There are some comments on Glassdoor about this - https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews...fe-balance-Reviews-EI_IE3136.0,21_KH22,39.htm
How reliable are the reported times?
That is true, I'm not too picky with it, and obviously I know that law is long hours on average anyway, but I have made a cross on category D work life balance on Legal Cheek just because I do think that even if THEY state it, it must be pretty bad 😂
Unfortunately, I do not think there is an answer to your question that applies across all law firms. Among the firms that recruit on a rolling basis, there are still significant differences in their approach. Some of them, like Jones Day, can sometimes reply to your application in a matter of one or two weeks, whereas others will take a lot longer and reply to most applications only well after the deadline. For the firms in the former category, I would 100% emphasize getting the VS/TC application does as early as possible. For the firms in the latter category, provided that I would still subsequently have sufficient time to write a great VS/TC application, I would consider waiting to attend the open day first. The caveat to that is that I don't think you can do this with a lot of firms, as most of them have deadlines around end of November and December - and you do not want to find yourself in a position where you have to do 10 applications in two weeks just so that you can attend an open days for all. Therefore, I would only take this 'open-day first' approach with a select number of firms I am most interested in (no more than 3-4). I believe this is the only way to avoid making your application schedule administratively unworkable.
I wouldn't worry too much on the pace at which you are completing applications early in the cycle. For me, the first two applications took me around 2-3 weeks each, and then for about a month I started doing around one per week. Finally, come end of December/January, I could research and write 2/3 applications per week. I think the more you research and write applications, the more you form your own method and start learning the right patters. As such, as you progress through the cycle, it's likely that the pace at which you can complete an application will increase significantly. Right now, I think you should just focus on writing the highest quality answers you can.
Yes - generally it is fine to say you are using it for these purposes, but I would make it read that you used it to complement your own spelling/grammatical error checks rather than it reads like you relied on ChatGPT
Hi there! For the first question, I think the two things the firm is trying to test you on is (1) your understanding of the role of a trainee - and specifically, your knowledge of the the less appealing parts of the job; (2) your understanding of the specific internal resources and support offered by DLA. You could structure the answer as:Hi everyone!
There are no DLA Piper events this recruitment cycle for grads so I've had to resort to this forum.
Does anyone or @Jessica Booker have tips for how to approach this question, 'If successful in securing a training contract after the Summer Internship, what do you anticipate will be the key challenges of the International Training Programme for you? How would you approach these challenges, and what resources or support do you believe you would need to overcome them?'
Also, does anyone know where I can find information about the the key practise areas that each of DLA Piper's UK offices specialise in (I've checked the website)? Finding it difficult to apply when there are very limited resources outside of the Discovery Days which I can't apply for as a grad
Thank you in advance!
