New Threads

Hi everyone, I'm Hannah and have joined the TCLA premium as a gold member. I'm in my second year of my LLB Law studying at the University of Exeter. I'm 28, have dyslexia and ADHD and am passionate about breaking down the barriers and stigmas associated with neurodiversity, I also want to increase representation for people such as myself within the legal sector.

My aim this year is to acquire at least one vacation scheme (preferable more) with a hope of being offered a training contract. I have an interest in a couple of areas; commercial law, specifically, mergers and acquisitions and also property and real estate. My hope is that TCLA can help make my application stand out, improve my commercial awareness and how I can apply this in practice, and also techniques for interviews etc.

I also have a platform @thedyslexiclawstudent where I talk about my own experiences, gain insight from others such as myself, and talk all things law.

look forward to chatting!

Hi

The DLA piper summer internship commercial awareness question asks you to write about a business story you found interesting in the last 12 months. In the answer should I try to relate the business story to the firm itself as well as attempt to talk about its implications on the British legal sector, or would it be better to focus purely on the story itself and use that to show commercial awareness.

You only have about 250 words for the question and i'm not sure if the question is simply testing your commercial awareness, or if they want you to link the answer to the firm itself.

hello all! chosen to do private acquisitions, debt and equity finance as electives at bpp for the lpc. does anyone have any general tips/advice for any of these? I've heard these electives are much harder than the CPAs from others, so slightly anxious. Any tips/advice would be appreciated! Thanks.

Did #1 and am very unsure of how I wrote it because it's astonishingly void of detail, but at the same time I need to be clear, concise, relevant.

My uni partnered with Graduates First which provides really good verbal reasoning practices, i went from 70% to 95% and scored 98th percentile in actual WG tests. See if you can access this resource and if not maybe speak to your career advisor

I'm returning to the TCLA forums for the first time since I received my TC offer back in April 2021 and started in September 2021.

The less talked about step in the lawyer career path however, is life after the TC.

Some folks will love their firms, seats, departments etc and will looking for opportunities to be kept on. My query is for trainees that may be looking to fly the nest on or shortly after qualifying and seeing what else the market may offer.

Some queries I have now with 9/10 months left of my TC:
- What is typically the advice given to trainees in their 3rd/4th seat who are considering making the move;
- when is the best time to start looking;
- is it good practice to contact NQs/junior solicitors in firms we are interested in in a similar manner to when we were applying for TCs;
- have people had good experiences with recruiters they would like to share?

I'll probably have more thoughts (worries) that are normally best discussed in-person with NQs who have been in this position before. But at the very least I thought it would be a good idea to start this thread

Hi,

I am currently in the process of applying to the DAC Beachcroft TC 2025 and one of the questions is as follows: "How will you apply your experiences so far to make you stand out as a trainee at DACB?". Is that essentially asking what skills you have gained from your experiences and how that would be helpful as a trainee at DACB. For example, could I discuss how x experience gave me creative problem-solving skills and then link that to the role of a trainee?


If anyone has any advice on what the question is asking it would be much appreciated.

Hi! I see a lot of discussions on how to write the work experience section but I'm just wondering:-
(1) How many work experiences will be optimal?

I see there's no rule of thumb, but I wonder if it's like "less is more" and better be selective and tailor to the firm's specific expertise, or show more experiences to stand out (when everyone is very hard-working and has rich experience)

For context, I have experience in vacation schemes, off-cycle law firm internships, and mini-pupillage. But they are all overseas so, outside those in international law firms, I'm unsure how much help they are of.

(2) Should I put down my non-law experience when I can put down another law experience instead?

I think many firms do say that non-law internships are as important (or even more so) than law internships, but there was one time I got an auto-rejection message saying "some candidates stood out with more relevant work experience". I'm unsure if the non-law experience dilutes my profile.

Thank you and discussions welcomed!

As part of my training contract, I will commence the SQE at the University of Law in September of 2023. The official dates for the course are 11 September for the start date, and 18 October for the end date. My issue is that no student accommodation I have been able to find offers a contract of this length - they all tend to run from late September of one year to late September of the following year (for a total of 51 weeks).

Based on this, do you guys have any tips on, or experience with finding student accommodation for the SQE?

Started this thread to keep a record of some commercial news stories I read and also hopefully get some discussion going about them to help develop my commercial awareness!

Commercial awareness is a completely new thing to me, and is definitely my biggest weakness in terms of these law firm applications, so hopefully doing this will help.

9/11/22
Today the most interesting story I read was Netflix's introduction of a reduced-fee subscription with ads.

I think this is perhaps a response to Netflix facing a huge decline in subscribers, and due to the cost-of-living crisis, a lower subscription cost might persuade more people to keep their subscription. However, I definitely would not pay for something that has ads anyway. This got me thinking about YouTube - over the years, it has seemed to increase the number of ads in one video to the point where there seems to be one every minute. I know a lot of people will now even watch YouTube videos through TikTok to avoid the ads. So it seems ads were one of the reasons for YouTube's decline, and I think it might be the same for Netflix. Especially because Netflix is charging for a service with ads, and YouTube was free. So I just don't see this being successful.

I wonder if the cost-of-living crisis might increase the popularity of what I call "actual TV", like BBC, where people just pay the TV licence fee and can get on demand (like BBC iPlayer), and all sorts of programs, as well as watching it on as many screens as you want, all without ads. Otherwise, I'm sure TikTok will surge even more since people can now watch films, TV programs, YouTube videos on the app for free and without ads (though the people uploading these things are of course infringing copyright. But it still happens and often goes unnoticed by TikTok). I think something arising out of people uploading films and TV shows to TikTok will essentially cause streaming services to be competing with a social media platform, which seems crazy. TikTok is really coming after everything it seems (even Google - might write another post about this actually!). I nevertheless think people will still use Netflix for reasons like loyalty and the huge popularity of some of the programmes like Stranger Things. So maybe a reduced price with ads will work for some people.

