Vacation Scheme Student Review

Meeting different members of the team. Attending team meetings. Worked on legal research tasks, involving searching for case law and looking at statutes and practice guidelines. Worked on business development work, including summarising articles and interesting recent cases. Day usually starts at 9am. I would receive work from my supervisor and other associates/ senior associates/ trainee solicitors. I would finish work around 5.30-6pm. I would mainly be working with my supervisor but often assist my trainee buddies too.

I have developed and improved my skills in the following areas: 1) Interpersonal skills- I greatly improved on my communication skills as I frequently interacted with various members of the team such as the paralegals, trainee solicitors, associates, senior associates and partners. 2) Time management- I would often receive different tasks and had to manage the amount of time I spent on each tasks to ensure I could meet their respective deadlines. Prioritisation is also a key skill as you would have to focus on essential tasks.

It was a great opportunity for us to gain an insight into how a law firm really worked. The firsthand experience was helpful to appreciate how law firms win work from clients and how that work translates into actual billable tasks which the team works on. Moreover, I also learnt about the roles available to me aside from being a trainee solicitor. For example, we could work as a paralegal in the time between completing our legal studies and starting as a trainee.

Everyone was generally very warm and friendly. There is an appreciation of the different backgrounds and skill sets of the vacation schemers. The firm viewed this as a positive and I certainly met many trainees from non-law backgrounds and their paths into law were very interesting and varied greatly. There is a strong sense of teamwork and camaraderie as everyone helped each other and were extremely generous with their time. There is a strong sense of a one-team effort.

I throughout enjoyed my insight into the firm. The general impression of the firm is that of a firm with a positive collaborative culture and that they receive lots of interesting work. The insight I gained during the vacation scheme has confirmed this and I would be delighted to receive a training contract offer to continue at the firm. It certainly was clear that every vacation schemer felt the same and that we are all hoping to receive that offer.

Yes

It is really important to spend a lot of time to fine tune and tailor your initial online application. As that is our one chance into the firm, it is crucial that no simple errors are made such as typing errors, grammatical errors and not answering the question accurately. Interview preparation is also key as the assessment Center process is quite robust in terms of the skills they test for and the number of inter