Winter Vacation Scheme Review

I very much did enjoy the insight since this was my first time working within a legal practice and I got to have a real insight into the working of legal practitioners and their job role on a daily basis. It also helped to expose me to what I may be doing in the future and who I may be working with which was very helpful and yet fun.

Whilst on the scheme, I was able to have other people from different departments help me with the formal assignment that we were given to do at the beginning of the scheme and this helped me to feel as though I was a valued member of the practice and made me feel included and wanted.

I was "buddied" up with a trainee as well as another employee who was at a higher level within Simmons & Simmons LLP which helped me to ask a variety of different questions and learn about different perspectives and ways to move up in the firm therefore I believe I was very well supported.

This helped me to develop my literacy skills since we had to work with clients as well as colleagues where you require to speak in a proficient and precise manner and therefore exposed me to working in a London legal office. Moreover, it assisted me with my law studies as I got to apply my learning to the real world.

The scheme itself was well structured since all the staff members knew what needed to be done with us in terms of giving us work to do and allowing us to meet the relevant people. We were also able to choose different things to do and different meetings to sit in on due to the flexibility of the staff rotas.

The staff of the firm were genuinely welcoming and there was an ambient atmosphere where we were able to feel really comfortable and no there had a stiff upper lip or was stubborn to talk to us just because we were lower level vacation scheme participants. Overall, we were made to feel included.

They didn't do much personal training per se since we weren't actual employees but only having an insight but the staff did put a lot of time on the side to help us with our assignments even when they were busy which showed commitment and investment in us and our learning.

I really did help me a lot since I can see the amount and type of work that goes in to being a law staff at Simmons & Simmons LLP as well as learning the different roles available and different ways that I can specialise and grow within the firm itself.

I did already have an insight into how the company culture may be but it did help to ground me and show me in a real life perspective since I got to see everything and feel everything first hand enabling me to understand the different parts both social and legal much better.

Being a participant of the scheme helped me to believe that I had chosen the right career path for myself since law is a topic that I am very interested in and the content and learning that I did spurred me on to complete my studies to the best of my ability in order to land my dream job.

There was a lot of opportunities personally for networking due to the networking programmes that were available through out the scheme and the time that we were there but also I had a few more networking sessions since this was due to my request to my training buddy and therefore enabled me to learn and understand the firm better.

They were really insightful since they helped me to see the company from different perspectives as well as confirm and solidify other employees opinions where they all had the same perspective and therefore gave me more concrete and insider opinions. Furthermore, it also helped me to see how different roles talked and communicated with each other furthering my literary skills.