New Threads

Hi All,

For those of you concerned about whether applying for a straight TC is really worth it, I came across this page which notes the VS conversion rates for different firms

https://www.allaboutlaw.co.uk/law-c...ation-schemes-are-they-really-half-the-battle

I hope this helps!

Hey guys, I'm still finishing up the first of the Law Insights page (I'm hoping to finish it tomorrow). In the meantime, I'll post a few short articles I did on popular commercial-awareness interview questions. This one is about how a company can raise money. I go into more detail in the M&A guide, but I appreciate this might be a little more practical.

If a company wants to raise money, there are two broad options: equity or debt.

Equity

The owners of a company are called shareholders. They invest money in a company in return for shares – like pieces of ownership. A company can have one share owned by one shareholder. Larger companies can have millions of shares across thousands of shareholders.

A company must run big decisions by its shareholders in a vote. For most companies, one share gives you one vote. So the more shares you have, the more influence you have over a company.

Equity finance means selling more shares in a company for capital. If you’ve watched Dragons Den, that’s exactly what people are doing on there: they ask for say £100,000, in return for a 20% stake in their business. Public companies do this on a much larger scale, in what’s known as an Initial Public Offering or IPO.

Debt

I'll concentrate on the two big ways of raising finance through debt: a loan or a bond.

Loans

This is pretty simple, a company borrows a fixed sum, usually from a bank. It pays the bank back in instalments, with interest, over an agreed length of time.

Bonds

Think of these as a loan split up into many chunks but instead of a bank, there's a group of investors.

A company issues bonds to investors in return for money. Investors get the right to receive interest payments at regular intervals during the life of the bond. At a certain date, the bond ‘matures’ and the company pays the original sum back to investors.

Equity v debt

Generally speaking, if it’s a company with a healthy cash-flow and profits, debt is cheaper than equity; selling a stake in a business is a significant long-term cost. If a company is small and at risk of defaulting on payments, equity finance is much safer. You can also check out the comparison attached.

Is anyone else a big fan of podcasts? I'm a bit obsessive over them

Some of my current favourites:

• Hardcore history by Dan Harris
• How I built this by NPR
• Tim Ferris
• Waking up by Sam Harris
• Startup school radio by Y Combinator (you can see I like startup stuff!)
• Joe Rogan

And then when I'm feeling like I should be studying:

• Planet Money by NPR
• Freakonomics radio
• Economist/FT
• Bloomberg Surveillance
• BBC World Business Report

Hey guys!

A quick explanation of what's going on on the law insights section. We were actually going to postpone our website launch until we finished this page, but it turned out to be a much bigger task than we imagined, hence the coming soon cover at the moment.

Here's the thought process behind the law insights page:

• The most common issue I see is that students find it hard to tell the difference between law firms. I don't blame you guys, it is really difficult and that's an odd thing - I don't think you should be choosing your firms without knowing what to expect.
• In other words, we'd rather you guys send good applications based on your genuine understanding of different law firms, rather than forcing artificial answers that sound good.
• So, we'll be sharing our thoughts on what makes each law firm different. We'll be comparing practice area strengths, geographical spread, training and culture, innovation and technology, starting with the magic circle.
• Hopefully, that'll also help your applications and interviews, so you can really drill down why you're applying to different law firms and tailor your answers.
• Finally, we've been collecting interview experiences from future trainees and trainees at different law firms. So you'll also find that by each firm. The idea isn't to tell you what the interview questions are (we'll block that out), but to give you a better idea of what to expect. That way, we hope you'll feel a little less nervous and a little more prepared, so you can excel at interviews.

I'm hoping to get the draft of the first firm done either tonight or tomorrow. I'll be posting the law firms up one by one, so keep an eye on the page! And of course, if you have any requests or comments, please let me know.

Hey everyone,

I'll be updating you guys on these forums so you can see what we're working on a the moment. A few of you have made suggestions already, and that's been super helpful.

I'd like to stress that the purpose of this site is to help you guys get into the top corporate law firms. We've got a nice network of lawyers to help out and lots of advice to share, but that's no good if we're not doing the right things. So, if there's anything you think we could be doing better or any features you'd like to see, please post it below. We'll chat with you and see what we can do .

