Clifford Chance TC

Hi everybody,

Clifford Chance have just opened their training contract applications. However they state that they are primarily targeting penultimate year law students and final year non-law. I’ve never come across this before. Does this mean that those of who us who just graduated will be disadvantaged when applying? Is this a trend that other firms will also be adopting?
Just feeling a bit anxious that the recruitment process may end up being even harder than expected, since I’m graduating in September.

“The Training Contract is targeted at penultimate year law students and final year non-law students (undergraduate degree). If you are an applicant who does not fall into these target groups, you can still apply but your application will not be priortised at this stage and, as such, you will not be sent a Watson Glaser test at the moment. If your application is going to be considered, you will find out no later than 14 th December 2020.“
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General, Commercial Stories themes for AC discussion

Hi guys!

I've been reading FT/Economist articles, prepping for an AC and wanted to cover a lot of bases for the case study. In my previous interviews, I really enjoyed bringing in external knowledge to further improve my answers. I've created this thread to discuss , or be further exposed to, relevant, and contemporary stories/underlying themes that is in the commercial sphere. (If there is a previous/similar thread , please lock or disregard this :) )

Some suggestions that I have are :

Covid-19 and its impact! This is quite broad, but I like considering the impact of Covid on several industries(for e.g, hospitality industries)

The death of the High Street(which I was actually asked about earlier in a interview)

US-China Trade war etc.

Feel free to contribute your own ideas/discussions, as I'd enjoy reading or learning more about different topics :)

Self-Esteem

Does anyone else have any experience of not feeling "good enough" for law firms?

Like I know that law is hard and I knew what I was getting myself in, but between rejections and seeing people on LinkedIn who have achieved so much more than you, how does one cope with the lowered self-esteem?

Any advice would be deeply appreciated because I'm the only one in my group of friends in the legal field and I'm tired of crying over rejections!

Application Help - Trowers

Hi all,

I'm getting myself knotted up over Trowers' last question: "Give us as wide an insight into you as possible without referring to anything you have already mentioned in this application"

Do you think this means without repeating myself (i.e. if already mentioned a particular achievement then don't mention it again) or do you think it means not referring to anything mentioned in the application, even if I do so in a different light? For example, I want to explain more broadly how my experiences show my character but technically I've mentioned my experiences in the work experience section and would, therefore, be referring to something already mentioned.

Given my confusion, I would appreciate your input on what you think this question is trying to get at! I personally think it does want to know about things not mentioned elsewhere, like my interest in football etc. But equally, it wants to know about me, and part of me is things I've mentioned elsewhere in the application!

Thanks in advance for any input.

How to research law firms

Hey everyone,

I recently started to research law firms to decide which ones to apply to for a vac scheme next year, and I feel like I'm not getting anywhere. I feel confused between different law firms. If someone has tips on how to go about the research step-by-step to figure out which firm is the perfect fit for you, I'd really appreciate it if you could help me out!

I'm an international student studying in India. I've observed that a lot of firms require their applicants to physically be present at the firm on the assessment day. Financially, this is a challenge for me because I would have to fly all the way to London from India for that one-day interview/assessment. Are there more firms like Linklaters that conduct their assessment days in India itself for Indian students?

Thanks for reading this, have a nice day!

Best regards,
Ritika Acharya

Applying to a firm for TC but didn't apply for the VS?

I'm concerned if I get asked why I didn't apply for their vacation scheme because I have completed a vacation scheme elsewhere which I talk about quite a bit in my application (I am a penultimate year law student). What would be an appropriate answer? I honestly didn't apply to many firms for vacation schemes in the first place and this firm I'm now applying to for the TC, I didn't know much about at that point. But not sure if it would be great to mention that...

Updating law firms on latest academic results

Hi there,

I hope you’re all well. I am a Masters student progressing onto a sponsored PGDL. There is nothing on my TC offer letter that mentions a requirement for my current postgrad study (and I’ve met undergrad requirements before application), so I was wondering whether I need to write to my law firm updating them on my award/progression status when I get the relevant documents? Or is this something that they will request if need be, whether soon or later during background checks?

Thank you in advance!

What time on Deadline Day?

May seem like a stupid question, but wanted to double check:

With most firms having their training contract deadline day on the 31st of July, does this mean the deadline is 23:59 on the 30th? (i.e when it's officially 00:00 on the 31st, the window shuts?)

Or is it just 23:59 ON the 31st, and when it's 00:00 on the 1st of August, the window shuts?

Hope everyone's smashing those last minute apps, best of luck people!

Why this firm?

Hi guys,

I am currently answering the holy grail question and I want your opinion.

I attended the firm's open day, and one of the partners spoke about the firm's international vocation especially when it comes corporate work as the NY and London offices are fully integrated. Since I only have 200 words, I was thinking to integrate in my answer my work on international cases and my recent interest in corporate work after completing 2 courses.

Do you think is a good strategy? What would you do?

Ask a future MC Trainee (international applicant) anything

Hi everyone,

I hope you're having a lovely weekend. I received so many kind messages after my post a few days ago that I had received a TC offer from my dream firm. I honestly never thought I would be able to say this out load.

Just to give you a bit of a background, I'm an international applicant and come from a really low socio-economic background. It took me 10 years after graduating high school to feel like I was in a position to start applying to law firms, so it's been quite a journey for me. One of the challenges I faced once I actually started applying was that most firms work with Rare (which does such an amazing job at levelling the playing field), but unfortunately doesn't give international applicants from similar backgrounds as much room to reflect their similar circumstances. Some firms have been amazing at addressing this, while for others I really struggled to submit an application that adequately reflected my journey.

