Vacation Scheme Student Review

The experience was hugely enjoyable both with respect to the work and the social events. There was a lot of variation in the tasks I was given, I learnt a lot, and everyone in the office was very engaging and cheerful. It was a great month and a good insight into working life at the firm.

Coming from a non-law subject at university I was worried I would not be able to get very involved, but all of the tasks were very accessible and people were very happy to explain the basic premise of the work and point me in the right direction for more resources. I was given work by my principals and trainee buddies which was real and necessary, and I very much became part of the departments I was in while I was there.

The trainee buddy system is very good, giving the students on the vacation scheme a junior member of the company to go to for tips and help. They were very keen to talk and explain, and always checked on how you were doing to make sure the pupils didn’t let themselves get into a pickle. The graduate recruitment staff were also always on hand and involved on making sure everyone knew what they were doing and were happy.

The vacation scheme allowed me to see how I could apply the skills of my degree (language analysis, attention to detail etc) to the real business world, and the scheme showed how comfortable I could become with both legal terminology and documents in a short time, certainly setting me up for the Training Contract interview.

The vacation scheme was very well structured with a timetable of talks, time in the department working and social events in the evening. There was no point when the students were at a loss of what to do. Everything was well organised. The only point to mention would be sometimes the availability of work in the departments was haphazard (naturally so as the tasks had to be appropriate), but there are always ways to occupy yourself with the wealth of online resources if there is a lull in work for an afternoon.

The atmosphere of Linklaters was the most striking part of the vacation scheme. Everyone was friendly, cheerful and engaging, and the office atmosphere was neither excessively hierarchical nor unpleasantly serious. The people there made me want to work there and were so important towards making my vacation scheme the joy it was.

The work we were given was very much real work, and it did reflect the kind of work trainees at the firm would do, both in its variation and in its substance. It is true we were mostly insulated from experiencing the late nights in the office that comes with working for such a big law firm, but no one ever tried to hide the negatives of the job and everyone was very upfront about everything to make sure we were as well informed as possible.

Linklaters very much wears the culture of the company on its sleeve. The working atmosphere is friendly and light coupled with very hard work, while the wider culture is one of a good job done well. The vacation scheme gave me a very good idea of this quickly, and by the end of the scheme I knew the culture was one that really suited me.

The scheme was make it or break it for me, with regards to whether I wanted to work in commercial law. I was unsure how much I would enjoy both the work and the culture before the scheme, and afterwards I was set on becoming a solicitor, at least for the first chunk of my working life.

The graduate recruitment team put a lot of work into organising a large range of different social activities with many different groups of people from around the firm. The group of us on the scheme ended up close after our month together (even though we mainly worked in different departments), and there was always something to look forward to.

I would never have been able to know I wanted to work in commercial law without taking part in a scheme like this. If you are thinking about commercial law, Linklaters are a great firm to look at. Their culture is inclusive and inviting, the work was interesting and taxing, the socials were first rate. I would highly recommend having this firm on your list.