Vacation Scheme Student Review

The experience was fantastic. As a summer vacation scheme student, I was welcomed fully into the working life of the firm and had the opportunity to complete various interesting tasks, ranging from legal research to helping with drafting contracts to writing letters to clients. Furthermore, the array of social activities were invaluable in getting to know the other vacation scheme students and trainees at the firm, so the experience was not solely work but rather a brilliant presentation of Hogan Lovells and the opportunities that it offers.

I was treated as an employee of the firm whilst at Hogen Lovells, accorded a great deal of respect from all of the lawyers who I was working with and encouraged to participate in the whole spread of work which was on offer. There were no attempts to distance me from certain areas of work. On the contrary, I was integrated into the tasks that my supervisor and others were working on and always informed of how my work had assisted the lawyers.

The lawyers who set me tasks would always take the necessary time when introducing the task to me to make sure that I fully understand what they were expecting from me and the most efficient way of producing it. In addition, I was provided with thorough and constructive feedback after completing my tasks, so I always felt that I learnt something valuable from every task which I was involved in.

The skills which I significantly developed during my time at the firm were efficiency and succintness of writing. Given that deadlines are more frequent and short term at law firms than they usually are at university, I became accustomed to finding efficient solutions to problems rather than spending excessive amounts of time on particular projects when this time would have been better spent working on something else. In addition, law firm clients typically have less patience than tutors in reading unnecessarily wordy tasks, therefore my ability to write succintly improved, which I hope will have a quality impact on my written work in my final year of university.

I can't fault the structure of the insight in the slightest. All of the practice group presentations were well organized and we were made well aware of where we needed to be at particular times of the day if there was a presentation/other event which needed to be attended. Furthermore, the transport provided to the social events in the evenings didn't throw up any problems. A very well organized and structured scheme.

The atmosphere at Hogan Lovells was the most influential factor in persuading me to accept their training contract offer rather than any offer. I felt able to approach the vast majority of people who I encountered in the firm to talk about careers or the work of the firm. Furthermore, lawyers apart from my assigned supervisors were always happy to involve me in their work. A factor which was particularly memorable was how welcoming the Hogan Lovells choir were when I asked if I could sing with them whilst at the firm, inviting me to sing with them at the various concerts they put on during my time there. Without a doubt, a highly positive and warm atmosphere to work in.

I don't think that it would have been reasonable to expect the firm to invest any more time in my training than it did. The induction was very thorough and the feedback given on all of the completed tasks was also very constructive and geared towards helping me to learn from any errors which I'd made. Furthermore, there were regular meetings with all of my supervisors whilst at the firm to discuss my progress and highlight any points of improvements.

I don't think the firm could have done any more to help, but I think that it's inherent in vac schemes that it can be difficult to fully understand the true nature of a full-time role, given that we are not working the same long hours as the lawyers at the firm and there are many tasks which we are simply not able to involve ourselves in, given the stage that we're at. However, all of the lawyers who I met were keen to talk about how they felt about the job (both the positives and the negatives!) and I was taken to various meetings, so was able to gain a fair insight into the life of a full-time lawyer on a day to day basis.

Given that I was working for three weeks in the firm, with a week in three different departments, I would say that I got to know the culture very well and how it varied across the firm. Working in three departments means that I was exposed to a greater variety of people, so helped to reinforce the very positive impression that I formed of the culture at Hogan Lovells. However, three weeks will never be long enough to get a full insight into the culture of a firm - more time is needed.

The range of tasks which I was involved in, across the three departments, was invaluable in reinforcing my belief that commercial law is my ideal career path. Even regarding the tasks which we weren't able to take part in, we were able to discuss with the lawyers what they were doing and how they would go about these tasks. Furthermore, the various practice group presentations were highly interactive so helped me to not only decide on commercial law, but also get a feel for which area of work within commercial law I would be most inclined to work in.

The pay was £400 per week.

There were multiple opportunities for networking throughout the whole three weeks, and what was particularly memorable was the regular contact with partners, all of whom were keen to take time out of their busy days to talk about our aspirations and what the firm can offer us. These opportunities took a variety of forms: dinners, drinks events, escape the room evenings, it was a fantastically varied mix!

The networking/social event opportunities struck exactly the right balance between being very fun for all of us (especially the evening trips to the darts club and escape the room) and also giving us plenty of time to talk to the lawyers and Graduate Recruitment Team. What's more, there were about 2 evening events a week, which I thought was perfect as it meant that there were regular fun activities to get involved in but without having to commit to too many evenings out when sometimes I'd prefer to go home and relax after the working day! Also, there were weekly lunches with the partners, and we were all assigned a trainee buddy to make sure that everything was running smoothly during the scheme.

In the introductory pack of materials that we received at the start of the scheme, there was a list of extra-curricular activities with contact numbers of the organizers, so that we could get involved in these if we wished to. I attended the choir rehearsals on a weekly basis during my time at Hogan Lovells, and also sang with the choir in a concert during my time there.

Without a doubt. If you're interested in getting to know commercial law and want to experience a varied and interesting three weeks at a top law firm, Hogan Lovells is the place for you!