Vacation placement - law firm Review

The placement was very well organised. Everyone was placed with a trainee buddy who worked in the department we were sitting in. The whole experience was very positive.

I was closer to some members of the team than others. My department was very busy so some team members had a lot of work on and I didn't get to speak to them as much.

We had a trainee buddy and a superviser. My superviser was out of the office a lot and when she was in the office she was very busy, however, my trainee buddy was absolutely fantastic. She took me under her wing and was there if I needed any help or advice at any time. She also gave me very good feedback.

I was very busy but the workload never got on top of me. On my first day I was given a number of tasks with deadlines. Some were very urgent whilst others less so. I have had a constant stream of work and a particularly tight deadline on one piece. It was a great example of the kind of work a trainee would have to do on a typical day.

I was given a lot of responsibility. Everything that I did was checked by my trainee buddy or one of the junior solicitors.

I now truly understand what a typical day is for a trainee, the type of work they do, the deadlines they must meet, and the environment that they work in. The skills I have learned in the last 2 weeks will be so helpful in the future.

The office is open plan and everyone is always busy. In the office it tends to be quite quiet but this is a good thing. In the canteen the atmosphere was obviously different.

There were a few hiccups but generally very well organised. All of the vac schemers had to go to London on the first day to have a welcome and training session. We were given a daily timetable of events for the week before we started and more details on the first day.

The firm were heavily focussed on helping us in any way possible. Having a trainee buddy was great and each day we had practice presentations with members from different departments coming to tell us about their work.

I would like to hope that I will get offered a training contract. We had the assessments whilst in the second week of the placement and will find out in September.

We had a few social nights out organised by the firm and every day we organised our own lunches. The group got on very well.

I got the train from home everyday. Lunches in the area were quite expensive but not extortionate.

Most of my group lived far away so had to get trains home early. We did have some social nights out but they tended to end quite early.

There were a lot of social nights out planned. Meals, a trip to a comedy club, watching the football.