Summer Vacation Scheme Participant Review

I had the opportunity to spend a week sitting in the construction practice and a week in the corporate technology and life sciences practice. The lawyers in both gave me plenty of interesting work to get on with and I received exceptional support from my supervisors (who were associates or senior associates) and trainee buddies who were always happy to answer questions. In addition to this, there were daily presentations, which spanned every practice that you could sit in as a trainee at the firm and also included client and pro bono workshops.

The key skill that I developed was my professional communication - particularly in structuring emails - which improved massively throughout the two weeks. Having the responsibility of organising my own timetable also improved my organisation. I had regular opportunities to get feedback from my supervisors and the other lawyers who set me work, which were invaluable. The lawyers at the firm were also very generous with their time and having the opportunity to speak to a few of them and ask some questions was an immense learning experience.

There were regular opportunities to attend practice talks, which were generally run by associates. These covered all of the seats that you could sit in as a trainee at Taylor Wessing. They provided a very useful overview of the firm and the TC. The lawyers at the firm were also extremely generous with their time and I was able to speak to a number of them about topics ranging from past matters that they had worked on to the firm's international strategy.

The firm was incredibly friendly and inclusive. My supervisors and trainee buddies were all brilliant - they were willing to set aside time to talk to me about their work and also to support me during the scheme, as well as giving me interesting tasks to work on. The Early Talent team were also in contact with us throughout the two weeks and were very kind and welcoming - for example the firm even ran a pre-scheme event so that incoming vacation scheme participants could meet each other and some of the trainees at the firm before the scheme started.

Overall this was an excellent vacation scheme - it was hugely valuable for my professional development and really enjoyable.

Yes

Three main things. Firstly, make sure that you go to an open day before applying - they offer a great insight into the firm which you can draw on in your application. Secondly, make sure that you spend a lot of time on the application form part, the word count is quite limited but short answers should probably take longer to write than longer ones because you have to be much clearer and more succinct. Finally, make sure that you don't come across as only interested in one sector/practice in the application - the firm does lot of super interesting work so it's worth researching all of it.