Vacation Placement Student Review

The Vacation scheme was excellent, The team I was placed in (TMT) were fantastic, they were extremely welcoming and helpful, particularly since I, as a non law student, was quite daunted at first. I got to do some extremely interesting work, went to some fantastic socials including bowling and a circus show and attended many practice area presentations at the firm which gave me a much better idea of which practice areas I would be most interested in.

I was made to feel extremely welcome, I was seated right next to my trainee buddy and my supervisor, so it was easy to ask any questions if I didn't understand something. Everyone in my practice area went out of their way to make me feel welcome and to explain the cases they were working on, even the partners who were extremely busy were keen to make me feel at home and get me involved. Also people in other practice areas were just as welcoming. Having a science background I was interested in IP and managed to arrange a coffee with an NQ in that practice area who got me some work with one of the partners there.

As I have mentioned above the support I received was fantastic. Everyone was extremely available to help me when I needed help, particularly my trainee buddy.. The open plan arrangement in the office really helped with this.

We attended practice presentations every morning and I now know significantly more about what the different practice areas of a firm really do than I have ever been able to learn from a book. Doing the work that I was given to do has also helped me gain a much clearer picture of what a lawyer does every day and more importantly has 100% confirmed for me that this is definitely a career that would be right for me.

The structure was generally very good. It was well planned out and we had a routine to our days which made it easy to know where we should be and when. The only comment I would make is that our induction day should have included IT training, so that we didn't have to do this during office hours the following day.

Everyone who works at this firm seems happy and fulfilled by their careers. It was a wonderful atmosphere to work in whilst I was there and is most definitely somewhere I would love to return to. There were real and close friendships between many people who were working together.

For a short two week course I think that this question is difficult to answer. However overall I would say that the firm invested a lot to keep us entertained and busy over the two weeks. There were many social activities and lunches at which we got an opportunity to talk to partners and in my practice group a trainee sat down with me for an hour to instruct me on how to use a specialist search engine the firm uses on top of the online IT programme that the firm had given me to complete

Very well, I now know that this is a career I definitely want to pursue and that the firm has a culture which would be a fantastic fit for me.

The way the people who work at the firm were, not only with me but with each other confirmed that this is definitely somewhere I would love to work and that it was not all just a show for the vac scheme students, the people I was working with really were friends as well as just colleagues.

Fantastic, as I have mentioned before we had in depth presentations from practice areas across the firm every morning and people from all departments were happy for you to contact them and ask to go for coffee, which they even paid for! You got the impression that they were genuinely interested in you and wanted to help you out.

I was paid a generous amount for my two weeks and had two all expenses covered social evenings.

Great, we had several planned lunches with people of different levels, from trainees to partners, across the firm so we got lots of chances to ask questions and meet new people. We also had two social events with the trainees.

As above, we had both lunches and social events which were planned as part of the scheme and were great fun and entirely paid for by the firm. I also got the opportunity to go for drinks with my practice group and was invited to a client cricket match!

There are a huge range of activities, from sports such as tag rugby to a choir, and lots of opportunities to do some very rewarding pro bono work.

Definitely. I had a fantastic two weeks and would even try for a place at this firm after my TC if I am turned down for training there.