TCLA Vacation Scheme Applications Discussion Thread 2024-25

[A worried graduate]

Difficult to know exactly beyond either replicating the training model (just outside of the apprenticeship funding) or finding an alternative method.

Probably a good question to ask them at events or at interview, or to check in with the firm if you already have an offer from them.

I will ask in the event that I somehow get an interview.

 

[Andrei Radu]

Hey guys, ahead of my vac scheme at Goodwin I would really appreciate any good advice for maximising my chance of converting it into a TC. (For context the VS is a week long.)

My background is non-law and I have never done a vac scheme before so I would be going in blind in a sense. I'm also open to investing in any paid services that anyone would personally recommend.

I selected a few seat preferences but I haven't gotten any confirmation as to where I would be sitting. I know that there will be a written exercise task and a group assessment but that's basically all the info I have.

Separately, but quite randomly, I have been looking to reactivate my premium LinkedIn because I have ran out of personalised invites to send to Trainees at the firm but it's either £30 a month of £180 for a year. Is it worth the investment or should I seek alternative methods such as trying to email for a discount of leaving it altogether?

More specifically for your question, since you are from a non-law background I would invest more time into understanding how the firm's different practice areas work and complement each other. I think this is helpful both in enabling you to deliver a higher quality of work and in showing off commercial awareness that goes beyond just being aware of what is going on in the business world. Furthermore, detailed understanding of the inner workings of a firm's departments shows a higher level of commitment to law, which is very important for a non-law candidate.

For the LinkedIn question, while this is a decision for you to make and while it certainly won't harm you in any way to get the premium version, I do not think it is merited. Connecting with trainees before the scheme is good, but besides getting a few lines of advice and showing a proactive attitude, it will only do so much in increasing your conversion chances. I also think that if you put 'Incoming Vacation Scheme at X firm' in you Experience section on your profile, most trainees who are active on LinkedIn will accept your connection request, whether you send a personalized invite or not.

 

[Andrei Radu]

I have a paralegal interview soon and I’m not sure how to prepare for it. This is my first one. Does anyone have any advice? Would really appreciate it!

@Jessica Booker @Ram Sabaratnam @Andrei Radu @Amma Usman

Hi @user9809 I think the way you should go about preparing for a paralegal interview will be very similar to the way you should prepare for a VS/TC interview. A lot of the questions will go along the same lines, testing your competencies, reflection on prior experiences, situational judgement, motivations for law and the firm, and commercial awareness. As such, I advise you to read my Complete Interview Preparation Guide - it provides a detailed breakdown of my best tips.

However, I do think that there will be some differences, as the firm will surely seek to test your understanding of the role of the paralegal. As such, you should prepare answers for questions such as:

• What do you think the day to day role of a paralegal is? What kind of tasks and workstreams do they assist lawyers with?
• What skills do you have that will allow you to successfully fulfil the specific responsibilities of this this role?
• How does a paralegal's work and role differ from that of a trainee?
• Why do you want to work as a paralegal, rather than as a trainee?

Finally, if you know the practice area you would work in, you should work on improving your understanding of:

1. How that practice area differs from other practices of the firm - what different service does it deliver, and how does its day to day work differ?
2. What is the firm's specific market position for this practice area - who are their competitors, who are their core clients? etc.
3. What are relevant trends and developments in the area?
4. What types of tasks does a paralegal assist with in this area specifically, and why is this type of work of interest to you?

 

[Justin]

Has anyone heard back from Aspiring Solicitor's Sky internship?

I got an email just now inviting me to MCQ'S.

 

[Amma Usman]

Hiya @BobThebIlly

First off, well done on those impressive scores for assumptions (88%) and evaluating arguments (100%). Those are fantastic and show you’ve really nailed those sections! Let’s focus on the “drawing conclusions” part and see how you can improve in the short time you have.

The Watson Glaser tests your ability to draw conclusions in two specific sections - the deduction section, as well as the inference section.

