Vacation Scheme Student Review

I had a fantastic time - not only did I enjoy the work I was doing, but I also really enjoyed the people and the events.

I felt like most people on the scheme really appreciated my work and my skills and tailored the work they gave me to that - but that a couple of people didn't really know what sort of work they could give to me, so ended up giving me work that wasn't fully using the skills and knowledge I have.

All of my supervisors were absolutely fantastic - always more than happy to help explain concepts and ideas to me, always really friendly, made sure I always had something to do that interested me, and weren't at all scary to put questions in front of.

Most of the time I had absolutely loads of work to do, which was absolutely great - there was never so much that I felt under pressure, but there was always something to be getting on with that I could be doing so I never felt bored, and never sat around having nothing to do. I was often given bigger pieces of work that took a bit longer to do, so if I ever had no shorter term tasks I could continue with the large piece of work.

A lot of the work I was given was really important - every piece of work I did was explained to me exactly how it was relevant to a deal and why it would help out the people I was working for, and a lot of it was including work like the first draftings of a contract, or sending emails directly to clients - so I was given a huge amount of responsibility.

I felt like I really had a fantastic experience of what it would be like to be a law trainee (minus the long hours!) and I know that a lot of what I learnt during lectures and also more practically whilst I was working will be very useful in the future when I am hopefully training as a lawyer.

Obviously everybody in the office was working very hard, but everybody was also always friendly and there were lots of social things in the offices such as communal cake trolleys, drinks trolleys on a Friday and social events within the group.

Everything had been detailed completely down to the last detail - we were given a very thorough timetable and every detail was planned, down to transport to our social events and refreshments during lectures - everything ran incredibly smoothly.

The firm spent a huge amount of time, money and effort into us - a great number of senior partners in the firm spent time talking to us and helping us to experience more of the firm, which was incredibly beneficial, and they also spent a long time having us in the firm and continuing to organise more things to show us more about the firm - we spent 4 weeks there, which was a lot longer than most other vacation schemes. They also invested a lot of money into us, including events like dinners and drinks events!

The scheme has an incredibly high retention rate and offer rate amongst vac scheme students, which is really positive.

Everybody on the vacation scheme was incredibly friendly, and we all got along really well - so much that we continued to socialise outside of the scheme in our own time.

It was a fairly expensive place to be working, but pretty standard as London goes.

The nightlife in the direct vicinity of the work wasn't great, but as it was in Central London it was a stones throw away from a lot of other bars and clubs etc.

We had at least two social events organised every single week, including dinners, cocktail events, tours and even a treasure hunt!