TCLA Vacation Scheme Applications Discussion Thread 2024-25

Andrei Radu

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Sep 9, 2024
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If discussing a commercial news article that impacts a specific firm, is it a bad idea to go into details on specific legal terms or structures a firm could advise on to solve challenges? Or is it better to focus on more general commercial impacts?
If this question is for an interview or written assessment, I think it is definitely acceptable to go into more technical legal detail, as long as you are not missing out on also at least mentioning the broader commercial impacts. For an application form/video interview, it is more complicated. This is because your answer will likely be reviewed by the firm's graduate recruitment team, which is not composed solely of people who have done a law degree or practiced as a lawyer. Thus, you want to be a bit careful regrading how technical your answer is.

That being said, having a more specific and unique analysis is generally seen as a positive feature. Furthermore, graduate recruiters will know a lot about the business of their law firm, the legal market, and the current issues affecting them. I think a good test for you to employ is to consider the following question: Would a well-informed member of a law firm who does not have experience with the practice area relevant to your answer understand your analysis without needing to do further research? If yes, your answer is fine even if it is on the more technical side. An example here would be discussing modifications in what are considered market terms for warranties and indemnities in the current M&A market. However, if substantial research would be required, I think you would be well-advised to modify your answer. An example of something that might qualify as overly technical would perhaps be to discuss something like the variations of holding structures used in NAV loans and their impact on the leveraged finance market. To run it by the proposed test, it is unlikely a solicitor who has only worked in IP law will know much of the topic.

Finally, you want to consider that if an answer is overly technical, even if all recruiters understand it, you might miss out on the very point of the question - which is to test your ability for commercial analysis. Your ability for legal analysis is tested enough in university/SQE/GDL and firms do not expect you to show it when answering a commercial awareness question.
 

Tom smith

Active Member
Aug 19, 2024
10
1
If this question is for an interview or written assessment, I think it is definitely acceptable to go into more technical legal detail, as long as you are not missing out on also at least mentioning the broader commercial impacts. For an application form/video interview, it is more complicated. This is because your answer will likely be reviewed by the firm's graduate recruitment team, which is not composed solely of people who have done a law degree or practiced as a lawyer. Thus, you want to be a bit careful regrading how technical your answer is.

That being said, having a more specific and unique analysis is generally seen as a positive feature. Furthermore, graduate recruiters will know a lot about the business of their law firm, the legal market, and the current issues affecting them. I think a good test for you to employ is to consider the following question: Would a well-informed member of a law firm who does not have experience with the practice area relevant to your answer understand your analysis without needing to do further research? If yes, your answer is fine even if it is on the more technical side. An example here would be discussing modifications in what are considered market terms for warranties and indemnities in the current M&A market. However, if substantial research would be required, I think you would be well-advised to modify your answer. An example of something that might qualify as overly technical would perhaps be to discuss something like the variations of holding structures used in NAV loans and their impact on the leveraged finance market. To run it by the proposed test, it is unlikely a solicitor who has only worked in IP law will know much of the topic.

Finally, you want to consider that if an answer is overly technical, even if all recruiters understand it, you might miss out on the very point of the question - which is to test your ability for commercial analysis. Your ability for legal analysis is tested enough in university/SQE/GDL and firms do not expect you to show it when answering a commercial awareness question.
Thank you so much, this is super helpful!

The context I am looking at is for a firm that has many technology clients. I am suggesting that technology M&A deals could see a rise, and that a challenge here are valuation gaps between buyers and sellers. I mentioned earn-out provisions as a way which these could be solved so I am guessing this might just about be general enough? Thanks again.
 

fingersarecrossed

Esteemed Member
  • Feb 11, 2024
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    Hi there! My interview preparation approach, which led to a VS offer 4/4 times I implemented it, was essentially split in four phases:

    Step 1 - Preparing ideas for answers

    The first and most difficult step in preparing for interviews is learning how to respond to a wide variety of questions. Of course, you cannot prepare beforehand for all potential variations of all potential interview questions. Furthermore, you do not want to learn answers by heart and then just repeat them in front of the interviewers - they are likely to sound robotic. However, by investing a substantial amount of time thinking about how you would go about answering to as many different questions as possible, you start learning how to describe your motivations and experiences in a flexible manner. This decreases the chances that you will not be caught off-guard by any given question. It also increases the chances that, even if you have not prepared for a question you are being asked, you will find a somewhat sensible answer to it.

