Vacation Placement Review

Feedback on my work was rather limited. I was largely left to my own devices to plan my placement and the work that I did (but this is a good representation of the work that trainees did at the firm: you have to be independant and organise yourself!). Nevertheless, I greatly enjoyed the work (even the bundling, which was not unreasonable and quite social at times). Most importantly, this placement will give you a very good (and not unpleasant) impression of what it would be like to be a trainee at Pinsent Masons! Most of my work would have been chargeable to clients if I was a trainee - it was all real and relevant case work.

They were generally very busy and gave little feedback, although they were always appreciative of my help. Not many people came to ask me to help - I usually had to ask people if they had any work that I could help with.

My supervisor and my trainee buddy were not especially supportive, partly as I spent most of my time doing small tasks for other people (my supervisor did not have much work that he could give me).

We were two vac schemers in my department and both of us regularly worked 9am to 7/8/9/10pm days. Nevertheless, this was largely a personal choice. We wanted to get the most from the placement. We were encouraged to go home at 6 and were not normally expected to stay beyond 7! (Of course, it won't make a bad impression if you do stay later... you go the extra mile to get a training contract.) Ours was one of the busiest departments (tax advisory, tax litigation): many other vac schemers regularly went home at 6pm or 6.30pm.

Not much responsibility. But I was sitting in a technical area, and in two weeks you cannot reasonably expect to be running the show.

There is a limit to what you can learn in two weeks! But I feel that the firm does a pretty good job of giving you morning presentations to all the practice areas, and in my own practice area I was given a lot of "real" work - combined, these factors have really helped me to decided whether I want to be a commercial solicitor, and to work out which practice areas interest me the most. Career insight - great; skills for life - not really.

It was a very serious work atmosphere, without being stressful or stuffy. Everyone is committed to their job and hard-working, but still friendly and more than willing to answer questions or to give you half an hour of their time for a chat.

The practice presentations and social events for the whole intake of vac schemers (we were 15 in London) were very well organised. My day-to-day work was not: I received almost no support from the firm and from my supervisor (but this made me a free agent and gave me a good impression of what it would be like to be a trainee, although I did not feel very valued; it was mostly detrimental to the assessment process! How could my supervisor have an accurate idea of my work??).

We were given very useful practice presentations, and the work itself was nitty gritty stuff, no different from what you would do as a trainee. Other than that, there was no real "personal training" as such.

It is pretty competitive. Of the "creme de la creme" that get vacation schemes, slightly under half get a training contract. But two thirds of training contracts are generally given to vacation scheme participants, so getting one in a direct application is even harder!

The two social events a week were great, and we socialised a couple of times amongst ourselves too!

Living in London is always going to be expensive. The firm generally paid at social events. Trainees generally paid if you went out for a drink with them. But if you were paying yourself... socialising was pricey!

It's the closest firm to Shoreditch (5-10 minutes' walk)! In the immediate vicinity Exchange Square is also great (though a bit expensive if you're paying your own drinks), but it closes early at 11pm.

There were two social events (restaurant with partners, dinner with trainees, drinks, bowling) a week organised for vacation schemers. We were vaguely invited to football and softball but only one match took place in two weeks (I couldn't go).