First Year Workshop Review

The insight explored HSF’s disciplinary strengths, primarily targeting HSF’s litigation capabilities. There was a session on Alternative Dispute Session (ADR), which contained an interactive workshop on a fictional mediation. I was able to openly negotiate the terms of a settlement during this workshop, and have learnt a great deal from this about the back and forth that may occur between contractual counterparties.

I have developed the skills of attention to detail and inquisitiveness from the session on ‘Legal Thinking.’ Looking through exemplar questions, and being able to cycle through the number of lexical ambiguities implicit to each one, was eye-opening. I thus feel I am in much better stead for interview situations and as a future trainee that would likely complete a number of document drafting tasks.

Learning about the Vacation Scheme on offer has me excited to apply in second year, as the firm honestly seems like a great place to work at. With regards to the Trainee Associate programme, I am very keen to look more into the Pro Bono secondments on offer both internally and through the AIRE centre.

The company culture was very chill, and whilst everyone is focused on their work, they don’t take themselves too seriously. Trainees were very candid in their opinions, and openly explored their reasons as to pursuing a career at HSF as opposed to, say, US firms.

I enjoyed the insight a lot. Especially the social event at Bounce, which allowed me to play Table Tennis and get to know others on the workshop with me. The workshop also allowed me to practice my oral efficiency, so that was a great deal of fun as well.

Yes

I would suggest focusing on HSF’s litigation practice area (i.e. talk about past deals that HSF has completed in this regard). I would also encourage applicants to think about what appeals to them from HSF’s culture: a lot of firms this size are certainly more stressful, and don’t have as many welcoming people.