TCLA Vacation Scheme Applications Discussion Thread 2024-25

[Andrei Radu]

This may be a weird question, but how likely are you to convert your first VS?

As @Ram Sabaratnam and @Jessica Booker have said, there is no objective way to estimate your chances - they are influenced by way too many variables. That said, from my personal experience, I do not think whether this is your first VS or not impacts your odds too much. While my sample size is admittedly limited, across my 4 vacation schemes I have observed that: (i) the majority to people who converted were indeed doing their first scheme; and (ii) there were substantial numbers of people who had done prior vacation schemes and did not convert.

In truth, during some schemes I was positively surprised to see that most offers did not go to the people who looked more "polished" on paper. In one of them, around half of the cohort had either an Oxbridge undergrad/postgrad; prior vacation schemes; and/or had substantial work experience at finance/consulting jobs in the City. Interestingly enough, however, more than half of the TC offers were made to non-Oxbridge penultimate year students. The conclusion I drew from that was that your CV will only carry you so far - it opens the door to the VS, but, beyond that point, conversion is mostly just down to one's performance.

 

[studentdelaw786]

Anyone heard from Faegre Drinker? Or know when we can expect to hear?

The deadline closed yesterday. Maybe give it 2-3 weeks as people heard back around mid-April last year

 

[legallyells]

Any advice on how to make the most of your trainee buddy during a two-week long VS? Are there any specific questions I should be asking, and how much can I rely on them for support with any work I'm struggling with? Thank you!!

 

[Andrei Radu]

@Andrei Radu - You mentioned before the Westlaw and Practical Law practice area guides. Would you please be able to provide a link ?

There are a couple of Westlaw/Practical Law practice area resources I have referred to and that you should consider, I will list them bellow:

1. The UK Quick Guides: this is meant to give a quick snapshot of what the work of the given practice area looks like. However, for some practice areas this will not be sufficiently comprehensive to give you a good understanding - for instance, on a quick look it seems to me that the competition guide might suffice, but the corporate one will very likely not.
2. The UK Practice Area Notes: this will provide you with the most detailed and comprehensive information on all that is relevant for a major practice area in the UK legal market. That said, the disadvantage is that it is not under each practice area heading there will be a lot of different notes - some treating more general subjects that will be useful for you (ie 'Overview of UK takeovers') while some are so specific they may not be too relevant for anything you will be involved in (ie 'Use of material adverse change clauses in acquisitions'). Thus, for these guides you should use the search bar and filters to find the best resources. Perhaps the best way to do it is to go to Practical Law and use the Browse Menu function, then click on UK practice areas, and then select the relevant one. This will give you a significantly more organized list of resources for overviews/specific subparts of each practice area and should be thus easier to navigate (I have a link here to what the UK corporate page looks like to give you some indication).
3. Global/US Practice Area Essentials: the best in-between resources (in terms of ease of navigation and comprehensiveness) are the Practice Area Essentials, but, unfortunately, they are not published with a UK focus but with a US one. That said, at least for PE/private M&A the differences between deals in the two jurisdictions are not seen as huge; and as such I think these can still be useful resources.

 

[thelawstudent]

are there any firms that run insight schemes for second year non-law students that have applications still open?

 

[Smart water 0403]

There are a couple of Westlaw/Practical Law practice area resources I have referred to and that you should consider, I will list them bellow:

1. The UK Quick Guides: this is meant to give a quick snapshot of what the work of the given practice area looks like. However, for some practice areas this will not be sufficiently comprehensive to give you a good understanding - for instance, on a quick look it seems to me that the competition guide might suffice, but the corporate one will very likely not.
2. The UK Practice Area Notes: this will provide you with the most detailed and comprehensive information on all that is relevant for a major practice area in the UK legal market. That said, the disadvantage is that it is not under each practice area heading there will be a lot of different notes - some treating more general subjects that will be useful for you (ie 'Overview of UK takeovers') while some are so specific they may not be too relevant for anything you will be involved in (ie 'Use of material adverse change clauses in acquisitions'). Thus, for these guides you should use the search bar and filters to find the best resources. Perhaps the best way to do it is to go to Practical Law and use the Browse Menu function, then click on UK practice areas, and then select the relevant one. This will give you a significantly more organized list of resources for overviews/specific subparts of each practice area and should be thus easier to navigate (I have a link here to what the UK corporate page looks like to give you some indication).
3. Global/US Practice Area Essentials: the best in-between resources (in terms of ease of navigation and comprehensiveness) are the Practice Area Essentials, but, unfortunately, they are not published with a UK focus but with a US one. That said, at least for PE/private M&A the differences between deals in the two jurisdictions are not seen as huge; and as such I think these can still be useful resources.

Thank you!

 

[futuretrainee2025]

@Andrei Radu

Hello, I hope you are well!

I am a non-Law student. On a VS, where do we start with legal research? If we are tasked with a specific query, do we check LexisNexis for the current law? Kinda unsure how to find relevant statute or case law etc.

 

[Andrei Radu]

Any advice on how to make the most of your trainee buddy during a two-week long VS? Are there any specific questions I should be asking, and how much can I rely on them for support with any work I'm struggling with? Thank you!!