Deductions: This section tests your ability to make a deduction. With deductions, you are trying to find what follows absolutely and necessarily from the premises you are given, and just assume that all those premises are true. For example:

• Premise 1: All cats have whiskers
• Premise 2: Ram is a cat (this premise is false, but for the purpose of your deduction just assume it's true)
• Conclusion: Ram has whiskers

Notice that, in the above argument, if you assume the initial premises are true, then the conclusion follows necessarily and absolutely. This reflects the way you should be 'drawing conclusions' in the deduction section.

The inference section, by contrast, tests your ability to draw conclusions in more probabilistic ways. They are not asking you to identify what follows absolutely or necessarily. Rather, they involve asking what conclusions are probable or strongly suggested by the evidence though not certain (e.g. follow strongly). For the purposes of the inference section, there are two styles of reasoning that you should become familiar with:

1. Inductions: Imagine you’re a scientist studying bird migration. Over the course of several years, you observe that geese in a particular region always migrate south during the winter. Based on these repeated observations, you draw the conclusion "Geese in this region migrate south every winter." This is a good conclusion to draw because it's based on consistent and repeated evidence. However, it’s not certain (there could be a year when some geese don’t migrate for an unexpected reason, like illness or environmental changes). Induction involves drawing conclusions to make predictions about the future or generalisations about a group based on observed patterns. To understand whether an inference is a strong one, you'll also want to familiarise yourself with the ways people get inductions wrong. These include, but are not limited to:
   • Overgeneralising: This occurs when someone draws a broad conclusion based on too few examples. For instance, seeing two aggressive dogs and concluding that all dogs are aggressive is an overgeneralisation. The sample size is too small to justify the conclusion.
     
     
   • Sampling Bias: Drawing conclusions from an unrepresentative sample can lead to faulty reasoning. For example, surveying only a small group of people from one region and assuming their preferences reflect an entire population’s preferences is misleading.
     
     
   • Ignoring Counterexamples: Inductive reasoning requires considering exceptions, but people sometimes disregard counterexamples that weaken their conclusions. For instance, concluding that "all swans are white" without accounting for black swans ignores evidence that challenges the generalisation. Pay attention to whether the question stem and information you're being offered provides any potential counter evidence.
     
     
   • Confusing causation and correlation: People often assume that because two things happen together, one causes the other. For example, observing that ice cream sales increase in summer alongside shark attacks might lead someone to wrongly conclude that eating ice cream causes shark attacks. In reality, both are linked to a third factor: hot weather.
2. Abductions: This involves selecting the most likely explanation based on the available evidence. For example, if you find fur on your couch and a chewed slipper, you might reasonably conclude that your dog is responsible. While other explanations are logically possible (e.g. such as a neighbour's cat sneaking into your house unnoticed to chew the slipper and shed fur on the couch) - these are far less plausible, especially if you have a dog at home. Abductive reasoning is particularly useful in situations where the evidence is incomplete or ambiguous. It allows us to make practical, reasonable conclusions by focusing on the explanation that best fits the facts. This approach is commonly used in problem-solving, diagnosing issues, and decision-making, as it prioritises what is most likely rather than what is merely possible.

Appreciating these different ways of 'drawing a conclusion' is important because you want to ensure that you're using the appropriate form of reasoning depending on the section you're working on. Mistaking one for another can lead to choosing the wrong answers in that section.

Hope this helps and my apologies in advance for the length of my reply!

Quick WG Assumption Q:

For humankind to survive, it must colonise other planets.
Assumption - There will be a time when the Earth can no longer sustain human life.

Am I right in saying that an assumption has been made here?

The only thing I can think of against this is that Earth may very well sustain human life, but not be sufficient. Then again, that would mean that it technically cannot sustain human life, and therefore, the assumption is made.

Also, if I were to invert this: There will be a time when the Earth can sustain human life, then the proposed statement becomes redundant, which should logically indicate that there is an assumption, no?

3.30 am yk, I hate these damn tests.

