particularly relevant in this instance if there is a timeline aspect)

I haven't seen a "timeline" exercise before, but I would expect this to be based on what needs to happen first and then deciding the order of actions to ensure success. This will just need some common sense to work out what will have to happen before a particular outcome, or where matters/parts of the puzzle are dependent on others.

 

[Ram Sabaratnam]

Since we're on the topic of coffee chats and reaching out, would it be advisable to connect with incoming or current trainees at a firm on LinkedIn before a vacation scheme? If so, is there a recommended approach or template for doing so? Apologies if this is a basic question – just want to make sure I’m going about it the right way! 😊

@Jessica Booker @Ram Sabaratnam

Have to completely agree with @Jessica Booker on this. I'm not sure that connecting on LinkedIn before my vacation scheme probably provided much of an advantage for me. I've generally found it better to meet and build genuine rapport with trainees first, for example through coffee chats or during the actual vacation scheme. After you've interacted in person (or virtually), it’s much easier (and more meaningful) to connect online. That way, when you do connect with trainees, you can personalise your message based on an interaction you've already had, making the request to connect feel genuine and thoughtful.

Additionally, waiting to connect helps you understand the trainees' preferred styles of communication and their capacity to engage, ensuring any conversations you have later on LinkedIn feel natural and comfortable for both parties. Good luck with the vacation scheme! 😊

 

[futuretrainee2025]

Hi @futuretrainee2025 to take your questions in turn:

1. There are two elements that I think go into preparation for any AC exercise, including case studies: (i) developing and improving the relevant assessed skills; and (ii) practicing. Of course, the two overlap, in that practicing will also develop your skillset - but the first category is wider than that, and specifically your general commercial awareness will come into play here. As such, I would do my best to work on that before the AC. For the practice part, I think you want to design mock assessments for yourself that are as similar as possible to the known details of the exercise. Based on the information shared here, have (ideally) someone you know with interviewing experience, but if not even just a friend, select an FT/Economist/etc article or set of articles for you to read for a 20-30 minute period. The articles should be around a common topic, and ideally one you can make an argument on (so, something that can be discussed and debated). Then, you can split the presentation between a period in which you simply summarize facts, a period in which you advance arguments for your view, and one in which you are asked questions by the person interviewing you.
2. Markup exercises will mostly engage your attention to detail skills, as they will involve reviewing everything on a legal document. @Jessica Booker made a great post on what to particularly look out for, I will quote it bellow. Besides that, I will link some online resources providing you with proofreading exercises to practice on - take a look here and here.
3. Researching cases can be quite difficult - as you mentioned, sometimes there is not a lot of information online. That said, I think it is normally the case that law firms do not publish a lot of information about their matters on their websites. However, in many cases, particularly for high-value transactions and cases, such information is readily available on the wider web - as both the legal and the broader business press will be reporting on them. As such, I advise you to take a look at the firm's listed expertise and identify the cases that seem most important (whether simply for reasons of the sums involved or because of political/regulator implications etc). Then, take the name of the case and look it up (using different variations of keywords) on Google and LinkedIn (you will find some posts there with information that is harder to find on your own). You should be able to find enough information about it to construct a basic image of what happened and why, which should be sufficient for interviewing purposes. Alternatively, you can try looking up searches involving the name of your firm and keywords like 'case' or 'matter' and see what you find on the web. This could short cut your way into identifying the cases the firm worked on that are in the press. Finally, if you have the time and/or if none of this works (which I think it is quite unlikely), you can always reach out to trainees/junior associates at the firm and ask, among other things, about a case they worked on that they found very interesting.

Fantastic advice, thank you so so much!

I've also heard people refer to your interview guides/ posts. If you could direct me towards these, that would be amazing. I'd appreciate it so much!

 

[Andrei Radu]

Since we're on the topic of coffee chats and reaching out, would it be advisable to connect with incoming or current trainees at a firm on LinkedIn before a vacation scheme? If so, is there a recommended approach or template for doing so? Apologies if this is a basic question – just want to make sure I’m going about it the right way! 😊

@Jessica Booker @Ram Sabaratnam

Just before @Ram Sabaratnam can also come back to you, I agree with Jessica in that there is no need to do so before the scheme starts. For most of my schemes, I did not either, and it was never an issue. However, if you do want to reach out to some people so that there are some friendly faces there on day 1, I also do not think there would be any downside as long as you ensure you are polite and genuine about your intentions.

