TCLA Vacation Scheme Applications Discussion Thread 2024-25

[sunshine101]

What does PFO mean please 🥹

It means a rejection

 

[C_AJH]

Haven't even heard back from the WG...

passed 6 weeks ago and I've heard nothing

 

[futuretrainee101ac]

Does BCLP send a feedback report after you finish taking the test? If so, how long does it take to recieve?

I received mine within 2 days

 

[James Wakefield]

Today marks 3 months since I applied to BCLP for their Spring Vac (first app of the cycle). Haven’t heard back after test. Please send me my PFO already. 😅

 

[SoonToBeTrainee]

Eversheds vi for London

 

[T_03]

To be honest I’m happy with my answers but I did take full advantage of the unlimited (but not untimed) prep time, and worried I took way too long on each question.

Sigh i actually regret not taking more time then

 

[suhana]

congrats! when did you apply if you don't mind me asking?

Eversheds vi for London

 

[SoonToBeTrainee]

congrats! when did you apply if you don't mind me asking?

Thanks! on the deadline!

 

[aether]

Has anyone heard back from DLA post VI? Passed 3 weeks ago for London, but haven't heard back since.

They said they'd get back before the new year... I am in the same position.

 

[Mug Fan]

Q1. Imagine that you are a member of the Osborne Clarke internal employee forum. You have been asked to provide feedback on a confidential proposal which would result in significant investment into one of two areas:
Option 1 - A team hire into one of Osborne Clarke's smaller international offices which would allow that location to offer new legal expertise in their jurisdiction; or
Option 2 - A team hire into OC Solutions which would expand the teams' ability to innovate client service delivery.
The investment into both of these options would be equal, and it is not possible to split the investment between the two options. Which one would you choose? Please use the following space to outline your rationale. Within your submission you should outline the key factors that you have considered in making your decision, the reasons why you have chosen this option, and any potential impacts to the firm. If it helps you to make your points clearly, please feel free to use bullet points within this answer only. Max 500 words

Somebody PLEASE help with this OC question, I do not even know where to begin or how to structure!!! @Amma Usman @Andrei Radu @Ram Sabaratnam

Honestly, I decided not to even bother with OC precisely because of this question 😂. It’s OC for goodness sake - MC was more straightforward!

 

[sapphireoreos]

Caught COVID at the end of last month (must've been while attending a firm's open day ironically) and I'm just getting back to not being bedridden now, that's about 2-3 weeks behind on Forage VIs and applications 😭 going to have to put in a herculean effort to make up for it towards the end of the year. Also wondering whether I should even apply to that firm at this point because at their open day they said to apply end of Nov/early Dec to have a chance of the application being successful (deadline January but rolling)

For what it's worth, I applied to Mishcon last year on deadline day and they're rolling 💀 but i still got a VI invite so do with that what you will

 

[Babablacksheep]

Can anyone tell me the list of non rolling firms with open deadlines?

 

[User5678]

Thanks for this insight. Did you happen to mention cons of Option 1 in your answer or strictly stick to justifying Option 2?

No worries! Yes I did mention the cons very briefly while I was explaining the pros of why option 2 and what made me pick option 2. Don’t spend too much word count on it and focus on the option you have picked
Hope this helps!

Edit: I also used bullet points and headings to structure my answer because this question was weird and felt like a writing exercise😂

 

[Babablacksheep]

Can anyone tell me a list of non rolling apps that are still open?

 

[helloj]

They said they'd get back before the new year... I am in the same position.

