TCLA Vacation Scheme Applications Discussion Thread 2024-25

[HelpAStudentOut]

Simmons WVS offer!!!!!

 

[dollydaydream]

Jones Day WVS offer post-AC yesterday 🤩

 

[Willgetthere]

Wondering if HSF and HG have offered most/all of their ACs already - the wait is killing me!

HSF should be publishing more next week. This is information I’ve received from graduate recruitment so I believe there should be more AC’s.

 

[splash17]

Anyone heard back from Ashurst post written exam AC? The deadline was today I thought ….

I received an invite for the in-person interview (post written exam) a few days ago

 

[DesperateForVac]

Does anyone know about Goldman Legal.

They run a summer analyst internship for 10 weeks but not sure how it works
Do they give you a training contract? Do they help you qualify or do you just do paralegal work

 

[Andrei Radu]

Hi @Andrei Radu! Your tips on the forum have been super useful! I was wondering whether you could share some advice about asking the "Why me" question? How would you structure the answer? My issue is that, in a VI or interview situation, I don't know what competency questions will be asked later. How would I avoid picking qualities / using examples that I might use later in the interview? Thank you!

Hi @MayaM0921 and thanks for the kind words ! To firstly deal with the structure of the 'Why you?' answer, I think what you want is something like this:

1. Give a high level summary of what your answer will be, something like 'There are three reasons why you should offer me a place: my critical thinking skills, my organizational skills, and my teamwork abilities, all of which are essential for a trainee solicitor'.
2. Take the first skill/ability/attribute that you mentioned, and explain to the firm how an experience or achievement of yours demonstrates it. Use the STAR structure when walking the interviewer through the experience.
3. Explain how the skill/ability/attribute is relevant for the job of a trainee solicitor.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for the other skills/abilities/attributes.
5. Conclude by once again giving a short summary of what your answer has been, something like 'So, to conclude, my experiences demonstrate I possess excellent critical thinking, organizational and teamwork skills, and this makes me an ideal fit for the job'.

As for the second part of your question (regarding what skills/examples to pick) I think you have to be strategic in balancing both trying to have the most convincing possible 'why me' answer and in not boxing yourself in a position where you will be forced to repeat yourself. My strategy was to first come up with the best possible answer I could for the 'Why the firm' question, then the best possible answer for the 'Why the firm' question, then the best possible answer to the 'Why commercial law', and only then draft my 'Why you?' answer. This was because I found that only a few of my experiences and achievements, could be connected to firm USPs, slightly more could be connected to my why commercial reasoning, but a lot of them could be used for showcasing a relevant skill or attribute.

Beyond that, in drafting my 'Why you' answer I would just use the most impressive leftover experiences, and maybe reference one or two of the experiences in the 'Why commercial law' or 'Why firm' answers if particularly impressive. While you could still be asked a competency question in the interview that forces you to be repetitive, there's no way to eliminate that risk, as there's no way of predicting what competency you will be asked about. However, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Firstly, the interviewers know candidates will not have an unlimited list of experiences to leverage, and will definitely not mind repeating one if you also consider it and discuss it from a different angle. Secondly, while this was something I worried about a lot before my interviews (as at least compared to some of my peers, my CV was not as full) in practice it was not a situation I often found myself in. If anything, the opposite happened more, in that I would not get to speak about more than 2-3 experiences and sometimes I would finish the interview without having mentioned some of my most impressive achievements.

 

[Andrei Radu]

Hi guys, I need to provide academic certificates/transcripts as proof of qualifications prior to my AC. Do they usually accept "candidate statement of marks" instead of the official certificates?

@Jessica Booker will be able to tell you more about this, but in my case firms accepted an email from my university as proof of the results, so I don't think it's unlikely they will accept your statement as well.

 

[Jessica Booker]

Hi guys, I need to provide academic certificates/transcripts as proof of qualifications prior to my AC. Do they usually accept "candidate statement of marks" instead of the official certificates?

If it is clearly on university documents/letterhead then it’s likely to be accepted as an alternative. They will advise if they need something else though.

