• How confident are you in your knowledge of the core LLB/PGDL subjects, including Contract, Tort, Trusts, Land, Criminal, and Public Law?

    TCLA is teaming up with BPP for a free interactive event designed to refresh your fundamentals, especially for those interested in or planning to take the SQE. We'll practise multiple choice SQE questions, with prizes for the highest scoring participants!

    Register Here

TCLA Vacation Scheme Applications Discussion Thread 2024-25

ecohorts

Standard Member
Apr 5, 2023
7
9
Hey! Has anyone got any advice for the SPB AC? I’m really anxious especially about the written exercise and group task. Any advice would be appreciated!! Also I’m really confused about the impact of the current tarriffs being imposed by the US on law firms. If anyone could explain this that would be great :)
 
  • 🏆
Reactions: Chris Brown

3000to1shoteverytime

Legendary Member
Dec 9, 2023
182
224
Hey! Has anyone got any advice for the SPB AC? I’m really anxious especially about the written exercise and group task. Any advice would be appreciated!! Also I’m really confused about the impact of the current tarriffs being imposed by the US on law firms. If anyone could explain this that would be great :)
When is yours? I thought they had finished their ACs ?
 

lawstudent2

Distinguished Member
Dec 9, 2024
64
70
Personally, I have had a very positive experience with TCLA Premium Gold. I’ve secured 3 VS at MC/Silver Circle firms (this is my first application cycle and those VS offers resulted from my first three ACs), and I genuinely believe that this wouldn’t have been possible without TCLA Premium and advice from the TCLA Community.

In terms of TCLA Premium, I found the Premium database and the courses on case studies/situational judgement (scenario-based) interview questions most helpful, alongside some of the ‘firm profiles’ as well.
Thank you!
 
  • Like
Reactions: ad.

Jessica Booker

Legendary Member
TCLA Moderator
Gold Member
Graduate Recruitment
Premium Member
Forum Team
Aug 1, 2019
15,304
21,385
@Jessica Booker Is it safe to sell successful applications to services like TCLA/ Commercial Law Academy/ NextCityLawyer? I'm selling the one whose firm's VS I'm not accepting, if somehow I got caught (even though it's anonymised), could there be any consequences? Would the SRA see it as a problem?
The SRA have never taken any action against lawyers who have sold careers advisory services and they have been identifiable. Therefore they are unlikely to take action against someone who isn’t identifiable. If we felt it was a problem, it wouldn’t be something we facilitated anyway.

Ultimately your application form is your content so I think it would be difficult to find an angle of this being an SRA issue.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Chris Brown

Amma Usman

Legendary Member
Staff member
Future Trainee
Gold Member
Premium Member
Sep 7, 2024
937
1,143
If I can't find the name of a firm's recruitment, who do I address a cover letter to? Also, I would appreciate if anyone has any tips for drafting a legal cover letter (how to approach it, what kind of questions to asnwer etc) thank you!
Hey,

Usually, “Dear Graduate Recruitment Team” or “Dear Hiring Manager” is fine.

Three key things to cover include;

- Why commercial law.
- Why X firm.
- Skills, experiences, achievements, which make you stand out as a candidate - essentially “why you”.
 

Andrei Radu

Legendary Member
Staff member
Future Trainee
Gold Member
Premium Member
Sep 9, 2024
690
1,255
Hi Andrei,

How would you advise researching how the legal work done in practice areas is different from one another?
Firstly, to be able to make relevant comparisons between their work you will need to have a high level understanding of what each practice area does. A useful concept here is the transactional/contentious/advisory distinction:
  • Transactional practices: core purpose is to enable clients to complete deals, focus of work will be around preparation of contractual documents and negotiating favorable terms (with research and drafting tasks mostly pertaining to that).
  • Contentious practices: core purpose is to obtain favorable outcomes in disputes, whether via a settlement or a more litigious procedure, work being therefore focused on presenting (and responding to) good legal arguments.
  • Advisory practices: core purpose it to help client understand their legal position within a particular field and to help them structure their business in compliance with it; thus, work is concentrated around researching complex legal and regulatory frameworks.
After you identify where the practice are you are interested in is placed between these categories, you will want to better understand the work done by other practice areas in the same category (as they will be most similar, and therefore finding differences here will be most difficult). To understand the basics of the work done by these other practices, I would have a read through the Chambers practice area overviews.

Finally, you want to get the most detailed understanding possible of the specific practice you want to differentiate from others. I would use a combination of targeted Google searches with different variations of relevant key words ('name of practice are' and 'junior lawyer work', 'trainee tasks' etc) in conjunction with the Chambers UK overviews (for a shorter and more high level description) and then the Practical Law/Westlaw Practice Area Introductory Guides (which are very comprehensive but in many places go in more depth than you need). Throughout your readings, actively consider questions such as the following:
  • Is there any particular task or set of tasks that are more needed in these areas than others?
  • What is the basic rationale of clients paying for service in this practice? What is their commercial benefit, and does it different from that in other practices?
  • Does the class of clients most often advised by this practice differ from that of other practice areas?
 

Andrei Radu

Legendary Member
Staff member
Future Trainee
Gold Member
Premium Member
Sep 9, 2024
690
1,255
@Jessica Booker Is it safe to sell successful applications to services like TCLA/ Commercial Law Academy/ NextCityLawyer? I'm selling the one whose firm's VS I'm not accepting, if somehow I got caught (even though it's anonymised), could there be any consequences? Would the SRA see it as a problem?
Just to add to Jessica's response, I am also quite certain there is no issue with selling past applications. Written applications are your own work and therefore you have a (at least prima facie) right to do as you wish with them. As compared to information or materials you may have obtained during interviews or a VS, an application cannot be argued to be covered by any kind of confidentiality agreement. The only conceivable angle where the SRA could take issue with this would be around its 0-tolerance for dishonesty policies for character suitability assessments. However, since (i) platforms like the ones you have mentioned only advertise past applications as illustrative examples of what a good application should be (and not as something to copy and paste from); (ii) firms generally have effective automated systems to check plagiarism; (iii) access to past applications is quite widely available in university law society mentorship schemes; and (iv) wanting to access to model applications as a means to review one's own work is a legitimate motivation and stands to improve quality of application, I definitely think selling your applications would not be deemed as 'dishonest'.
 

About Us

The Corporate Law Academy (TCLA) was founded in 2018 because we wanted to improve the legal journey. We wanted more transparency and better training. We wanted to form a community of aspiring lawyers who care about becoming the best version of themselves.

Newsletter

Discover the most relevant business news, access our law firm analysis, and receive our best advice for aspiring lawyers.