There's no default recommended template, but I believe you should go for something which cuts the unnecessary formalism and goes to the point. As @Jessica Booker said, you want to show interest in connecting with them as people, so I don't think there's any benefit from writing in a very 'robotic' manner - I know that at least in my case, I get slightly annoyed when approached on LinkedIn with very long and buzz-wordy messages. So I would go for something like:

• Hi ... (name of relevant trainee/junior associate) my name is ... and I will be joining ... (name of firm) for a Vacation Scheme on ... (dates). I just wanted to introduce myself and see if I could ask you a few questions about how to best prepare/tips for converting/the work that you to and how to better understand the firm.

Ideally, this should be enough to get a conversation started. If it goes particularly well, you can then consider asking for a short phone call to develop your connection further.

 

[James Wakefield]

Can you/should you add your interviewers at law firms on Linkedin? I feel because you have actually met them and had a chat, its fair enough. Any thoughts?

 

[Andrei Radu]

Fantastic advice, thank you so so much!

I've also heard people refer to your interview guides/ posts. If you could direct me towards these, that would be amazing. I'd appreciate it so much!

I'm glad I could help - see here my Complete Competency Interview Guide here. I have also quoted bellow a post in which I discussed in depth the approach that enabled me to manage my nerves and give my best on the day, but let me know if there is anything else you have more specific questions about.

My top tip would be to focus on doing well and not on being perfect. Many people go to ACs thinking they need to blow away the partners and the recruiters to succeed, but I think this is the wrong attitude to have. First of all, while your achievements and skills might be impressive for this stage, it is quite unlikely you will manage to overly impress anyone no matter how hard you try - you will know a lot less about any given commercial law subject than lawyer in the firm. Secondly, this attitude will make you feel even more stressed than you would normally be and will therefore likely impact your performance. If you will be assessed for a total time of a few hours, it is impossible to be perfect in every moment. When you notice an imperfection in an answer, the right reaction is to acknowledge it but then to move past it and make the best of the rest. Instead, the overly perfectionistic candidates tend to stress about it a lot more than they should, and in attempting to fix the initial mistake they do a lot more harm to their progression chances. People with this mindset thus often end up creating negative feedback loops for themselves: they make a small error, then they begin overthinking it, which decreases their self-confidence, which impacts their next answer, which in turn further intensifies their anxiety; a series of events which can end up completely derailing one's performance.

To avoid this, instead of aiming to excel everywhere, I would simply aim to perform well - to do a good job on every task and score well on every relevant assessment criterion. This boils down to using your preparation to make decent substantive points and communicate them in a clear and confident manner. If you manage to do this you will have performed better than the majority of candidates and in most cases should be enough to get you progressed - it did for me 4/4 times. If you reframe your task in this way, I think you should feel a lot less anxious about it: while perhaps it is difficult to convince yourself that you will pull of an extraordinary performance, you should feel a lot more confident in being able to respond sensibly to tasks and to cover all your bases well.

A final piece of advice I have for calming down on the day and to avoid blanking out is to take your time:

1. Firstly, taking your time before starting your answer. Instead of just jumping into a response the instance the interviewer stops speaking (which is a very natural temptation) take 3-4 seconds to think about and structure your answer. This will significantly decrease the number of times you find yourself blanking out mid-answer or having difficulty finding the right way to end a sentence.
2. Secondly, if you have difficulty with finding sensible points for a question, it is perfectly acceptable to request some thinking time - just say 'May I please take a minute to consider my answer?'. In the unlikely case you do not find anything after that, explain that you are unsure what to say; but also walk the interviewer through your thought process of your best guess.
3. Thirdly, aim to speak more slowly. When you are anxious, your hear rate goes up and you naturally start speaking at a higher pace, which is problematic in that this simply means taking less time to think as you answer. This naturally reduces how articulate and confident you seem, especially since speaking quickly more often leads you to losing your chain of thought or expressing yourself in unclear language. As such, try to slow down. Also, use strategic 2-3 second pauses in your speech to add emphasis to points and to get valuable thinking time as you are moving between the different parts of your answer.

Finally, know that just by getting to the AC you have proven yourself to be one of the very best candidates out of a huge pool, which means you have all it takes to succeed! Best of luck !

 

[👩🎓]

Can you/should you add your interviewers at law firms on Linkedin? I feel because you have actually met them and had a chat, its fair enough. Any thoughts?

I did during my vacation scheme and there was no issues with this.

 

[ad.]

Can you/should you add your interviewers at law firms on Linkedin? I feel because you have actually met them and had a chat, its fair enough. Any thoughts?

I don't know if my approach is a good approach but I personally request to connect (with a personalised note) once I have received and accepted an offer with the firm, I then share the good news with my interviewers. To me it feels more natural that way if that makes sense hahah but I genuinely don't think there is anything wrong with adding them in general

 

[Chris Brown]

I'd be curious to know what @Jessica Booker might say here, but I don't think this is a dumb question at all (and stop calling your questions dumb @Chris Brown - they're very good!!!!).

