Vacation scheme student Review

I did enjoy the vacation scheme with Simmons and Simmons. This was not my first scheme, so it was useful to be able to compare the various schemes completed to date. Generally, I found the people friendly and the work was quite interesting, too. Some areas which should be improved.

For me, this varied depending whom you were working with/for. You have a trainee mentor for each week, and a supervisor. Both of my mentors and supervisors were great. They were friendly and intelligent. Some others interacted with had an ego the size of the room, and were quite rude (this was just one experience for me, but it has stayed with me).

This really varies depending on how busy your supervisor is. Strangely, I did not sit in an office with either my trainee mentor or supervisor in the first week, which was just a massive missed opportunity for the firm to get to know me, and for me to be able to ask more informal questions. If I had questions, I felt I could go and ask.

More than the skills, it’s the insight into the firm that will help me the most. I did further develop skills of legal application (nothing pr pares you for working in a law firm better than, well... working in a law firm). The difference between academic law and commercial is an important one to pick up.

I felt that the structure was fine in itself, but the process could have been made clearer earlier on. There was a good mixture of talks and time to work in the department in which you were sat. The talks, however, were not fantastic. Some were good (TMT case study), others were more being lectured at for how we should behave (not positive).

The general atmosphere was fair to friendly in my opinion. But when compared to other insight schemes / vacation schemes that I have been on, this is where Simmons & Simmons fell down. I had a particularly negative/rude experience with a very senior partner in the firm where they were rude directly to my face, and then ride several times to my supervisor.

I would say this was average. I felt that neither did they particularly invest in you, or neglect you. There were some sessions aimed to help (such as basic legal research), but for the most part you were left to your own devices. I suppose this is a way of working out who performs well, but that’s really just coming down to previous work-place experience.

I think this is very clear, and that’s a good thing. I think that we were treated very much like trainees (albeit with shorter hours). People would ask you to complete tasks that they would ask a trainee to do, you would get involved in calls with expert witnesses, and there were even vacation scheme students getting involved in the firm cricket team!

I think the vacation scheme gave a very clear insight into the culture of the firm. This is neither a positive nor negative thing, just a clear picture. It’s good to see the culture, but it was not necessarily the best culture (this is very subjective). It ranged from fantastic, to really quite poor. I did hear a number of people with both very positive, and very negative experiences.

This was quite good, but neither make or break for me, by this stage in the game, people on a vacation scheme know they want to do law, they know they want to be a solicitor (for the most part), and they probably know they want a large, international, commercial law firm (otherwise you’re unlikely to get on the scheme).

Slightly less that other large City firms perhaps, but generally fair. They actually pay each week rather than aligned with full time workers at the end of the month so that was very good.

This was quite good. Multiple lunches and breakfasts with trainees, HR/grad recruitment, and dedicated networking events. Sometimes I think it could have been structured better. For example, one session about training contracts had a section for Q&As with current trainees, but graduate recruitment (who are also responsible for selecting those trainees’ seats) stayed in the room. That’s not conductive of an open and honest question session (kudos to the trainee who was honest anyway).

These were pretty good. We did a few social events. Actually, two per week, which is quite a lot (this is a good thing), a group of us ended up watching the World Cup final togethter, too. We went chocolate making which was really good fun. The final farewell event was very nice, too.

I found out a little about this. I understand that there are a few sports team, but these may have fallen by the way side a bit. It would perhaps have been good to find out more, and if it doesn’t exist, strengthen this, as this is part of the culture.

I would recommend this scheme to a friend. Generally, I enjoyed the scheme and it was good fun. It was probably not my favourite scheme, but take that with a pinch of salt because every firm does have a different culture, and it’s about finding the one that suits yo the best, and that is what a vacation scheme is for.