 

[Andrei Radu]

what are the best ways of researching distinctions between firms? band rankings are fairly surface level - I can’t seem to find much specific info on a firm’s website/other internet searches on where a firm may particularly excel

Hi @tarty23! I think this depends on the practice area in question, but my main sources for in-depth research would be:

• The general legal press: The Lawyer (I found it particularly useful), Law.com, Legal Business, The Global Legal Post, Bloomberg Law, Vault etc. My method would be to just type in the name of the firm in the publication's search bar and then skim/read all the articles that came up. You can also add filters with key words such as the name of the practice area. You will find many interesting analyses comparing the features and relative strengths of firms' practices. However, some of these resources are only available with a subscription. Make sure to check if your university/workplace has a subscription, as in my case it did.
• Practice area/industry-specific publications and organizations: you will find organizations publishing statistics and articles on law firm's performances. This is highly-depended on the practice area and sectors you are researching, but for instance in the M&A context Mergermarket and LSE publishes data as to deal volume and deal value of firms worldwide and in different regions.
• Awards: you can also assess the firm's practice area further by seeing what awards relating to it they have recently won - if they do better than other firms in a similar band ranking, you could infer from a superior quality from that.
• Lateral moves and notable practitioners: by searching on google/legal publications you can analyze the practice area more in depth by looking at any notable recent hires or recent losses. Also, take a look at their leading individual practitioners, as some will also have individual chambers rankings and profile. For instance, by knowing that Paul, Weiss managed to hire Neel Sachdev (who many commentators think is the best leverage finance lawyer in the City), you can infer they will have superior expertise to other leverage finance practices.
• Firm interactions: One of the best ways of learning more about a firm's practice area in the context of its competitors is by discussing this topic with a more senior lawyer in that practice area at the firm. They will know a lot more about it and this could save you a lot of research time.

Besides this, I thought it may be useful for you to read a recent post in which I discussed what to look for when researching a practice area in detail and an example of me having done so:

However, I will add that although general reputation/market recognition is an important feature in assessing a firm's practice area, it does not necessarily tell the full story. Other aspects you may consider include: what is the size of the practice area within the firm, and how important of a revenue generator is it? how many practitioners and partners does it have, and does it punch above its weight in terms of impact when compared to the sizes of similarly ranked firms? what is the history of the practice area within the firm - has it seen a lot of recent growth, or has it always been a core part of the firm's practice? and what are the firm's plans in the future for it? does the firm have a very strong reputation only in the UK, or also in other important jurisdictions and globally? are there any specific features of the practice's client base as compared to that of its rivals'? are there any particular sectors that the practice has particular expertise in? how is the practice areas subdivided between different teams? are there any specific high-end mandates that the firm has recently won - and what might you infer from that regarding the market position of the firm's practice area as compared to that of its rivals'? are there any more specific awards and recognitions for the relevant practice area, besides the usual Chambers/Legal 500 rankings? when taken together with other strong practice areas of the firm, are there significant cross-selling opportunities? When you start researching all of these questions, you will find that although initially two practices might have looked very similar because they had the same Chambers band ranking, they have many features that can differentiate them. Once you identify those, you can consider why those more specific features could be of benefit you/be of interest. This way, you can eventually end up with a truly unique practice-area based USP.

To give you a more concrete example - when I was applying to Davis Polk, I saw they had a band 5 Chambers UK corporate M&A ranking. Initially, I thought it would be difficult to write a persuasive USP based on that, as there were other firms with higher corporate M&A Chambers UK rankings. However, upon further research, I found out that (i) Davis Polk had s significantly smaller corporate M&A practice than any of the other ranked firms - with less than 1/3 of the total number of practitioners than similarly ranked firms; (ii) Davis Polk was ranked as the most efficient corporate practice in the UK, with the highest Revenue Per Lawyer (RPL) and Revenue Per Partner (RPP) of any firm; (iii) Davis Polk globally had the highest average corporate deal value of any firm - suggesting a low volume/high value model; (iv) Davis Polk had won various corporate/PE deal of the year or team of the year awards. When taking all these factors together, it was easy to think of an USP in terms of Davis Polk a small but extremely high quality practice, which I could then connect to my motivations to be a become a great corporate lawyer and to work in small teams.

 

[tarty23]

Hi @tarty23! I think this depends on the practice area in question, but my main sources for in-depth research would be:

• The general legal press: The Lawyer (I found it particularly useful), Law.com, Legal Business, The Global Legal Post, Bloomberg Law, Vault etc. My method would be to just type in the name of the firm in the publication's search bar and then skim/read all the articles that came up. You can also add filters with key words such as the name of the practice area. You will find many interesting analyses comparing the features and relative strengths of firms' practices. However, some of these resources are only available with a subscription. Make sure to check if your university/workplace has a subscription, as in my case it did.
• Practice area/industry-specific publications and organizations: you will find organizations publishing statistics and articles on law firm's performances. This is highly-depended on the practice area and sectors you are researching, but for instance in the M&A context Mergermarket and LSE publishes data as to deal volume and deal value of firms worldwide and in different regions.
• Awards: you can also assess the firm's practice area further by seeing what awards relating to it they have recently won - if they do better than other firms in a similar band ranking, you could infer from a superior quality from that.
• Lateral moves and notable practitioners: by searching on google/legal publications you can analyze the practice area more in depth by looking at any notable recent hires or recent losses. Also, take a look at their leading individual practitioners, as some will also have individual chambers rankings and profile. For instance, by knowing that Paul, Weiss managed to hire Neel Sachdev (who many commentators think is the best leverage finance lawyer in the City), you can infer they will have superior expertise to other leverage finance practices.
• Firm interactions: One of the best ways of learning more about a firm's practice area in the context of its competitors is by discussing this topic with a more senior lawyer in that practice area at the firm. They will know a lot more about it and this could save you a lot of research time.

