Winter Vacation Scheme Student Review

We attended sessions on all six practice areas of the firm that involved examples of real cases Stephenson Harwood was working on at the time. We also participated in other legal career based sessions such as the firm's partnership with BPP, career trajectory of a lawyer, and legal innovation. On a day to day basis I had the opportunity to speak with not just my supervisor and trainee buddy, but also other members of the subgroup or department I sat in and sometimes outside your assigned group as well. But you have to be proactive in identifying where you can help because work is not always readily available.

I was involved in writing for sanctions advice and given the speed at which updates were published, I really appreciated the pace at which international trade lawyers work at. Clients expect you to reply their messages within a day and giving this up to date advice is no exception - if it's late advice, it's useless. Because I involved myself to contribute proactively to departments outside my assigned scope, I also learned to network within the firm and identify where I could be useful. I therefore got a higher exposure to the different types of work disponible to a trainee.

About business and business development I suppose I wasn't involved that much with it because I didn't get to learn about their business development strategies, though I was able to gain requisite knowledge about that by asking around informally. For potential roles there was a session about the pro bono opportunities available at the firm. There were also mentions of secondment opportunities though it was not elaborated on as much as I would have preferred, but the fault lies with me as I failed to enquire further about it! :(

Very friendly, I found everyone approachable and insightful! I wish there were more socials though but because the scheme was virtual there were not a lot of structured sessions. I get around this by arranging phone calls with trainees and associates. While there's a laidback culture and people respect your time off, there's also an expectation to do your work and everyone is really hardworking. I felt encouraged to take all the work I could handle, but did not feel pressured to take more.

Very much! I love the firm's culture and feel like it's the right fit for me. It was a two-way process for sure and the fact that I was encouraged to speak to people from other departments to also glean insights from them was really helpful. Though I think more stakeholders should be represented in the scheme, e.g., partner/client/senior associate perspectives just so we can get an overview of what the entire career trajectory of the firm is going to be like.

Yes

Stephenson Harwood has a lot of specialties and you can find many unique deals and niches with them but the key part is to not lose sight of their general business growth strategy and find out how you fit into that wider picture. Yes, I was drawn to the cool niche parts too (and sat in the very amazing MIT department which I absolutely adore) but you have to show that you appreciate their whole business and that your value lies not in just contributing to niches but as a multi-faceted well-rounded individual.