TCLA Vacation Scheme Applications Discussion Thread 2024-25

[gazdgazd11]

Any guidance re Taylor Wessing cover letter? e.g. anyone knows what length is acceptable? thanks

 

[AlegalA]

Any guidance re Taylor Wessing cover letter? e.g. anyone knows what length is acceptable? thanks

I went to their careers talk online yesterday and they said 3/4 of a page. Also said it's okay if some of the things covered in the cover letter are then spoken about in more detail in the questions, and to use it a little like an introduction of some points.

 

[gazdgazd11]

I went to their careers talk online yesterday and they said 3/4 of a page. Also said it's okay if some of the things covered in the cover letter are then spoken about in more detail in the questions, and to use it a little like an introduction of some points.

Thank you!

 

[juaanperez]

Has anyone done the A&O AC?? If so, pls contact me. This is my first ac of this nature and im super nervous about it

 

[3000to1shoteverytime]

Has anyone done the A&O AC?? If so, pls contact me. This is my first ac of this nature and im super nervous about it

When did you hear back?

 

[Andrei Radu]

Hi there! What sort of options would you advise the latter group?

Would it be possible to waive any renumeration associated with the vac scheme so it is not paid and therefore not ‘work’?

Hi @Looper88! Unfortunately this is not an easy question to answer and will in part depend on the details of the scheme, the extent to which a given law firm is willing to be flexible with its policies, and on your ability to collaborate with members of your university's faculty. If you can avoid having to deal with this issue by applying to schemes taking place on different dates, it is best that you do. Having gone through the process myself, it is time-consuming, stressful, and there's no guarantee you'll ultimately be able to take part on the scheme. However, as was the case for me, it is not impossible to do a vacation scheme during term time. As such, if your choice is between an application for a vacation scheme happening during term time or not applying at all, I would advise you to take on the risk and go forward with it. The same is true for an application already made: if you progress, I would take it as seriously as any other application.

Before laying out the potential options in solving the visa requirement of a 20 hour work cap, there's a couple of points to be mentioned. Firstly, you do not want to inform Graduate Recruitment about this until after you actually receive a VS offer. On the one hand, because this is a long and administratively difficult process, I would not advise you on trying to deal with this problem until it actually arises. On the other hand, flagging this from the beginning just gives recruiters a very good reason to reject you. If you only flag this after the firm's partners have chosen to offer you a VS spot, the firm's recruitment and compliance departments will be a lot more motivated to find a way to accommodate you, even if it requires some flexibility. Secondly, consider the type of firm you would be applying for. Anecdotally at least, there's a perception that US firms are a lot more solutions-oriented, while the UK firms tend to be stricter on their rules and policies. Similarly, there's an argument to be made that in general large firms tend to be more bureaucratic, while smaller firms tend to be more flexible. As such, if you do want to take on the risk of applying for a VS running during term time, small US firms may be your best bet.

I'll list bellow all the options I considered when I faced this issue, with a short explanation of whether they can work and if so in what circumstances:

1. Do a vacation scheme that simply does not require more than 20 hours of work per week: after a lot of back and forth, this is what ultimately enabled me to do mine. The idea is simple - for any vacation scheme, only part of your daily activities could qualify as actual 'work'. You will also attend trainings, presentations and practice area sessions, tours, networking, assessments, and social activities. In conjunction, these take up a significant amount of time. If the firm can therefore determine that it is likely that the time spent at your desk would be under 20 hours, they should be able to allow you on the scheme while complying with the visa requirements. This option is most likely to work for one-week vacation scheme, as firms will have to include many activities in a few days and thus reduce total desk time (in practice, many firms split the days in half: one half spent with the VS group at various organized events, the other half with your supervisor at the desk).
2. Reach an agreement that you will not work more than 20 hours: essentially, this would mean that you would ensure that you do not do any more than 20 hours of actual work. You could keep a tracker of the time spend each day, and once the 20 hour cap is reached, you could spend your time on other productive activities - training activities (including doing readings on your practice area, trying to draft mock documents, etc), networking, interviews and other assessments preparation. This is what you could try if the VS is longer than one-week or if the firm's Graduate Recruitment is not convinced that your total desk time would be lower than 20 hours. The disadvantages here are (1) it may be difficult to convince the firm that this would work, as this would require you/your supervisor to actively police the 20 hour cap (anecdotally, I have heard of firms choosing to only allow VS students to spend 20 hours in total in the office in this situation); and (2) if the VS would normally require longer working hours, you would be at a disadvantage regarding conversion when compared to other participants who can work full time.
3. Obtaining a university waiver: this is an option I initially tried pursuing but which ultimately failed in my case. I had heard that what candidates did in the past was to discuss the situation with members of their relevant faculty and convince them to give them waiver - essentially, a document that stipulated that, due to extraordinary circumstances, the university was allowing the student to finish their term sooner than normal and enter break time. This is something that apparently also sometimes happens in cases of serious injury/sickness. In theory, if you obtain it, you are then able to work full time whilst complying with the visa requirements. The compliance department of the firm I has the VS with was happy to allow me on the scheme if I obtained this waiver. Unfortunately, whether a faculty can do this or not is not explicitly provided for in any regulations and as such the biggest roadblock here tends to be the university itself. Because of the recent increased political scrutiny and criticism of universities' management of international student applications and the perception that some international students only obtain a study visa with an intent to work instead of studying, universities tend to be very inflexible with any visa-related issues. If they are found in breach of immigration law, the authorities can retract universities' licenses to sponsor international visas. Since a very significant part of their revenue is obtained from international students' fees, universities are very unwilling to take on even the most minimal risk of this happening. As such, in practice this option can be difficult. Still, if you are in the situation of having an offer for a VS happening during term time, you do not lose anything by attempting it. If you do, I would advise you to try to find a faculty member you are in friendly relations with to guide you through the process.
4. Reduced pay: the option you mentioned is one I also considered, as if I were to be paid for only 20 hours, I thought that surely meant I could not be deemed to be doing actual work in for more than that. Unfortunately, upon further inquiry, I found that the visa regulations explicitly state that 'work' does not only mean 'paid work', but also volunteering and any other type of unpaid labor.
5. Alternative TC conversion routes: the final option is to simply accept that you will not be able to do the specific VS you were offered a place for. However, since you went all the way through the process and the firm decided to select you out of a very high number of candidates, they are unlikely to simply let you go. Instead, you have a good chance of succeeding if you try to negotiate either (a) moving you to another VS scheme period which is outside term time; or (b) progressing you to a final TC contract assessment/interview directly. While not optimal, this is still an outcome that can lead you to a TC offer and is therefore worth trying out.

 

[gazdgazd11]

Haven’t received any reply from Sidley and Ashurst and I applied a while ago- do I assume a PFO?

any advice guys? sorry have received no responses and i see people have been getting ACs

 

[Looper88]

Hi @Looper88! Unfortunately this is not an easy question to answer and will in part depend on the details of the scheme, the extent to which a given law firm is willing to be flexible with its policies, and on your ability to collaborate with members of your university's faculty. If you can avoid having to deal with this issue by applying to schemes taking place on different dates, it is best that you do. Having gone through the process myself, it is time-consuming, stressful, and there's no guarantee you'll ultimately be able to take part on the scheme. However, as was the case for me, it is not impossible to do a vacation scheme during term time. As such, if your choice is between an application for a vacation scheme happening during term time or not applying at all, I would advise you to take on the risk and go forward with it. The same is true for an application already made: if you progress, I would take it as seriously as any other application.

Before laying out the potential options in solving the visa requirement of a 20 hour work cap, there's a couple of points to be mentioned. Firstly, you do not want to inform Graduate Recruitment about this until after you actually receive a VS offer. On the one hand, because this is a long and administratively difficult process, I would not advise you on trying to deal with this problem until it actually arises. On the other hand, flagging this from the beginning just gives recruiters a very good reason to reject you. If you only flag this after the firm's partners have chosen to offer you a VS spot, the firm's recruitment and compliance departments will be a lot more motivated to find a way to accommodate you, even if it requires some flexibility. Secondly, consider the type of firm you would be applying for. Anecdotally at least, there's a perception that US firms are a lot more solutions-oriented, while the UK firms tend to be stricter on their rules and policies. Similarly, there's an argument to be made that in general large firms tend to be more bureaucratic, while smaller firms tend to be more flexible. As such, if you do want to take on the risk of applying for a VS running during term time, small US firms may be your best bet.