I've generally avoided adopting a rigid structure for emails inviting people to coffee chats. I think a clear and polite message should do the trick. You could say something like:

• "Hi [Name],
  
  I hope you are well.
  
  My name is [Name] and I'm currently on the [spring/summer] vacation scheme with the firm. I'm keen to learn more about your experiences in [practice area/team]. I'd be grateful if you had some time this week or next for a brief meeting or coffee? If there is a specific day and time that is convenient for you, I'd be happy to send across a diary or calendar invitation. Many thanks and I look forward to hearing from you soon.
  
  Best regards,
  [Your Name]".

If you're reaching out to a partner, you might prefer to adopt a slightly more formal tone, but I've generally found that partners are also approachable (so minor variations won't cause any issues). The main thing is to be polite, clear, and concise. If you're unsure whether scheduling coffee chats with a particular partner/associate might be difficult, I'd always recommend checking in with your trainee buddy or someone from graduate recruitment to get a sense of the person’s availability.

As for cancelling or rescheduling a coffee chat because something urgent or unexpected comes up, I'd simply be honest and prompt in letting the person know. A brief apology and request to reschedule is absolutely fine. Try not to overthink or worry too much if you have to do this.

Hope that's helpful and good luck with the upcoming schemes!

I completely understand the nerves but I don’t think you need to worry about this specific aspect too much. In a professional environment, I think starting off formal is always best. You never know who your recipient is, i.e how formal or not they like people to be. Some are quite formal, others not really.

With regards scheduling, you should first send an email saying something in the lines of… you saw their profile, they work in X area, you found this interesting for X Y Z reasons, and would really appreciate if they have some time for a coffee chat, if they’re available. People are usually happy to give up their time. You will then liaise with them directly, or their secretary, for a suitable time. In the case of a time being suggested which clashes with your own schedule, it’s totally normal to bring this up and say it’s because of a social, VS session, etc. Rescheduling is something which happens quite often in the corporate world and life in general, and so far as you’re polite and respectful of their own time with how you come across, I do not presume there’ll be an issue.

Agree with @Ram Sabaratnam here and his template is great - it is short and to the point - I think this is also formal enough to work with partners too.

If you know there are specific days you can meet, adding this type of detail might be helpful too. E.g.

I'd be grateful if you had some time on either Thursday, Friday or next Monday for a brief meeting or coffee?

The other thing to mention, is you might be able to see colleagues calendars - at least when they are busy. So you can also check if you can, and then you can say something like.

I can see from your calendar that you may be available on Thursday afternoon. If so, I'd be grateful if you had some time for a brief meeting or coffee?

I'd also stress sometimes just asking these questions to people in person if you are working around them or get to meet them through meetings/talks is also better than sending an email. Make the request in person first and then follow up with email about your availability/to find an appropriate time if they say yes.

Thank you all for your responses! This makes me a lot less anxious about navigating coffee chats now. First time VS’ here so I’m overthinking the tiniest of things! 😅​

 

[chlawstudent]

Cripps PFO post AC - tough week :/

 

[Maddy]

Can graduates apply for Denton's middle east training contract?

 

[nostalgicstar]

Hi, when firms mention to state personal contact or anyone you know at the firm, is this to let them know lawyers you have interacted with for example through networking events, coffee chats etc or its so they are not engaged in the review. I read a response here from Jessica some time back but not sure

 

[Naskimovski]

Hi everyone! Has anyone heard back from Paul Weiss after completing their online tests?

 

[jfb]

anyone know if anyone has heard for SH summer yet?

 

[LawFailure]

Has anyone who did an AC either this week or last heard back from Hogan Lovells? Looks like in the past they gave offers out a day or so after the AC, so would be interesting to know if that is still the case.

 

[fidrrygalka]

Hi everyone! Has anyone heard back from Paul Weiss after completing their online tests?

Hi! There are some people even with offers already (congrats to them!) but i’m in the same boat as you, rough stuff 😂😥

 

[Naskimovski]

Hi! There are some people even with offers already (congrats to them!) but i’m in the same boat as you, rough stuff 😂😥

That’s so odd.. but at least we’re in this together haha 😅 do you know if they’re still getting back to people?

 

[Legalstudies]

anyone know if anyone has heard for SH summer yet?

Nah i havent i was wondering though if anyone knew if they carried people who didnt make the cut from the spring Scheme for SH to the summer ones

 

[Naskimovski]

Has anyone who did an AC either this week or last heard back from Hogan Lovells? Looks like in the past they gave offers out a day or so after the AC, so would be interesting to know if that is still the case.

Hey! Is this for their TC or Vac Scheme? I’m guessing Vac Scheme but I applied for the TC and haven’t heard anything since the WG, so I was curious to know what the timeline looks like