Best,
Nicole

Hi everyone . This will be a guide at some point, but until then I thought I'd post Jaysen's article here. It was written some time ago (shortly after the referendum), which we then sent out on the mailing list. So keep an eye out for part 2, which will be more updated.
"Merry Christmas All,


This popular interview question is difficult. There's plenty of information on the topic and it can be easy to spend hours getting bogged down in irrelevant detail. It tests your ability to form a coherent and structured answer and you'll be expected to have opinions and back these up with evidence. The interviewer will challenge your assertions or ask you to be your own devil's advocate.

This article is intended to be a high-level overview of some of the most important consequences of Brexit for law firms. This is the first of two parts; it was written early 2017 to assess the progressive impact of the referendum. Part 2 will compare how things have developed since and what we can expect for 2018.

The loss of passporting rights


Office relocations

Whilst many law firms have offices across the EU, a client wishing to transfer its headquarters to Frankfurt, Paris or Dublin may be unhappy dealing with a satellite office. Law firms may struggle to pitch themselves as a one-stop-shop to new firms or retain existing clients unless they can develop their presence in European financial districts. Some law firms, including DLA Piper and Pinsent Masons have already made plans to position offices in Ireland to practice EU and UK law, and this is likely to be a key business strategy for law firms over the next five years.

The uncertainty of Brexit negotiations in the short term was initially predicted to decrease the volume, value and scale of transactions that commercial law firms undertake, particularly in departments which tend to thrive in a bull market, including M&A, private equity and capital markets. The volatility of the market conditions make the UK an unattractive destination for companies to raise funding. After the vote, Pure Gym Group, Misys, Biffa and O2 either deferred or cancelled their proposed IPOs. The loss of the ability to passport prospectuses may continue to drive down IPO activity if there is no mutual recognition or the cost of dual listings increase. The total value of UK M&A activity is predicted to fall from $340bn in 2016 to $125bn in 2017 due to Brexit uncertainty and this fall in transactional work may decrease law firm revenue.

What can law firms do?

Commercial law firms are likely to increase investment in countercyclical practice areas to offset a drop in commercial activity. This includes bolstering their restructuring and insolvency practices or introducing new regulatory departments. Those law firms which are especially reliant on the UK and EU may look to merge or invest in the US or emerging growth markets in order to diversify their risk. In Legal Week's survey, 69% of partners expected revenues for the top 50 firms to fall over the next five years and 82% predicted law firm redundancies in the next two.

Law firms are likely to invest in a number of measures to develop their competitive advantage or cut their own costs in light of a fall in revenue. Law firms may also develop immigration or employment teams to reassure their existing European talent and clients against the threat of work permits and visa restrictions post-Brexit. For example, Clifford Chance and Linklaters have already begun to hire international trade law experts to advise clients

Post-Brexit trade: A positive future

If a new relationship can be forged with states outside Europe within the next two years, law firms will see a surge in previously deferred transactional activity from companies. The UK is likely to secure novel trade deals with new partners, with a rise in M&A, projects and infrastructure work across Asia. This may align with a growth in expansion activity by mid-sized firms and the recent trend of transatlantic mergers for others in order to have the scale or expertise to deal with a new post-Brexit economy.

In any case, London's low language and cultural barriers, skilled labour force and the prevalence of English law will continue to make it an attractive platform for multinational corporations to do business within the EU

That's all for now. Stay tuned for Part 2 where we re-assess these Brexit developments and look ahead to 2018.

All the best,

Jaysen"

Hey guys,

This is a very popular interview question this year so I’ve decided to do a mini-guide. I know I’ve briefly touched on these areas in other posts, but hopefully, this’ll help you to connect the dots further. I hope to release part 2 tomorrow.

Who raises interest rates?

That’s the central bank. Almost every country in the world has one. I’ll focus on two – the Bank of England in the UK and the Federal Reserve in the US. Right now, when you see the press talking about the ‘Fed’, that’s short for the Federal Reserve.

How do central banks raise interest rates?

