Vacation Scheme Student Review

I had an amazing time on the summer vacation scheme, we were treated very well with lots of social events from a BBQ and drinks to citydash and dinner at the Corinthia hotel. I was able to sit in two different departments over the course of my two weeks at the firm (private equity and IP) and both of my trainers were very friendly, taking a lot of time to explain concepts and tell me about their experiences at A&O.

As already mentioned, we were treated to many very nice socials and made to feel like it was very much a two-way process where us liking the firm and establishing whether it was a good fit was just as important as them assessing us. Everyone I encountered, irrespective of seniority, was incredibly open, friendly and more than willing to go for coffee and have a chat to answer any questions I might have had or to tell me about their department and their experience at the firm.

A&O managed to achieve a really good balance whereby we had autonomy and were encouraged to seek out other trainees to arrange individual coffee sessions to ask questions and also to seek out work by introducing ourselves to others in the department. That said, graduate recruitment were always on hand if we had any problems and we all had an assigned trainee buddy who we could run any questions by and generally everyone was more than willing to help you whenever you needed it.

I am not sure that the skills I developed and information I received will help me particularly with regard to my degree but as far as future career decisions and understanding the nature of the trainee role and what is required to be successful is concerned, they will be invaluable. I now have a far better understanding of the type of work corporate lawyers are involved in, the kind of tasks trainees are assigned and what is expected of you in order to do them well. I have also learned a lot about how any work you do or advice you might give needs always to be tailored with the client in mind rather than from a purely legalistic standpoint. As well as this, over the course of the scheme I have learnt a lot more about the career track for lawyers in the firm, I have come to understand more about the role of lawyers in a business context and also been able to view the firm as a business itself, looking at markets and technology innovations governing its future strategy.

As already mentioned, the firm achieved a good balance between giving us an appropriate level of autonomy to find our own work and arrange our own meetings alongside pre-planned graduate recruitment talks and social events, HR sessions, as well as talks from partners and training sessions on business development and presentation skills.

Consistently friendly and open, being told from the first day that there were places for everyone provided we met the required standard went a long way to prevent there being any competition between people on the scheme and fostered a far more team-centric atmosphere in which we were all more relaxed and better able to get to know one another and develop together over the course of the week. With fairly limited assessments (we had a written task and a presentation) there was not the feeling you might expect of being constantly examined and tested.

We had multiple sessions on presentation skills, business development and how to succeed on the vacation scheme. Graduate recruitment were always happy to assist us in putting us in touch with anyone we might want to meet and emphasised how much of what we were doing was more about personal development and getting on the job experience rather than being purely about assessment.

Trainee and trainer insights were particularly helpful in this regard as we were able to find out what their working life was like and how that changed from department to department. We were never expected to stay any later than 17:30 so in this was I don't think we personally experienced the life of a full-time lawyer at the firm. That said, during the time spent at the office, both my trainers were keen to expose me to a variety of tasks to give me and idea of the kind of work they are involved in and what I might be doing if I were to join A&O as a trainee.

Lots of exposure to staff at the most junior and most senior levels and plenty of opportunity to socialise with them and to arrange one on one meetings meant that it was easy to get an insight into firm culture. Spending a lot of time sat with our trainers in the office environment was also a great insight into this.

I was already fairly certain of the career path I wanted to take but being at A&O helped to affirm this and helped me to better identify the kind of place that would best suit me culturally in future.

We were paid £450 per week for a two-week scheme.

See above.

See above.

From day one we were invited to attend coffee catch-ups with various sports and society groups we had expressed an interest in prior to starting on the scheme.

Absolutely, it's a fantastic insight into the life of a corporate law at one of biggest and most highly regarded law firms in the world.