Anyway, I don't want to bore you with the details of this, but I thought that there may be other international applicants or someone who is facing other barriers to entry, so if you have any questions, please send me a message or ask on the thread and I'll try my best to help where I can.

Thank you,
Carina :)

Non Schogger/Stoakes books that I found useful

Mods - please move this to the appropriate subforum if I haven't posted it in the right area.

Hi guys! I recently secured a TC at an MC firm, having completed their VS. This was the first assessment center & VS that I did, and I came from a non-law, non-business, non-economics background & degree. Because of all of this, I wanted to do some preparatory reading in advance.

Jake Schogger & Christopher Stoakes's books are often mentioned on the forum, and with good reason: they are very useful.

However, I felt that I had a lack of initial understanding of the city, commercial law, banking and business as a whole, so also read a couple of extra books that greatly helped me. I've just listed them here in case anyone else feels in a similar position to me. They're all fairly short (200ish pages or less), and can each be read in a day or so, in chunks.
  • The Very Short Introduction to Banking (Goddard & Wilson, 2016)
The VSI series is brilliant anyway, but this book is especially useful. It has one of the clearest explanations of capital markets that I've ever encountered, and also works through the 2008 crash comprehensively. It also covers areas like hedge funds, monetary policy, and securitization in simple but comprehensive form. I did a banking seat on the VS, and the book greatly helped me. My TC interview also covered central bank responses to Covid, and the book helped me to discuss this confidently.

  • Reading & Understanding Economics (Boakes, 2009)
As I said, I had no proper knowledge of economics prior to getting an assessment center invite. The book is simple, covers areas like competition, monetary policy, fiscal policy, supply & demand, financial markets, and exchange rates. It's a nice starter guide, and is written engagingly. Each chapter is accompanied by an article or articles from a newspaper that is discussed at greater length. Most people on the forum won't need the book - it's for beginners chiefly, but is in-depth enough for your needs.

  • Reading & Understanding the Financial Times (Boakes, 2010) [2nd edition, 'Updated for 2010-2011'])
Does what it says on the tin. In each chapter, he takes you through different FT topics (dividend policy, equity/debt financing, capital structure, stock market behavior, etc) and what to make of these areas. Each topic is accompanied by a real FT article on the issue. There's also a guide on specific areas of the FT (benchmark government bonds, official interest rates, etc) and how to interpret them and their changes.

Commercial awareness really wasn't an issue for me. You should make sure to read a broadsheet daily - both the main news section, and more importantly the business section, and for the latter, I made notes on anything that interested me. That gave me a solid platform, and I also used the finimize email (3 top commercial stories of the day) and the FT daily briefing podcast (both free) to top this up.

Hope this helps!

LPC Help?

Hi!

Can anyone give me the best way to prepare for workshops on the LPC? I just feel as though I am wasting a large proportion of time and was hoping someone could give me some guidance as to how best to prepare?

Currently I do the following (because its online we dont physically attend the workshop)

1. Do the reading and highlight the book
2. I then make table notes using the things I highlighted in the book
3. Watch any lectures/tutorials
4. Attend the workshop

Currently I am doing my electives and its taking me an absolute age to complete all of this, almost 2 days working 9-5 and alot of my peers have suggested that I am wasting time in making the notes as I can take the book into the exam with me?
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Watson Glaser Tips and Tricks?

Hi guys,

I have a WG test coming up in a few days and haven't practiced any since quite early on in the year as I had to change my focus from law apps to uni work.

I've never been amazing at the tests, as I have a slight learning disability. I think the highest score I ever got was in the 70s, but that was on JobTestPrep and one that I had taken before about 6 or 7 months prior already. In real tests, I've scored between 54% and 60% which is not great, but has just about made the grade for some firms.

Would anyone be willing to share some tips that helped them succeed at the test?

Thanks

Accepting two part-time jobs at the same time?

Hi,

I have applied to two (paid) part-time Campus Ambassador roles over the summer to maximise my chances of at least getting one.

In the off chance that I get both, is it possible to accept them and do them alongside each other? Or will firms be hesitant about me accepting other the responsibilities of another job that they believe might interfere with what they want me to do?

Thank you!
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Firms that Offer Winter Vacation Schemes

Hey all!

I've just joined the community and I have to say - I feel very happy to have found this method of support.
Anyway, as the title implies, I wanted to see if we could compile a list of firms that offer winter vac schemes! Right now, I 100% know that Slaughter & May do a winter workshop, and they're pretty much one of my dream firms so I'm going to put a lot of effort into that, but there's also Foot Anstey and Thrings as well that have Winter opportunities. I'm aiming for MC or SC though, as I am an international student and really want diversity in clients and potential placements.

Does anyone know of others?

My context: I am a non-law final year (Scottish Uni so about to go into my fourth year in September) with no legal experience as of now, so it's very important to me that I get these. I'll also apply to Spring and Summer but I really am wanting to secure a first so Winter is more attractive for that reason (Diss reasons!). For August, a criminal defence firm in England said they'd give me a paralegal job but I feel a bit iffy about it as it's clearly not commercial or corporate. Nevertheless, I'll accept it because work is work in a legal office!

Anyway, thanks for your contributions to this thread!