Central banks don’t actually control the interest rate. They influence it. They do this by deciding how much money there should be in the economy. The amount of money in circulation at a given time is called the money supply. If the money supply increases, it can stimulate lending and growth, but it can also cause inflation to rise – we’ll get to that below.

If central banks want to raise the interest rate, they will reduce the money supply. There are a few ways they can do this. One way is to increase the discount rate (the base rate in the UK). The discount rate is the interest rate at which a bank can borrow from the central bank if they want a loan. If the central bank raises the discount rate, the banks tend to respond by raising the interest rates on their loans.

What’s inflation got to do with this?

In 1971, a packet of crisps cost 5p, a cinema ticket cost 30p and a house less than £6000. Why is everything more expensive? You can (generally) thank inflation for that. Inflation is where the price of goods and services rise over time.

What causes inflation?

Inflation can be caused by rising business costs. If the cost of raw materials rise, a business may increase their prices to maintain their profit margins. The central bank can also cause inflation if it prints too much money relative to the productivity in the economy. When there’s more money chasing a limited amount of goods and services, the excessive demand can push prices up.

That’s what happened to Venezuela. A quick background – Venezuela’s economy is almost entirely dependent on exporting oil. So when oil prices crashed in 2014, the government couldn’t fund its expenses. Instead of cutting its social programmes or seeking help, the government decided to print money. The thing is you can’t just print money because the value of the currency will fall. Which it did, a lot. This was a problem, not least because the country relies on imports for most of its food, which it pays for in US dollars. But even as the currency fell, the government continued to print money. To give you an idea of how bad things have become - the International Monetary Fund predicted inflation will reach 13,000 by the end of 2018.

Why do we have inflation?

You might have seen that the Bank of England and the Fed targets an inflation rate of 2%. A low and stable rate of inflation isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It causes people to spend or invest because if they don’t, their money will be worth less in the future. The central banks can also control inflation if it rises too quickly.

The opposite is true if inflation falls below zero. That’s deflation. It’s where prices fall over time. Deflation causes people to spend and invest less, because their money is worth more tomorrow than it is today. If people stop spending, prices fall even more, causing a deflationary spiral.

You can look into Japan for a recent example of this. They’ve been battling with deflation for almost 20 years. When prices start to fall, it’s hard for the central bank to fix it using interest rates. Japan did try - they introduced negative interest rates in 2016, which penalises banks for holding cash. The country also printed money on a massive scale (also known as quantitative easing). That may have worked – it’s hard to say, but the economy is almost out of deflation for good. Unfortunately, Japan also has the highest debt-to-GDP ratio in the world.

How do interest rates impact exchange rates?

Suppose the interest rate in the UK and the US is 2%. Fast forward a few months, let’s imagine the Fed raises the interest rate to 3%. Now investors can get a higher rate of return by investing in US government bonds. So, all things being equal, investors sell sterling so they can buy dollars. As there’s high demand for the dollar, its value increases.

So what?

The short answer is that it’s good for imports, bad for exports.

The longer answer: when the value of the dollar goes up, it’s cheaper for people in the US to buy goods abroad, so imports tend to rise. That’s good for US companies who import products or raw materials from overseas. It can also help foreign companies. For example, if a UK company does business in the US and generates income in dollars, its earnings will increase when it’s converted into dollars. This could lead to more foreign companies investing in the US.

But a stronger dollar affects companies which export US goods. They tend to see a fall in sales because their goods become more expensive. US multinationals with overseas businesses are also hit. A stronger dollar means companies will record lower income in its books when it’s translated into dollars.

What about the stock market?

It tends to fall. Investors worry interest rates are going to increase. If interest rates increase, it can be more expensive to borrow, which can slow down a company’s growth. Likewise, if interest rates increase, bonds become more attractive because investors will get a better return (more interest payments). So many investors sell shares to invest in bonds.

There’s also a few other reasons. Janet Yellen just left as the chairman of the Fed and her replacement, Jerome Powell was only recently sworn in. A new chairman causes uncertainty for investors, especially when the central bank has been lenient with low interest rates for so long. He’s also the first non-economist in almost 40 years.

Why are they raising interest rates this time?

First, it’s important to remember that interest rates have been really low for a long time. This was in order to stimulate growth after the financial crash.