Hi when did they say this? Do you mean for AC? Thanks

 

[Andrei Radu]

Q1. Imagine that you are a member of the Osborne Clarke internal employee forum. You have been asked to provide feedback on a confidential proposal which would result in significant investment into one of two areas:
Option 1 - A team hire into one of Osborne Clarke's smaller international offices which would allow that location to offer new legal expertise in their jurisdiction; or
Option 2 - A team hire into OC Solutions which would expand the teams' ability to innovate client service delivery.
The investment into both of these options would be equal, and it is not possible to split the investment between the two options. Which one would you choose? Please use the following space to outline your rationale. Within your submission you should outline the key factors that you have considered in making your decision, the reasons why you have chosen this option, and any potential impacts to the firm. If it helps you to make your points clearly, please feel free to use bullet points within this answer only. Max 500 words

Somebody PLEASE help with this OC question, I do not even know where to begin or how to structure!!! @Amma Usman @Andrei Radu @Ram Sabaratnam

So I think it is possible to write a good answer if you choose either option - what is key is to show off (i) your general capacity for commercial analysis as applied to the business of law firms; and (ii) your research and knowledge of OC's unique business. I will list bellow some of the considerations I think you could discuss in favour of each option.

Option 1 - investment in international expansion

Pros:

• Legal expertise in multiple important jurisdictions is increasingly a key demand of clients working on cross-border mandates (which is why independent firms like Slaughter and May are reported to have encountered issues in operating their Best Friends models, and why the more conservative US white shoe firms are boosting investments in their London offices) so investing in this expansion is sound business strategy, allowing the firm to keep current clients and potentially win new ones.
• By hiring people with expertise and established client books in another jurisdiction, a high number of those clients could come over to OC. This is good in and of itself, but if those clients operate internationally, as they often do, this will present opportunities for cross selling their other offices. Ultimately, it is an opportunity to win market share in the global big law industry.
• Conversely, by not expanding, when doing cross border work for existing clients OC will have to at times delegate parts of the work to other law firms, which creates a risk of clients being poached later on by those firms.
• As the success of the likes of Latham and Kirkland shows, or for a better comparison at the mid market level of the likes of DLA Piper and Baker McKenzie, scale is increasingly important. It creates opportunities for reducing costs (see analysis of general economies of scale as applied to services industries) and increases revenues, which gives firms more financial leeway and ability to invest. In a fast-moving legal marketplace that is an essential requirement for allowing firms to innovate and respond to challenges. For example, look at how aggressively Kirkland was able to respond to the Paul, Weiss raid. Such an event would have been catastrophic to a smaller sized rival, but for Kirkland it was a mere scratch - as they went on to replace the lost expertise with some equally high profile hires.
• Finally, more larger international offices can be a form of diversification and hedging against risks affecting particular markets the firm is currently very reliant on.

Cons:

• While on the one side there has been an increase in client pressure for cross border expertise, that has been mainly focused on a small number of key locations in the US and Western Europe. Besides that, if anything, in the last two years we have seen a bit of a retreat from international investment, with a number of firm closing offices in other jurisdictions.
• Offices in other jurisdictions (and really, beyond the US and London) can be highly dilutive of profit pools, as clients in other places are simply unwilling to pay as much in legal fees. This is arguably one reason why Slaughter and May has consistently been able to keep way ahead of its MC competitors in terms of average PEP.
• Increased international presence can come with increased administrative difficulties and associates internal management costs.

Some advice:

• If you choose Option 1, to impress I would make sure to (i) name one or two existing offices that you think would benefit most from investment; (ii) make sure to explain why that is, focusing on mandates that the firm could work on there to service existing clients; (iii) try to analyse the state of the competition in this other market, seeing whether there is any way OC could gain an advantage to its competitors by expanding there.

Option 2 - investment in client service delivery

Pros:

• Investment in OC Solutions would benefit the firm globally, as the improved tech could be implemented everywhere. As such, even if the added benefit in any particular office would not be as significant as if the firm invested in hiring practitioners to expand, the aggregate benefit for the entire firm could be greater.
• Investment in OC Solutions has the potential to reduce costs, time, and resources of offering a high quality of work product to clients. This improvement in efficiency will improve the firm's bottom line, as they will be able to work on more matters and thus generate increased revenues and profits.
• Moreover, improved efficiency will allow the firm to pass some savings to its clients, which can improve relationships and thus generate new business. Over time, this should lead to OC increasing its market share.
• Investment in legal tech is necessary even if not guaranteed to generate the desired returns for similar reasons why the big tech companies think it is necessary to invest tens of billions into AI tech with very little returns up to this point. Simply put, the risk of missing out is too great. If you do not invest and your competitors do, considering how transformational this tech can be it can lead to a wipe out.