Besides this, I thought it may be useful for you to read a recent post in which I discussed what to look for when researching a practice area in detail and an example of me having done so:

thank you!

future trainee but current legend

 

[FLOWERYELLOW2002]

any advice for Simmons & Simmons AC?

 

[LimitedLiabilityLover]

Anyone heard anything from Cleary and Hogan Lovells post-WG WVS, Slaughter's TC, JD SVS? Also, if W&C has yet to send a VI and people have completed them and received invitation to AC, should I assume PFO?

 

[Brandon93]

That will be on the basis of your qualifications you have I suspect.

Thank you Jessica, helpful as always.

 

[Bread]

Anyone heard anything from Cleary and Hogan Lovells post-WG WVS, Slaughter's TC, JD SVS? Also, if W&C has yet to send a VI and people have completed them and received invitation to AC, should I assume PFO?

You know you’ve been on here too long when you understand all the acronymish😭

 

[AlarmedBookkeeper448]

Anyone heard anything from Cleary and Hogan Lovells post-WG WVS, Slaughter's TC, JD SVS? Also, if W&C has yet to send a VI and people have completed them and received invitation to AC, should I assume PFO?

I saw someone post that for Slaughters TC (non-law) they had received an interview invite

 

[Andrei Radu]

Anyone have any tips on key areas to discuss for Freshfields personal statement. Am thinking of focusing on (1) cross-border expertise with focus on success in US market, (2) cross-functionality of corporate and litigation practices, and (3) uniqueness of training programme?

Hi @DulyDiligent! Just to add to @Ram Sabaratnam's great response, I think (1) and (3) are great, especially if you provide further analysis like Ram suggested. I think (2) can work as well, but you will have to be careful as to how you draft this as a USP, because there are other firms who arguably have this cross-functionality as well.

Regarding tips as to what else you could include, I would discuss Freshfields' leading corporate M&A credentials. In 2023 Freshfields was ranked above all the other magic circle firms in terms of both average deal value and total deal value. It is also arguably the leading firm for European M&A, topping most of the deal rankings.

 

[B101]

Hey @B101 and first of all huge congratulations, this is an amazing achievement 🥳! I don't have any W&C specific tips, but I thought it might be useful to quote here a post I made about my interview preparation method:

This is extremely helpful, thank you so much!

 

[Anonymous3444543]

Hi there, yes I did. Did you progress to the video interview stage? If yes do you have any tips on how to prepare.

I found the questions to be very basic questions in my opinion. Don’t overthink it

 

[bangarangbass39]

Two birds, one stone, one disillusioned and disheartened vac scheme applicant.

Brief update on my app cycle experience so far.

Rejected by those Two Birds from London today. Weren't a big fan of my chat evidently. Perhaps I was punching a bit much considering I didn't meet their "standards" (ABB instead of AAB).

Tried to set up a date with a bobby (CPS Paralegal Officer) also rejected me. In the meeting stage, I tend to get nervous and waffle, which I guess turned them off. Their friend (Paralegal assistant) seems quite nice, however. I'm sure we could have a nice time.

Banter aside, pretty disappointed by the CPS outcome. I'd drop all of my Commercial law apps for a public law position. It's so jarring because NONE of the services allow non-law grads w/o the PGDL to apply. It makes no sense why they are so behind the market. Every commercial firm accepts non-law students w/o PGDL and only requires that they complete the SQE (which they fund!) This means unless I self-fund, I can't apply for the direct trainee scheme. Arguably not beneficial for socially mobile backgrounds - I'm black and from a low socio-economic household.

A wise man once said, "I know you're sad, but listen...Two birds, one sky, just forget it"

 

[Apple]

Anyone heard anything from Cleary and Hogan Lovells post-WG WVS, Slaughter's TC, JD SVS? Also, if W&C has yet to send a VI and people have completed them and received invitation to AC, should I assume PFO?

You know you’ve been on here too long when you understand all the acronymish😭

Imagine reading this as someone with no interest in commercial law, its literally gibberish ahahah.