Now the US and the UK are more than eight years into their recovery. The US economy is doing well. It’s seen wage growth and low unemployment rates. When the economy is growing and wages are growing, the Fed thinks the economy can take the rise in interest rates.

Why are people worried?

There are fears that the US economy can’t sustain an increase in interest rates. Some say it isn’t growing fast enough. Others point to the number of companies with lots of debt. Investors don’t like uncertainty either. There was a sell-off in the bond market as investors fear being locked into fixed returns.

The UK tends to follow the US in raising interest rates. This was also supported by unemployment falling to a 42 year low in December 2017. However, we’ve got Brexit to deal with, so it makes less sense to do so when the markets are already troubled.

Then there are the emerging markets. When the Fed lowered interest rates in 2008, it became cheaper to borrow in dollars and many emerging markets took out loans to build new infrastructure and expand their economies. Borrowers in emerging markets will be hurt because they have plenty of dollar-denominated debt. If interest rates rise, investors are also likely to flock to the US and sell emerging market currencies. So these markets tend to rattle at signs of a rise in interest rates.

Part 2 to follow!

Based off the interest from the other post, I thought it’d be good to begin writing up some information on this area. This is a project of passion rather than expertise, so I’d recommend, if anything does interest you, to read around the subject yourself.

This post is meant merely as a rough introduction to the world of LawTech, with more specific posts to come in the future. Apologies for it being a bit long but I thought it'd be better to have these simple introductory paragraphs in one place.

What is LawTech?

Often when the term LawTech (or LegalTech) is used it’s followed up by liberal use of buzzwords such as AI or Machine Learning. LawTech, however, doesn’t necessarily mean androids walking to client offices and interfacing with their IT system. A lot of the changes taking place right now are relatively simple automations to digitise processes that previously would have required a lot of manual labour to complete to make it easier and quicker to complete tasks.

It remains difficult to predict what is going to happen in the legal sector. Currently we’re seeing the automation of tasks within it but have yet to experience the innovations that will be the driving force behind the major changes. It is this automation v innovation that is key as the latter will be the one that truly changes the legal sector.

An easy example of the difference between the two being seen in communication. Automation of a process to make it easier to communicate between parties can be seen with mail v e-mail. Clearly, the latter has taken over as a far more efficient and faster communication process but it isn’t innovation in itself, despite being an innovative automation. Innovation can be seen in the social media networks which have completely changed how people communicate. Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc are revolutionising how we stay in touch with people and how we make new connections with people.

It’s that level of innovation that the legal world is ripe for, but it isn’t here yet, so for now we can talk about what is here and speculate on what may come in the hope that the spark will grow from that.

LawTech is coming

Lawyers are not, by their nature, a technologically advanced bunch. A sector proud of it’s traditions combined with a conservative professional who looks to minimise risks doesn’t often to lead to tech innovation and it isn’t unfair to suggest the legal sector is behind the curve on modern day technology.

You don’t have to try very hard to hear stories from other professions about how, when they went to a meeting with their iPad or Laptop containing all they need, they were met by a lawyer with reams of printed documents.

A further anecdote can be heard from Richard Susskind (an important academic in this area) about how in 1996 The Law Society fundamentally rejected the idea of e-mail taking over from mail as the primary source of communication with clients. They did so on the grounds of client confidentiality – they couldn’t see how it could be possible to ensure sensitive documents could remain secure. Clearly with the bias of hindsight, we can look back to 22 years ago with amusement over this, but I also find it quite helpful to reflect on this as an example of the importance of keeping an open mind on technology within the profession.

There is no denying an overhaul is currently taking place worldwide. Richard Susskind, Bruce MacEwen, Steven Harper, Daniel Susskind, Mitch Kowalski, George Beaton and Jordan Furlong are among the notable authors and academics who predict the law sector will change more over the next two decades than the previous two centuries. Already we’ve seen shifts away from the traditional law firms with companies such as AA and BT looking to move into providing everyday legal services and Co-Op bank looking to offer legal services for customers from its bank branches. Law firms have created freelancing arms such as ‘Vario’ from Pinsent Mason or ‘Lawyers on Demand’ from Berwin Leighton Partners and MDPs (e.g. PwC) have begun to offer legal services alongside complementary ones such as accountancy or IT consultancy. The legal sector is changing rapidly and technology is going to magnify this.

