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:
- 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).
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