I have quoted a past post @Ram Sabaratnam has made on the WG (deductions) to help. I’m sure he’ll have more insights on how to tackle this assumption-type question too.

 

[trainee4u]

I got an email just now inviting me to MCQ'S.

so did I.

Big question is did anyone get PFOed/not invited?

It says:

This exercise involves answering 20 multiple choice questions to test your general commercial awareness.
These questions will cover areas such as:
Organisations and people e.g. “who is the CEO of…?”
Commercial concepts e.g. “what is a debt?”
Financial instruments e.g. “what is a bond?”
Global finance e.g. “the Euro is valued against...?” [not sure what this one means, market sentiment, economy size, military might, etc?]
All questions will have multiple choice answers to choose from, you must select the correct answer. You will be required to complete the exercise within 4 minutes. You must complete this exercise by 1pm on 31 March.

 

[bluescarf]

Hill Dickinson AC invite just now!! So happy, my first this year!

 

[gazdgazd11]

Hill Dickinson AC invite just now!! So happy, my first this year!

Congrats! What time did you get the email if you don’t mind

 

[bluescarf]

Congrats! What time did you get the email if you don’t mind

Thanks, it was 15:15!

 

[tomaspessanha]

Has anyone been rejected by mishcon post-vi?

 

[tomaspessanha]

And has anyone heard back from Paul Hastings?

 

[legallyells]

Hill Dickinson AC invite just now!! So happy, my first this year!

Same see you there!! 🥳

 

[trainee4u]

so did I.

Big question is did anyone get PFOed/not invited?

It says:

This exercise involves answering 20 multiple choice questions to test your general commercial awareness.
These questions will cover areas such as:
Organisations and people e.g. “who is the CEO of…?”
Commercial concepts e.g. “what is a debt?”
Financial instruments e.g. “what is a bond?”
Global finance e.g. “the Euro is valued against...?” [not sure what this one means, market sentiment, economy size, military might, etc?]
All questions will have multiple choice answers to choose from, you must select the correct answer. You will be required to complete the exercise within 4 minutes. You must complete this exercise by 1pm on 31 March.

Just did the test.

It was pretty easy, but I was spending too much time on the questions and managed to get #17 wrong due to rushing, and ran out of time on #20. Not sure if it let me submit or not, but I just picked randomly and gave the wrong answer anyway. 18/20, not sure what their benchmark is.....

 

[gazdgazd11]

Thanks, it was 15:15!

Just got one too xx congrats

 

[j.a55293]

Has anyone still not heard back from Winston & Strawn? Not sure what to expect bc I saw both WG invites and PFO's yesterday.

 

[User5678]

Hill Dickinson AC invite just now!! So happy, my first this year!

Congratulations to you and everyone who got invited, best of luck

If you don’t mind me asking which group were you allocated and when is ur ac?

@bluescarf
@gazdgazd11 @Anon Lawyer

 

[legallady123]

Whats going on with WBD? Has anyone tried emailing? Its quite frustrating that they said we would hear back by the 7th of March and they still havent provided outcomes.

I did email them two weeks ago asking when we should expect to hear back and they said they were still working their way through applications and would aim to get back to people within a couple of weeks. So hopefully it will be this week or next!

 

[johnnysins]

Has anyone still not heard back from Winston & Strawn? Not sure what to expect bc I saw both WG invites and PFO's yesterday.

I think it's good to not have gotten a response yet, typically WG invites are staggered over days/weeks and not sent out instantly all at once so "no news is good news" (fingers crossed for your receiving a WG!)

 

[AlegalA]

Does anyone have insights on DACB's AC, or the firm in general? They don't have that many exterior resources bar Legal Cheek, and although I'm going through their website I still feel like I'm missing some extra details...

Thank you!!

 

[gazdgazd11]

Congratulations to you and everyone who got invited, best of luck

If you don’t mind me asking which group were you allocated and when is ur ac?

@legallyells @bluescarf
@gazdgazd11

Hey, thanks. It’s marine in London / 22 April