Where are the needs for LawTech?

The two major areas of LawTech both revolve around the same central theme – saving money.

The first area, the commercial area, is focused on developing and selling software to law firms that will enable them to increase efficiency and productivity to react to an ever-increasing client driven pressure to perform at the lowest price possible.

Technology in this area includes systems such as technology-aided review (e.g. intelligent search analytics that allow for complex and thorough reviews of large sets of documents to select the most relevant) and smart contracts/document creators. Many companies (start-ups and established) are involved in developing competing products in this area with examples such as ThoughtRiver, RAVN and Luminance.

Law firms are also actively getting involved at early stages by investing money into inhouse technology focused research and development programs e.g. Allen & Overy’s Fuse, Denton’s NextLaw or Mishcon de Reya’s Labs. The latter works by welcoming applications from start-ups before selecting the most interesting, inviting them inhouse to work for months with the department that matches their idea most closely before finally having a presentation day to showcase the finished product. MDR then choose which start-ups to invest in.

The second major area of LawTech is focused on access to justice. Whilst I’m sure some of these companies would also look to commercially sell their products to law firms, they’re predominantly aimed at trying to ease the issues of legal aid cuts and spiralling legal costs. High expense isn’t a new thing for the law sector, Lord Bingham's favourite quote on the subject is from the 1650s; “the law is beyond remedy. It costs £10 to recover £5”. It is, however, a problem that may be addressed with better functioning technology.

Legal services such as LegalZoom and Rocket Lawyer offer commercial legal products at lower prices – contract automation tools can be accessed for low prices (either one-offs or subscriptions) and easy to use search functions allow individuals and small businesses (their primary customers) to access lawyers on fixed-rate or lower fees. The market is huge in this area; around 83% of small businesses (less than 50 employees) state they’ve had a legal problem and sought solutions to it outside of the legal industry due to the high cost otherwise involved. Evidently, figures such as this show large swathes of potential work previously going missed can now start to be accessed by companies such as those mentioned above.

Other tech solutions to Access to Justice problems have been provided in the other forms:

CrowdJustice is a simple crowdfunding website to raise money for litigation that doesn’t fall under Legal Aid.

DoNotPay, a rules-based chatbot, helps people to challenge parking tickets or helps refugees with asylum applications.

Elexirr (previously known as Lawbot), a company focused around chatbots that assist in other areas (including case prediction).

How does it affect you?

I mentioned this elsewhere recently but realistically, the partners and senior lawyers at the firms are not going to be the ones embracing this technology. They’ll benefit through you, the younger lawyers of the firms. You’ll be the ones learning how to use the technology and becoming well-versed in it now and embracing the many free events ongoing around London (and other locations) to demo software will only help you in the long run.

From a student’s point of view, it’ll only be of help to know as much as possible about the firm you’re applying to. To be able to talk about Linklaters’ investment in LawTech (such as long-standing partnerships with RAVN, trials of Kira Systems, Leverton and working with Neota Logic to mention but a few areas of investment) in any depth will be of great assistance in helping your application/interview with them to stand out and it’d be another avenue through which you can express your interest.

The last major reason for you to get into LawTech as a topic and start thinking about it is you’re where its future lies. As I mentioned before, it’s the innovation that will truly change the industry, not the automation. Before the ATM was created, customers could access their money from banks during opening hours. Now it’s a 24 hour service – that’s an example of an industry changing innovation.

Currently, we’re seeing a lot of great people creating a lot of exciting and interesting technology but it is an industry very much in its infancy. Companies are focusing on one strong idea and developing it as well as they can but the vast majority of it appears to be innovative automation. The more minds that begin thinking of possible future solutions and changes, the more likely a new and exciting legal sector will develop from it.

Tomorrow I'm going to start creating a thread surrounding current resources available for you to use to start to brush up on this area (e.g. books, websites, podcasts etc) and then in the future I'm going to begin writing up a guide to some of the tech out there. Let me know if there are any particular areas you might want to read about and I can cater the posts in that direction.

