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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Carrabino" data-source="post: 102736" data-attributes="member: 16764">Please find my Application Pitfalls post for Week 3 of January below! As always, please reach out with any questions <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" />JANUARY WEEK 3Beginning sentences with ‘this’‘This demonstrates’ or ‘This is why I admire’ creates problems when it is unclear what ‘this’ is referring to. Sometimes a whole paragraph will start with ‘This shows…’ as if to say that all the points brought up in the previous paragraph culminate into your conclusion.Always keep your language precise. If the reader cannot work out what you are referring to, then it is likely that you were not entirely clear in your own mind about the point you were trying to make. In such an instance, your point will be a lot weaker than if you were to spend time clarifying your thoughts and conveying your idea in precise language.Unwittingly undermining a prior point‘I am particularly attracted to the firm’s small trainee intake, as I will have the opportunity to take responsibility early on. Although small intakes are not uncommon, I think that it will provide an excellent environment for my training and development.’Candidates are often nervous to make a point if they are not sure about how valid it is, so they try to qualify it in the following sentence. If anything, this only serves to undermine the point overall. In the example above, why is a firm’s small trainee intake a selling point worth mentioning if a lot of firms have a small trainee intake?State your points confidently – even if the details are not 100% correct, your thoughts will come across much more clearly this way!Offering unrealistic motivations‘I want to be a commercial lawyer because I am passionate about analysing documents in detail’.Really?Many candidates write something to this effect. Now, it is good to demonstrate that you know what a career in law entails; it often will involve detailed document analysis. Also, it is good to show your genuine excitement and passion for the career that you are about to pursue. But simply stating that you are passionate about something does not convince the reader that you are passionate about it…especially when it sounds like a rather dry and boring task.Remember – show, don’t tell! Discuss how you love the sense of reward you feel after really understanding the crux of a complex area of law and being able to apply that understanding within your submission to a client. Perhaps mention times that you have really excelled when using a skill such as analysis.Your answer need not explicitly state that you are ‘passionate’ about the issue and it can even leave open the possibility for you to find the task very boring at times. Nevertheless, it can more convincingly demonstrate the drive and passion that you bring to your work, even when it is not the most stimulating work in the world. This will help you craft an excellent answer on your motivations.Explaining your motivation with another motivationOn a similar note to the above point, many applicants seem to have difficulty explaining their motivations more generally. I have frequently seen sentences such as, ‘I am interested in becoming a commercial solicitor because I want to use legal solutions to help clients reach desirable business outcomes’.This expresses vague knowledge of what a commercial solicitor does, but is in effect just saying that ‘I want to become a commercial solicitor because I want to become a commercial solicitor’.Even if the candidate is more specific by saying ‘I want to become a commercial solicitor because I want a career that involves teamwork and international collaboration’, I would still ask, ‘So why do you want a career that involves teamwork and international collaboration’?Try not to use a motivation for one thing to describe a motivation for another, without ever actually explaining the reason behind either of your motivations.Using superfluous words<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">‘Currently, global transport is a particularly pertinent topic given that transport logistics have been under heavy spotlight and scrutiny recently’.</li> </ul>‘Spotlight’ and ‘scrutiny’ have slightly different meanings but not quite different enough, in my opinion, to use both in a law firm application answer. Try to avoid writing a pair of words or a group of phrases simply with the goal of making your sentence sound nice – those words are better spent making a new point!<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">‘The firm holds a large market share within four niche and specialised sectors’.</li> </ul>The same principle applies here; in my opinion, only ‘specialised’ is needed and not ‘niche’.Placing too much emphasis on common firm talking pointsCandidates regularly manage to use nearly identical sentences to each other when they try to describe why they are attracted to a firm’s culture. This will often take the form of a candidate quoting a trainee who described the ‘hands-on’ approach or ‘welcoming environment’ at the firm. It can be great that you have spoken to or heard from someone at the firm, but be wary of espousing the firm’s talking points when, in reality, every single firm claims to have the exact same strengths.An example of an answer to the question ‘Why this firm’ which could be written by any applicant and which could apply to any firm is as follows:‘Having talked to trainees, I appreciate that the welcoming and friendly culture makes XYZ LLP stand out. I am eager to work in a team that is respectful and collaborative. The small teams and focus on formal training would make XYZ LLP a perfect learning environment for me’.Honestly, I tend to find that making points about a firm’s culture can be a bit tenuous unless the firm really does have something unique about the way it operates (finding this can require a high level of research).Notes from this week’s spelling/grammar errorsCompound adjectives should be hyphenated – development-oriented, litigation-focused, hands-on and strength-based are all examples of compounds in which multiple words combine to form a single descriptive word that is used as an adjective. These compound adjectives should have hyphens to indicate that they are essentially being used as a single word.Apostrophes after ‘S’ – only words which have been made plural using an ‘s’ have the apostrophe at the very end. An item of mine would be James’s, not James’ – the latter would imply that the item belonged to multiple individuals called Jame.Capitalisation – if it is a proper noun, like the title of a firm, someone’s name, or the title of a specific practice group at a firm (as opposed to a general area of law like ‘litigation’), then it should be capitalised. Otherwise, there is usually no need to do so.</blockquote>

Verification: Our company is called, "The Corporate ___ Academy". What is the missing word here?

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