I'll list bellow all the options I considered when I faced this issue, with a short explanation of whether they can work and if so in what circumstances:

1. Do a vacation scheme that simply does not require more than 20 hours of work per week: after a lot of back and forth, this is what ultimately enabled me to do mine. The idea is simple - for any vacation scheme, only part of your daily activities could qualify as actual 'work'. You will also attend trainings, presentations and practice area sessions, tours, networking, assessments, and social activities. In conjunction, these take up a significant amount of time. If the firm can therefore determine that it is likely that the time spent at your desk would be under 20 hours, they should be able to allow you on the scheme while complying with the visa requirements. This option is most likely to work for one-week vacation scheme, as firms will have to include many activities in a few days and thus reduce total desk time (in practice, many firms split the days in half: one half spent with the VS group at various organized events, the other half with your supervisor at the desk).
2. Reach an agreement that you will not work more than 20 hours: essentially, this would mean that you would ensure that you do not do any more than 20 hours of actual work. You could keep a tracker of the time spend each day, and once the 20 hour cap is reached, you could spend your time on other productive activities - training activities (including doing readings on your practice area, trying to draft mock documents, etc), networking, interviews and other assessments preparation. This is what you could try if the VS is longer than one-week or if the firm's Graduate Recruitment is not convinced that your total desk time would be lower than 20 hours. The disadvantages here are (1) it may be difficult to convince the firm that this would work, as this would require you/your supervisor to actively police the 20 hour cap (anecdotally, I have heard of firms choosing to only allow VS students to spend 20 hours in total in the office in this situation); and (2) if the VS would normally require longer working hours, you would be at a disadvantage regarding conversion when compared to other participants who can work full time.
3. Obtaining a university waiver: this is an option I initially tried pursuing but which ultimately failed in my case. I had heard that what candidates did in the past was to discuss the situation with members of their relevant faculty and convince them to give them waiver - essentially, a document that stipulated that, due to extraordinary circumstances, the university was allowing the student to finish their term sooner than normal and enter break time. This is something that apparently also sometimes happens in cases of serious injury/sickness. In theory, if you obtain it, you are then able to work full time whilst complying with the visa requirements. The compliance department of the firm I has the VS with was happy to allow me on the scheme if I obtained this waiver. Unfortunately, whether a faculty can do this or not is not explicitly provided for in any regulations and as such the biggest roadblock here tends to be the university itself. Because of the recent increased political scrutiny and criticism of universities' management of international student applications and the perception that some international students only obtain a study visa with an intent to work instead of studying, universities tend to be very inflexible with any visa-related issues. If they are found in breach of immigration law, the authorities can retract universities' licenses to sponsor international visas. Since a very significant part of their revenue is obtained from international students' fees, universities are very unwilling to take on even the most minimal risk of this happening. As such, in practice this option can be difficult. Still, if you are in the situation of having an offer for a VS happening during term time, you do not lose anything by attempting it. If you do, I would advise you to try to find a faculty member you are in friendly relations with to guide you through the process.
4. Reduced pay: the option you mentioned is one I also considered, as if I were to be paid for only 20 hours, I thought that surely meant I could not be deemed to be doing actual work in for more than that. Unfortunately, upon further inquiry, I found that the visa regulations explicitly state that 'work' does not only mean 'paid work', but also volunteering and any other type of unpaid labor.
5. Alternative TC conversion routes: the final option is to simply accept that you will not be able to do the specific VS you were offered a place for. However, since you went all the way through the process and the firm decided to select you out of a very high number of candidates, they are unlikely to simply let you go. Instead, you have a good chance of succeeding if you try to negotiate either (a) moving you to another VS scheme period which is outside term time; or (b) progressing you to a final TC contract assessment/interview directly. While not optimal, this is still an outcome that can lead you to a TC offer and is therefore worth trying out.

