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Tips for tailoring an application
- Thread starter scics
- Start date
Hi there,
I know TCLA has incredibly detailed law firm profiles as part of its premium service. The profiles have information on law firms you won’t be able to readily find online, as I believe they use a magazine called ‘The Lawyer’ to write them, which costs in excess of hundreds of pounds a year to subscribe to. If you are able to invest in the premium service here, I would thoroughly recommend it! I speak from experience in using them to supplement my own research for my applications.
If you wanted to create your own profiles I would start by looking at some of the following criteria:
- Practice area strengths
- Global/domestic presence
- Sector strengths
- Training contract structure
- Diversity initiatives
- Business Strategy
- Pro-bono work
- Recent hires/areas of growth
- Culture
- Technology and Innovation
- Deals
- Awards
You then can use some of the these resources for research:
- Chambers Student/Lex100 (overview)
- The graduate brochure of each firm. Almost always you can find these online and contain super useful info for all criteria.
- Firm website - look at employee profiles, awards, blogs, and practice area overviews.
- IFLR1000 and MergerMarket (for deals)
- FT (awards, technology, sometimes business strategy)
- Legal500 (practice area strengths and clients)
- Google news - if you search the firm sometimes you get really interesting results (and other times next to nothing at all!)
- Legal Cheek (overview and understanding of culture)
- LinkedIn/firm’s social media profile (see what they’ve been up to pro bono/deals/research wise). You can also talk to people at the firm using LinkedIn, getting info you might not be able to find online.
- Firm open days - basically cover all the criteria to create a good profile.
- The Lawyer is the holy grail for law firm research, but the cost is not really accesible for most students.
I’m sure there are more resources but that’s quite a comprehensive list which will put you in good stead for writing a good profile.
Of course, it goes without saying that you need to then tie the information you’ve found on the firm to your personal interests when writing your applications. This is just as important as the research and requires some self-reflection.
I know TCLA has incredibly detailed law firm profiles as part of its premium service. The profiles have information on law firms you won’t be able to readily find online, as I believe they use a magazine called ‘The Lawyer’ to write them, which costs in excess of hundreds of pounds a year to subscribe to. If you are able to invest in the premium service here, I would thoroughly recommend it! I speak from experience in using them to supplement my own research for my applications.
If you wanted to create your own profiles I would start by looking at some of the following criteria:
- Practice area strengths
- Global/domestic presence
- Sector strengths
- Training contract structure
- Diversity initiatives
- Business Strategy
- Pro-bono work
- Recent hires/areas of growth
- Culture
- Technology and Innovation
- Deals
- Awards
You then can use some of the these resources for research:
- Chambers Student/Lex100 (overview)
- The graduate brochure of each firm. Almost always you can find these online and contain super useful info for all criteria.
- Firm website - look at employee profiles, awards, blogs, and practice area overviews.
- IFLR1000 and MergerMarket (for deals)
- FT (awards, technology, sometimes business strategy)
- Legal500 (practice area strengths and clients)
- Google news - if you search the firm sometimes you get really interesting results (and other times next to nothing at all!)
- Legal Cheek (overview and understanding of culture)
- LinkedIn/firm’s social media profile (see what they’ve been up to pro bono/deals/research wise). You can also talk to people at the firm using LinkedIn, getting info you might not be able to find online.
- Firm open days - basically cover all the criteria to create a good profile.
- The Lawyer is the holy grail for law firm research, but the cost is not really accesible for most students.
I’m sure there are more resources but that’s quite a comprehensive list which will put you in good stead for writing a good profile.
Of course, it goes without saying that you need to then tie the information you’ve found on the firm to your personal interests when writing your applications. This is just as important as the research and requires some self-reflection.
Last edited:
Jessica Booker
Legendary Member
TCLA Moderator
Gold Member
Graduate Recruitment
Premium Member
Forum Team
- Aug 1, 2019
- 14,468
- 20,148
The other thing about tailoring an application is making sure it is tailored to you.
This is where many people go wrong - they only tailor it to the firm and not to them and their motivations.
To do this you have to explore what you think you will enjoy working in firms, whether it’s the type of responsibilities you’ll have, the subjects, the ways in which you work etc. Doing this will then help you create your summary of firms - you don’t need to know everything about a firm but you do need to understand why it will appeal to you and why there is a decent chance you will stick to a career there too. And that tailoring should be slightly different for each applicant, which is why it will help your application stand out from the crowd.
This is where many people go wrong - they only tailor it to the firm and not to them and their motivations.
To do this you have to explore what you think you will enjoy working in firms, whether it’s the type of responsibilities you’ll have, the subjects, the ways in which you work etc. Doing this will then help you create your summary of firms - you don’t need to know everything about a firm but you do need to understand why it will appeal to you and why there is a decent chance you will stick to a career there too. And that tailoring should be slightly different for each applicant, which is why it will help your application stand out from the crowd.
The biggest thing I can EVER tell you is don't name drop seats and not know what they do/where they work:
Doing these allow you to tailor your application to the firm and to yourself. Best of all - you can literally find this on the company website and look at previous cases from partners (are they mainly working with UK/German/US/Indian ETC companies? Does that mean that the seat is international? Transatlantic exclusive? etc).
- Different seats can sometimes work in completely different locations - so saying you love international work in a competition seat that focuses on the UK is a faux pas as it shows a lack of research
- Ensure you can talk about at least one key concept used in that seat - PE? Leveraged finance. M&A? Are you able to tell the different ways businesses can merge/aquire one another. This shows you
- Think about how you see yourself in that area in the long term - but also try to think about other opportunities - "While I thoroughly enjoy X, while I am on my TC I hope to explore X because Y"
Doing these allow you to tailor your application to the firm and to yourself. Best of all - you can literally find this on the company website and look at previous cases from partners (are they mainly working with UK/German/US/Indian ETC companies? Does that mean that the seat is international? Transatlantic exclusive? etc).
Am I likely to understand/be introduced to these concepts in first year? or do i need to do my own research to better understand thins like leveraged finance for example.
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