    The first thing I would do when invited to an AC/interview (and for a video interview, but not in the same level of detail) would be to try to build a question bank to practice on. I would create a Word doc with a few big headings (like 'CV based/competency questions'; 'motivations/firm-specific questions', 'commercial awareness questions', situational judgement questions' etc) and firstly write down all the questions I could think of under each relevant heading. I would then look at my CV, and find try to think how I could leverage my experience to answer those questions. Finally, I would write 2-3 short bullet points under each questions to explain how I would answer it - I have found this helps with memorizing the ideas for your answers. Thus enabled me to both have the ideas ready to go in my mind for a high number of questions and to be able to go through the though process of formulating the answer in the actual interview. It is also worth mentioning that at this step I would prepare particularly well for the questions I thought were very likely to come up (such as Why the firm, Why me etc).

    The second stage involved searching for interview question banks on the internet - such as the one offered by TCLA here. While reading them, I would spend around 30 seconds on each question thinking of potential ways of answering them. I would then copy the questions I was having particular difficulty with and add them under the relevant heading in my word document. After finalizing this process, I would once again look at my CV and spend a longer amount of time thinking how to best answer each of them. Then, I would note down my ideas in short bullet points.

    The final stage was similar to the second, with the only difference being that I would search directly for examples of past questions asked by the firm I was interviewing at - resources that were useful were this TCLA forum and Glassdoor.


    Step 2 - Practicing articulating your answers

    Once I had found the right ideas as to how to answer most interview questions, the second step of preparation involved improving my ability to articulate them. Despite the initial awkwardness of this method, I have found it incredibly useful to simply turn my laptop's camera on, pick one question at random, give myself a few seconds to think, and then record my answer. Subsequently, I would watch the recording with as critical an attitude as possible to see the parts I was struggling with the most. Then I would repeat this process again and again until I was happy with the way I was answering any given question.

    A point worth noting is that as I was deciding at random which question to respond to, I would try to tweak the specific phrasing of the question in my mind. Thus, instead of just learning how to answer 'Why do you want to pursue a career in commercial law?', I would learn to answer many variations of the same type of question, such as 'How did your interest in commercial law originate?', 'Why commercial law rather than another area of the law?', 'Why do you want to be a commercial solicitor rather than a commercial barrister?' and so on. Once again, by following this approach, I would learn how to be flexible in formulating my ideas to best suit the exact question the interviewer would be asking me.


    Step 3 - Mock interviews

    Especially for any AC/final stage interviews, mock interviews are a really useful preparation tool. After you have improved yourself as much as you could by firstly preparing your best ideas for answers, and then preparing the best way to articulate them, you would now be in the best position to further improve both your ideas and your capacity to communicate them by getting feedback from others. Hence, if you can find someone with VS/TC interview experience (or even just experience with commercial law/interviews in general), it would be really helpful to get them to do a mock interview for you. Moreover, getting more familiar with the 'interview experience' beforehand contributes a lot to your ability to calm your nerves and do your best on the big day. As such, I would advise you to reach out to people who could help you with this, even if they are not part of your immediate circle. You will be surprised how many people will be willing to help you out!


    Step 4 - Getting into the right mindset

    Finally, although this may sound a bit cliche, try to go into the interview with a positive attitude. Remind yourself that just by reaching this stage, you have demonstrated to be an exceptionally competitive candidate. Acknowledge the fact that since the firm chose to meet you out of so many other applicants, it means you have everything you need to succeed - whether that means success with this particular firm or another. Finally, although I appreciate how hard it may be, try to not put an excessive amount of pressure on yourself. Meditate on your journey and how far you've come and accept that as long as you do your best, you will have nothing to blame yourself for. Going through these thought processes the night and morning before the interviews helped me a lot with reducing my anxiety and my ability to show enthusiasm in my attitude.