How do barristers' earnings at good London civil sets (outside of the most elite sets) compare to US firms?

I see a lot of people trying very hard to get into those sets with an Oxbridge first and lots of mooting and work experience. Surely, it would not be difficult for them to land a good job at a US firm.

From my not very informed impression, barristers can earn low to mid six figures by 5 years post call (before outgoings). This seems to be rather similar to the 5PQE pay on the Cravath scale, currently $435k.

Does the Bar actually pay more or are people choosing it for other reasons like nature of the work, judicial ambitions, etc?

I know applications closed just a few days ago but was wondering whether there is anyone who has heard back.

Hi all,

I'm a penultimate law student looking to apply for an open day and VS here but I am not sure what the website says with regards to whether open day applicants can still apply to VS. It's a bit contradictory and could you please help in clarifying what it says x Thank you very much

You may apply for:

A Vacation Scheme 2023 in conjunction with a Training Contract 2025

OR

A Training Contract commencing 2025

OR

An Open Day in December 2022

We automatically consider all vacation scheme applicants for a training contract. Please note, if you are applying for a vacation scheme, you will need to select 'yes' for both the vacation scheme and the training contract options.

We accept one submission per candidate, per recruitment season. If you apply for a vacation scheme and your application is unsuccessful you will not be able to submit a separate training contract application. Open day applicants may return to apply for a vacation scheme or training contract at any time during the application window.

You may apply for an open day if you are in the first year of your undergraduate degree or a candidate preparing to make an application for a vacation scheme or training contract.

Hello!! I'm law student from India. How to get vacation schemes?

Hello! I figured I may as well introduce myself seeing how I've been on this platform for a little over a year. I am a future trainee at an international law firm and am currently a paralegal at the same firm. I came to the UK from HK as an international student to do my LL.B at a non-RG university. Right after I graduated, I decided to do an LL.M at an RG university, specialising in corporate and financial law. I got my TC offer last application cycle after doing a VS at the firm, which I have the TCLA resources and community to thank for where I am today.

I'd love to give back to the community, so please feel free to message me if you've got any questions about applications and whatnot. Equally, I am happy to have a chat and a laugh.

I am a trainee due to qualify in March 2023. Having recently looked at the SRA’s character and suitability form, I’ve realised that I will need to make some disclosures as it asks whether I’ve ever missed more than 6 consecutive payments. I’ve done this 3 times - all accounts are paid off or are being paid off with no payments missed since early 2019.
I have two concerns. Firstly, apparently the SRA can take 6 months to process admission applications with suitability issues which means I’ll qualify at least 4-5 months after the rest of my cohort.
Secondly, I cannot provide character references. Nobody knows about these issues and the thought of telling someone at work makes me feel sick - I’m from a low income background and already feel like I don’t fit in. I couldn’t bear to disclose previous financial issues and keep working there. I contacted the SRA who said I might not need references and it depends on the case handler once they read my application.

Has anyone been through the process of admission with disclosures and how long did it take? Am I likely to be admitted?

I am just terrified that all my hard work is going to go to waste and I don’t know what to do. Any help would be gratefully received.

Hi All,

To my surprise I have secured a place in the semi finals. If anyone wants to form a group for us to bounce ideas around, let me know.

Additionally, if anyone has anyone guidance to impart for semi finalists please share.

Seener

Hi TCLA!

I am trying to understand how US law firms operate in the UK. Take Reed Smith as an example, Reed Smith is not a Swiss Verein law firm so my understanding is that it Reed Smith has one global profit (Reed Smith UK shares its profit with other Reed Smith entities). My questions are:

1. How does Reed Smith UK bill its clients? Would they bill its clients in US$ or £?
2. In terms of expenses, do you know if they are done in US$ or £?
3. Do they pay their lawyers in the UK in ££ or US$?
4. How do you think the surge in US$ is affecting US law firms operating in the UK? In particular, the tech industry. I was thinking that in relation to M&A, it would be cheaper for US companies to invest in the UK which would increase M&A deals but it would weaken UK's tech industry in that there would be less UK tech companies in the market as they would essentially be owned by US companies. It seems that this would be beneficial for US law firms in the US but not US law firms. Am I right to think that? Additionally, how do you think the surge in $$ would affect UK tech industry?
5. Additionally, I believe that impact of the strong $$ on the tech industry and therefore the legal profession can be discussed alongside interest rates that have recently been increased in the US and the UK. What do you think?

Thank you for your help on this!

Hi all,

My accountability thread is very delayed but better late than never I guess! I am delighted to have secured the TCLA scholarship and I think it’s a really helpful idea to post regular updates about my journey to hopefully secure vacations schemes/TCs. I graduated with a Scots law degree this summer from the University of Edinburgh, and I am now starting a full time business development job next week onwards.

After my graduation in July, I had been looking for paralegal roles as well and also interviewed for one, however I was unable to secure anything and decided that for the meantime it would be a good idea to take up the business role I was offered and develop my transferable skills! Last application cycle, I was unsuccessful at 2 ACs and some video interviews which had me absolutely gutted, so I am really hoping to improve my interviewing and application writing skills in general for this cycle.

My plan for this thread is to update it every three days and track my progress. For the next couple of days, I plan on doing the following:

- Complete 2 ongoing Forage internships
- Complete TCLA's 'Write Law Firm Applications that lead to interviews' course
- Start with TCLA's 'Develop your commercial awareness: how to think commercially' course
- Start drafting VS apps for two firms

I think my goals aren't specific enough for now but I'm hoping to make them more SMART as I keep on updating this thread!