Spring Vacation Scheme Student Review

As my first experience of working in the legal sector, I found the week very useful. I wish it had been longer, as the orientation on Monday morning ate into the week quite a bit and it would have been great to experience a second seat.

Everybody was incredibly nice and made an effort to get to know me in my department. Although I do not study law as my degree, I was still able to undertake valuable research on behalf of partners and associates in my department.

Taylor Wessing allocates trainee buddies to vacation scheme students. My buddy was friendly and a great first point of contact for any questions. My supervisor was rather busy and so rather less accessible, but there were other people in the department I could go to with my queries. I knew that the graduate recruitment team were also on hand for more general questions too.

I wouldn't say the scheme has been particularly helpful with regards to my degree studies, but it was very informative in terms of career guidance. It has helped me to identify new areas within the law that I might like to experience as part of my training contract, as well as the type of firm in which I would like to work.

Most activities were timetabled for us at the beginning of the insight. We had a morning's orientation at the beginning of the week, and the rest of the week was broken up by various presentations and networking events.

The atmosphere in my department was down-to-earth and friendly.

My buddy, my supervisor and other fee-earners within the department all took plenty of time out of their week to explain various aspects of the law to me or to help me with my research tasks. I do feel as though a huge effort was made to host the vacation scheme.

As I mentioned further up, one week is a bit short to grasp exactly what it would be like to have a full time role with Taylor Wessing. However, there was plenty of opportunity for informal conversations with employees, meaning that I developed a good picture of what it was like to work there, especially in comparison with other firms.

As well as more formal presentations by graduate recruitment, we had a Q&A session with current trainees who were open and honest about the firm. I was also able to ask people around my department what they enjoyed about working at Taylor Wessing.

It has opened my eyes to areas of law that I may not have previously considered. Again, a two-week scheme would have been helpful in order for us to have been exposed to different practice areas.

We networked quite a lot with trainees, and a partner lunch was organised on the last day. It was very much emphasised that, if you wanted to talk to somebody within the organisation, then you should go for it. My buddy was able to introduce me to a partner in a department that I was particularly interested in.

Networking with the trainees was informal. The partner lunch on the last day was a useful opportunity to talk to employees with longer legal careers. We didn't really stick to the 'values' theme though - it was more a case of finding out how they got into law!

During the Q&A with the trainees, we found out that it's best not to make too many out-of-work commitments during the training contract. However, there seems to be the opportunity to get involved in pro bono and the firm seems particularly sociable.

Absolutely! Even though it was only a week, I felt quite sad to be leaving by the end of the vac scheme.