    I hope this is useful :) and best of luck with your future interviews!
    thank you so so much Andrei for such a detailed response! this is incredibly helpful and i will be sure to implement these when preparing! :)
     
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    Jessica Booker

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    Aug 1, 2019
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    when drafting cover letters, how do you avoid repeating yourself
    E.g., if i have x experience on my cv, it feels i repeat myself by saying i did x and gained xyz experience
    A cover letter should focus on motivation and suitable skills/strengths, while a CV should focus on responsibilities and impact. There maybe a slight cross over in brief references, but I would expect the theme of your message or meaning of how that evidence is being used to be quite different.
     
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    User5678

    Star Member
    Aug 16, 2024
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    Hii

    Does anyone know of free resources I can use to prepare for the cognify test (Ashurst)

    -
    And for those who have completed the test, did it just include additions, or did they have those shape questions too etc??
    It had shape questions - there was a diagram puzzle and then they had written a statement below ex: rearrange the puzzle if it was rotated and then you had to create that with the pieces
     

    Tsitsipas10S

    Star Member
    Aug 29, 2024
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    If you would be able to attend the open day at least one or two weeks before the application deadline and if this is a firm you are particularly attracted to, I think you should wait. While firms who recruit on a rolling basis place different levels on emphasis on the time at which you submit your applications, I know many candidates (including myself) who progressed despite submitting very close to the deadline. As such, I think it makes sense to prioritize the quality of your application more than the timing. Since for most firms attending an open day will significantly improve your chances of progressing past the application stage in a VS/TC application, I think it is worth waiting for.

    However, there are some caveats to this. Firstly, I do not believe it is feasible to implement this approach with a high number of firms. The reason is that most firms with competitive open day application processes will host the event in late October/November/early December. Most firms also have VS application deadlines in December/early January. As such, if you try to attend open days at many firms before writing your applications, you might end up completely overloaded come December, with several deadlines every week. This will likely mean you will have to compromise on the time you spend on each application and therefore on the quality of your research and writing - and my view is that quality of writing and research is the one thing you should not compromise on if you want to maximize your success chances. To ensure you can submit a high number of high quality applications, I think it is better to try to space out your efforts throughout the next three months. Thus, it is only feasible to change your application writing schedule around maybe 4-5 open days. This is why I would only wait for the open day outcome if this is one of those 4-5 firms that you would like to prioritize.

    Secondly, there are some firms that are outliers in terms of how seriously they take the timing at which you submit your application - anecdotally, firms like Jones Day and Gibson Dunn would be among them. Therefore, I think before you decide on whether to wait for the open day application deadline or not, it is worth having a look around this forum to see if the firm you are interested in is in this category. You should simply type the name of the firm in the TCLA Forum search bar, alongside some key terms like 'offer', and see if last year there were any people being progressed despite submitting the application later in the cycle. Alternatively, if you are comfortable sharing the name of the firm, you can post this question about it here. Someone who has had experience with applying for that firm might know more about the issue and get back to you directly.
    Thank you for the comprehensive response! It really is very helpful. I'll try to narrow down the 4-5 firms I'm particularly keen on and focus on those for open days.

    Is anyone aware of Baker McKenzie accepting people late in their cycle?
     
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    Parsorandini

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    Oct 8, 2021
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    I think I made a silly mistake. The application question for White & Case 'Please use the space below to provide details of any careers events you have attended e.g. insight days, workshops, presentations etc. These do not need to be White & Case specific.' I answered by just giving bullet points of which events I have attended. Since submitting my application, I realise they probably wanted me to highlight what I learned from each event. I worked so hard on the cover letter and other application question. Have I just sabotaged myself and blown any chance I had? :( @Jessica Booker @Andrei Radu Guessing I can't just email grad rec to ask this either as looks kinda bad?
     
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    Jessica Booker

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    I think I made a silly mistake. The application question for White & Case 'Please use the space below to provide details of any careers events you have attended e.g. insight days, workshops, presentations etc. These do not need to be White & Case specific.' I answered by just giving bullet points of which events I have attended. Since submitting my application, I realise they probably wanted me to highlight what I learned from each event. I worked so hard on the cover letter and other application question. Have I just sabotaged myself and blown any chance I had? :( @Jessica Booker @Andrei Radu Guessing I can't just email grad rec to ask this either as looks kinda bad?
    A list of events is not an issue for this question. They haven’t explicitly asked you to detail what you learnt from the events.
     

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