Vacation Scheme Review

I enjoyed it a lot. I sat in the Real Estate department and I was exposed a lot of different tasks. This gave me a good insight into how the department worked, and what type of clients that the firm does work for. Everyone was very welcoming and encouraged me to ask questions.

A lot of people took an interest in us as Vacation Scheme students. They all knew who we were and kept asking us how our week was going. A lot of people turned up to the social events and would be genuinely interested in hearing how they compare to other firms.

We had a pack of documents that set out our timetable for the week. We also had IT training and had a Q&A session with the trainees. This significantly helped, as we always knew where we needed to be and it was easy to ask people questions about how the firm worked.

I have already done all my legal studies and I am currently doing the LPC on a part-time basis. It felt good to use what I learned in practice. I also enjoyed the fact that I was doing work for real files, so I could see what kind of work that the client required.

It was very well structured. The assessments were spread out so you got time to recover from one assessment centre before you had another. I never felt that any of the Q&A/training sessions dragged as they had a sufficient amount of detail. The placement lasted for 1 week and the week went very quickly.

All of the other Vacation Scheme students were very friendly. It was good to talk to them as it meant that you could empathise with people who were in the same boat. It was also useful to hear their experiences from other departments so you had a good idea of what type of work the firm did.

The firm invested in me by offering payment for the week's work experience. Partners of the firm took time to talk to us and asked us lots of questions for our reasons for deciding to do work experience at the firm. They also paid for some of the social events.

I was given tasks that a trainee would do, so I felt that it gave a very good insight into what like would be like at the firm. I also noticed how Partners tended to give out work to its trainees, so it gave a real picture into how the department operated.

The insight helped a great deal in understanding the company culture. They employees say that it is a firm which does things differently, which was very apparent when I did work experience there. Every department seemed to have its own culture, so it was worthwhile learning the differences between the departments.

I already know that I want to qualify as a solicitor. I am more interested in contentious work, but I had never really experienced transactional work before. It was useful having experience in Real Estate as it has helped me thinking carefully about which area of law I want to qualify into.