Cons:

• Generally investment in legal tech has a higher degree of risk. If it turns out to be less operationally effective than predicted, it may do very little to reduce costs or to improve revenues.
• A number of competitors (with potentially higher amounts of capital available for this purpose) have already been investing into similar tech for improved client service. Thus, there may not be much scope to innovate and to distinguish OC's legal tech as a selling point to clients.
• Historically, legal tech that has been found to have been very useful has been implemented in virtually all firms in a matter of a few years since it first appeared. Thus, many firms have been able to sit back and enjoy the efficiency gains resulting from other's investments. Unless the tech developed by investing in OC Solutions will be protected by IP rights or will not be easily replicable, the upside may not be as high as predicted.

Some advice:

• If you choose Option 2, try to (i) show off your knowledge of OC Solutions in detail; (ii) explain which specific innovations do you think would be possible via this hire; and (iii) explain how that would distinguish OC Solutions form tech rivals have been investing in.

 

[johnnn821]

I don’t know if this has happened to anyone else but I received a call from someone about a "paralegal position I applied for in the past few months". I couldn’t hear clearly which firm he was working for but I thought I must have applied there and just forgotten about it since I sent out quite a lot of paralegal applications in August. Plus he kept addressing me by my first name so I went along with it. The guy proceeded to conduct a full-on interview asking me about my degrees, internships, why I wanted a paralegal position, what I enjoyed most about my studies and other similar questions for about 20 minutes. Afterward he told me he couldn’t offer me a paralegal position because I didn’t have prior paralegal experience. I found this strange because, supposedly, he had my CV in hand and it’s obvious I don’t have such experience. Then he asked if I would consider working with individual solicitors one-on-one to gain experience first. Abruptly the call cut off. I tried calling back but there was no answer. After researching the phone number online I found that it was associated with a recruitment scam. LIKE WHAT?! The guy literally wasted 20 minutes of my life for no apparent reason. I didn’t share any sensitive information and he didn’t ask for any but what was even the point of all this? This is the first time I’ve ever encountered something like this. It’s so absurd. People have lost their minds.

Sorry for the long post, but like damn what a waste of time.

 

[lawyersum]

No worries! Yes I did mention the cons very briefly while I was explaining the pros of why option 2 and what made me pick option 2. Don’t spend too much word count on it and focus on the option you have picked
Hope this helps!

Edit: I also used bullet points and headings to structure my answer because this question was weird and felt like a writing exercise😂

Thank youuuu, and yes this Q does give some very assessment centre vibes!

 

[helloj]

For anyone waiting, I just received the Weil VI link. We have until the 5 Jan!

 

[lawyersum]

So I think it is possible to write a good answer if you choose either option - what is key is to show off (i) your general capacity for commercial analysis as applied to the business of law firms; and (ii) your research and knowledge of OC's unique business. I will list bellow some of the considerations I think you could discuss in favour of each option.

Option 1 - investment in international expansion

Pros:

• Legal expertise in multiple important jurisdictions is increasingly a key demand of clients working on cross-border mandates (which is why independent firms like Slaughter and May are reported to have encountered issues in operating their Best Friends models, and why the more conservative US white shoe firms are boosting investments in their London offices) so investing in this expansion is sound business strategy, allowing the firm to keep current clients and potentially win new ones.
• By hiring people with expertise and established client books in another jurisdiction, a high number of those clients could come over to OC. This is good in and of itself, but if those clients operate internationally, as they often do, this will present opportunities for cross selling their other offices. Ultimately, it is an opportunity to win market share in the global big law industry.
• Conversely, by not expanding, when doing cross border work for existing clients OC will have to at times delegate parts of the work to other law firms, which creates a risk of clients being poached later on by those firms.
• As the success of the likes of Latham and Kirkland shows, or for a better comparison at the mid market level of the likes of DLA Piper and Baker McKenzie, scale is increasingly important. It creates opportunities for reducing costs (see analysis of general economies of scale as applied to services industries) and increases revenues, which gives firms more financial leeway and ability to invest. In a fast-moving legal marketplace that is an essential requirement for allowing firms to innovate and respond to challenges. For example, look at how aggressively Kirkland was able to respond to the Paul, Weiss raid. Such an event would have been catastrophic to a smaller sized rival, but for Kirkland it was a mere scratch - as they went on to replace the lost expertise with some equally high profile hires.
• Finally, more larger international offices can be a form of diversification and hedging against risks affecting particular markets the firm is currently very reliant on.

Cons:

• While on the one side there has been an increase in client pressure for cross border expertise, that has been mainly focused on a small number of key locations in the US and Western Europe. Besides that, if anything, in the last two years we have seen a bit of a retreat from international investment, with a number of firm closing offices in other jurisdictions.
• Offices in other jurisdictions (and really, beyond the US and London) can be highly dilutive of profit pools, as clients in other places are simply unwilling to pay as much in legal fees. This is arguably one reason why Slaughter and May has consistently been able to keep way ahead of its MC competitors in terms of average PEP.
• Increased international presence can come with increased administrative difficulties and associates internal management costs.

Some advice:

• If you choose Option 1, to impress I would make sure to (i) name one or two existing offices that you think would benefit most from investment; (ii) make sure to explain why that is, focusing on mandates that the firm could work on there to service existing clients; (iii) try to analyse the state of the competition in this other market, seeing whether there is any way OC could gain an advantage to its competitors by expanding there.

Option 2 - investment in client service delivery

Pros:

• Investment in OC Solutions would benefit the firm globally, as the improved tech could be implemented everywhere. As such, even if the added benefit in any particular office would not be as significant as if the firm invested in hiring practitioners to expand, the aggregate benefit for the entire firm could be greater.
• Investment in OC Solutions has the potential to reduce costs, time, and resources of offering a high quality of work product to clients. This improvement in efficiency will improve the firm's bottom line, as they will be able to work on more matters and thus generate increased revenues and profits.
• Moreover, improved efficiency will allow the firm to pass some savings to its clients, which can improve relationships and thus generate new business. Over time, this should lead to OC increasing its market share.
• Investment in legal tech is necessary even if not guaranteed to generate the desired returns for similar reasons why the big tech companies think it is necessary to invest tens of billions into AI tech with very little returns up to this point. Simply put, the risk of missing out is too great. If you do not invest and your competitors do, considering how transformational this tech can be it can lead to a wipe out.

Cons:

• Generally investment in legal tech has a higher degree of risk. If it turns out to be less operationally effective than predicted, it may do very little to reduce costs or to improve revenues.
• A number of competitors (with potentially higher amounts of capital available for this purpose) have already been investing into similar tech for improved client service. Thus, there may not be much scope to innovate and to distinguish OC's legal tech as a selling point to clients.
• Historically, legal tech that has been found to have been very useful has been implemented in virtually all firms in a matter of a few years since it first appeared. Thus, many firms have been able to sit back and enjoy the efficiency gains resulting from other's investments. Unless the tech developed by investing in OC Solutions will be protected by IP rights or will not be easily replicable, the upside may not be as high as predicted.

Some advice:

• If you choose Option 2, try to (i) show off your knowledge of OC Solutions in detail; (ii) explain which specific innovations do you think would be possible via this hire; and (iii) explain how that would distinguish OC Solutions form tech rivals have been investing in.

Thank you @Andrei Radu for such comprehensive advice, will definitely be useful when weighing up my answer over the next couple of weeks!