Thank you very much! That was extremely comprehensive!

Quite annoying that unpaid work qualifies as work… how would you rate the chances of (1) and (2)? Were firms more likely than not open to such proposals?

As an aside, if you feel comfortable with sharing the names of the firms which you heard had such flexible arrangements… it would be very much appreciated!

 

[VMS]

Has anyone done the A&O AC?? If so, pls contact me. This is my first ac of this nature and im super nervous about it

Congratulations! That's fantastic! I did it last year and I think I used some of TCLA's free case analysis resources in prep, and watched preparation videos that were made by one of their employees on Instagram, and that prepared me pretty well for that part. I didn't pass on account of my interview, so I won't give advice on that, haha.

 

[lookingforaTC]

Can anyone please send the Simmons automatic VI questions please?

 

[Apple]

Can anyone please send the Simmons automatic VI questions please?

You have unlimited prep time anyway apparently.

 

[lookingforaTC]

You have unlimited pre time anyway apparently.

Yes I know mate but I'm still waiting on the test and wanna start prep for the Qs whilst its weekend.

 

[asplawyer100]

People applying to W&C vac scheme: under the question “please give us details of careers events you have attended”, what do you speak about if you hadn’t attended any W&C specific events? Just insight days you’ve attended at other law firms? Should you link these to W&C somehow, or are they literally just asking about experiences you pursued and not how they’re relevant to your application to W&C?

 

[Jessica Booker]

People applying to W&C vac scheme: under the question “please give us details of careers events you have attended”, what do you speak about if you hadn’t attended any W&C specific events? Just insight days you’ve attended at other law firms? Should you link these to W&C somehow, or are they literally just asking about experiences you pursued and not how they’re relevant to your application to W&C?

I don’t think you will need an explicit link to W&C but focusing on the events more connected to the type of work the firm does would make sense. I don’t think you need to say anything that would use White & Case as a reference point in this answer.

 

[Andrei Radu]

Thank you very much! That was extremely comprehensive!

Quite annoying that unpaid work qualifies as work… how would you rate the chances of (1) and (2)? Were firms more likely than not open to such proposals?

As an aside, if you feel comfortable with sharing the names of the firms which you heard had such flexible arrangements… it would be very much appreciated!

If you get a VS offer at a small US firm running a one-week scheme, while I obviously cannot quantify it, I would say you have good enough chances to be worth applying. In my case it worked out, but I don't know enough people who have been in similar circumstances to be able to make a more general judgement. A lot will depend on the attitude of the specific recruiters at each firm.

As per the second question, I'm not sure I can tell you as this is not part of any official firm policy and I would not want to misrepresent a firm's recruiting profile. Even the firm I went to changed its graduate recruitment staff this year, so there is no guarantee they will be inclined to have the same attitude this cycle. That said, I will say that I think in general higher flexibility is associated with (i) US firms rather than UK firms; (ii) small firms rather than large ones; (iii) one week schemes rather than multiple week schemes; and (iv) assessment/networking/training focus rather than work focus. To maximize your chances, what I'd advise you to do is to shortlist the firms you would be interested in using the first three criteria and then further research (perhaps by reaching out to ex-vac schemers) which vacation schemes have the least focus on work.

 

[VMS]

Do we get our scores back for Hogan Lovells Watson glazer?

Did you find this out? I don't know whether or not to email them.

 

[kokoprep]

Hi - Is Latham and Watkins, rolling or non-rolling?

 

[lawyersum]

Hi guys wondering if you could let me know when HL send you the WG after you submit the application? I submitted my application on Fri so would like to know if I should expect the test next week

Did you find this out? I don't know whether or not to email them.

 

[plsletmein]

Has anyone done the A&O AC?? If so, pls contact me. This is my first ac of this nature and im super nervous about it

Congrats!! when did you find out you got an ac?

 

[fingersarecrossed]

Please give details of your extra-curricular activities, and any prizes, scholarships, positions of responsibility, or noteworthy achievements that will support your application.

For this question, how many points should we aim to mention and should we outline the skills we gained from those experiences?