The level to which a trainee buddy can and will help you will depend on a number of variables. Quite a few of them are out of your control, such as:

• VS policies: in some firms HR will make it a point to emphasize that trainee buddies are meant to be proactive and do all they can to help you out; while in others while this will still be the "role" the trainee has to play, they will have a lot more leeway as to how they go about it.
• Firm culture: in some firms, the general culture is one where people see it as very natural to be proactive in engaging with and helping colleagues; while in others the culture may be more reserved, individualistic, or internally competitive.
• The trainee's workload: the level to which the trainee can afford to engage with you will greatly depend on their own workload. If they are at absolute capacity (say, they're in the last few days before signing of a major PE deal they have been staffed on) this will unfortunately influence their ability to help you out a lot. Most firms will generally do their best not to staff trainee buddies on important matters with impending deadlines during a VS, but it does unfortunately happen sometimes. However, if you are lucky and your trainee buddy is currently enjoying a quieter period, they may actually not have that much to do and be more willing than most to go above and beyond for you.
• Assessment type: the level to which your relationship with your trainee buddy will influence your chances will depend a lot on what conversion comes down to in any given firm. If the firm really emphasizes social integration and thus places a lot on weigh on feedback from your department, it will matter a lot. However, if it mostly comes down to formal assessments, there will not be that much that they can do.

However, there are also factors within your control influencing your relationship with the trainee buddy and thus indirectly influences your conversion chances:

• The trainee's feedback: to get good feedback from a trainee buddy you want to have a good relationship with them. To set up the right dynamic, you should show yourself as enthusiastic and proactive but also be very flexible and responsive to the cues you get from them. If you see they are very busy, or seem to not enjoy talking much about work, or want to take a more 'self-aware' view of the job (ie not always signing praises to commercial law or the firm), you should be willing to change your attitude to fit that. In terms of what questions to ask them initially, I advise a mix of questions about their journey and personal life, their work and experience in the firm, and advice for you. You should then let the flow of the conversation and of your relationship naturally develop.
• Help with social integration: this is perhaps the core area where your trainee buddy can be of most help to you. You should ask your trainee who he advises you to meet, how to approach them, what topics to focus on, and sometimes even for an introduction.
• Shaping your VS strategy: if the firm is not completely transparent with how much they weigh the different assessment criteria during the scheme, you may be able to obtain a bit more insight from the trainee buddy - perhaps they have noticed patterns as to what types of candidates end up converting etc. They should thus be able to give you valuable advice as to what you should be investing most of your time doing.
• Help with finding/completing work: while your first point of contact work-wise should generally be your supervisor, if they are away, very busy, or just not very helpful, you can definitely approach your trainee buddy to see if they can help you find some work to get involved in or complete some current task you are struggling with.

 

[jfb]

Guys does anyone know when I might get a response back from SH I know some people have been rejected already and people have been given offers for VC but I haven't heard back at all from them 😭

Im waiting too, not sure when they'll get back to us as they gave no timeline.

 

[Andrei Radu]

@Andrei Radu

Hello, I hope you are well!

I am a non-Law student. On a VS, where do we start with legal research? If we are tasked with a specific query, do we check LexisNexis for the current law? Kinda unsure how to find relevant statute or case law etc.

Hi @futuretrainee2025 whenever you are allocated a research task, I think the best thig to do is to actually ask this question to the person assigning the work to you. More senior lawyers sometimes forget the many things that you do not know so will not mention what to them seems obvious. However, in many cases some input from them as to what resources to start with might cut away a lot of research time. For instance, they might know that LexisNexis does not have many resources in that area and that you should only be spending your time on Westlaw.

However, in absence of any precise instructions, these are the steps I would normally take when researching a legal point:

1. General Google search with some key word variations: While this may be surprising, quite a number of senior practitioners start their research in the same manner. In most cases, the benefit will be that you will find some resources giving you some general understanding of the point you are interested in; but in some lucky cases you may find the exact information you are looking for very quickly and save a lot of time.
2. Browse through the relevant statues/regulations and explanatory notes on legislation.gov.uk or other governmental agencies websites (ie PRA, FCA, etc)
3. Westlaw and/or LexisNexis case law or academic article search: in most cases they will be equally good, so if you do not get any input as to which you should prefer for the specific issue, simply go with the one that is easier for you to use.

 

[Jessica Booker]

@Andrei Radu

Hello, I hope you are well!

I am a non-Law student. On a VS, where do we start with legal research? If we are tasked with a specific query, do we check LexisNexis for the current law? Kinda unsure how to find relevant statute or case law etc.

It is perfectly acceptable to ask for guidance on this, both from the person allocating you the task or your supervisor/trainee buddy.

In addition, many law firms have knowledge management lawyers or professional support lawyers who help with these type of matters and would be good people to ask about the internal resources available.

 

[A worried graduate]

Anyone heard from Browne Jacobson?

 

[londonlawyer]

Is the recording from today's Zoom session on succeeding at a Vacation Scheme available? @Jessica Booker

 

[marisachr]

Any tips on how to approach a cover letter for Accutrainee? A bit stuck as it is very different from a traditional law firm

 

[1768972]

Anyone heard from Browne Jacobson?

Has anyone heard from the Nottingham office?

 

[Jessica Booker]

Is the recording from today's Zoom session on succeeding at a Vacation Scheme available? @Jessica Booker

The recording is only available to our Gold subscribers currently as the session was part of our Accelerator programme.

 

[User5678]

Anyone heard from Browne Jacobson?

They said that they’re gonna get back with AC invites wc 7 April post TI (vac scheme, london office).

 

[A worried graduate]

They said that they’re gonna get back with AC invites wc 7 April post TI (vac scheme, london office).

Haven't even had a TI so does that mean it's over?

 

[A worried graduate]

Brabners PFO

 

[User5678]

Haven't even had a TI so does that mean it's over?

I wouldn’t assume so, maybe some of us were the first in the lot of have a ti and gonna be first in the lot to hear about ac and then tis and ac invites continue. Ac is on 23rd and 30th April so I would wait till 15 April at least