Hi there - I have a final TC interview at Ashurst next week. I'm feeling quite daunted as its 3.5 hours plus and I'm worried about very technical banking/finance or sector focused questions, particularly in the partner interview. The interview structure is:

1. Written case study in the form of a business report (how should I structure this?!)
2. HR Interview
3. Partner Interview

If anyone has any tips I would really appreciate it!

Silly me completely forgot yesterday was the last day of February. I'll keep all the March posts in this thread.

(01/03/2018)

Headlines

1. The European Commission published guidelines yesterday that will require social media sites to remove illegal content from terrorism to copyright infringement from their sites. In relation to the terrorist content they will have just one hour to remove it. [Great but I don't know how the likes of FB would be able to remove something like that within an hour!]
2. The Bank of England's Term Funding Scheme ended, which means smaller banks now have to compete harder for deposits. This was a scheme where banks could borrow at a cheaper rate provided they increased lending.
3. Spotify is going to be floating on the market in an unusual manner. It's going to live-stream its investor pitch(!). Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Allen & Co are advising and it's valued at $19.7bn. In comparison Snapchat was valued at $24 billion.

Feel free to comment

Hey guys, we've had a few requests about specific law firm interviews. Whilst we're still building the law firm insights page, please post your request here and we'll try to hunt someone down to help

Hey Jonty,

Good to see you on here. I'm very interested in this area and your thoughts. The bigger UK firms (and some US firms) appear to be racing to adopt new technologies/AI.

Let's take three of the magic circle:

A&O

• Built its own tech incubator, Fuse
• Made an equity investment in Nivaura, the first company to join Fuse
• One of its lawyers built MarginMatrix to handle derivatives compliance
• It backed the Legal Innovation Centre at Ulster University which will train students on legal tech.

Clifford Chance

• 400 lawyers are involved in its new tech group
• Invested in Kira Systems for doc review/due diligence
• Worked with Neota Logic for derivatives regulation and MiFID II
• CC Dr@ft allows in-house clients to build their own contracts.

Linklaters

• Launched its own tech software, LinkRFI, to handle bank rinfencing reforms
• Developed its own AI platform, Nakhoda, which is involved in DD.
• Trialled AI software including Kira Systems and RAVN (I think they're competitors?).

Seems like they're taking it seriously.

What kind of posts did you have in mind?

Hey all - I'm happy to say we've got a bunch of trainees who've offered their time for this week!

Nicole Shroff will be joining shortly to answer your questions. She's a trainee at Latham & Watkins and has just started in her fourth seat (debt capital markets).

To kick us off, Nicole - can you tell us a bit about yourself and your path to Latham?

Hi,

I am currently working on a tc and one of the questions is to write about an issue i have been following in the press and how it affects the firm. I can't seem to find any issue in the press which I understand or find interesting apart from brexit which i do not know will make for an app that will stand out. Do you by any chance have any ideas that I could write about?

Thanks in advance

can anyone share their experience and please help with information and advice regarding white & case’s face to face interview for the vac scheme?

Hi All,

After countless post AC PFO's, I have unfortunately not been able to secure a VS this year ( still waiting for one post VI) but have now started planning for my TC applications. I know that alot of the TC places go to vac scheme students so what I am trying to ask is - should I only be applying for TC's with firms that have a 20+ intake, any thoughts on this approach?

Hi everyone,

Good job on the site!

Basically, I've been invited to attend an A&O open day. This was much to my surprise, because I was rejected by them for a TC app back in November.

I have to choose some interactive workshops to attend during the open day, I was wondering if you’d be able to help me out a bit?

This is the email that I received:

"The Open Day will run from 9:30am - 5:30pm on the 14 March in our London office: One Bishops Square, London E1 6AD. This year, we are giving you the opportunity to only attend the sessions that you will find the most interesting and relevant to you.

The day will start with breakfast and then an introduction from our Graduate Recruitment Manager, following which will be a morning Partner Panel. You will then be able to continue the day as you have chosen, ending with a Trainee Networking Practice fair."

Further to that, theres a link, where I need to choose some 'sessions/interactive workshops' to attend. The options are:
1.) From 11 - 12:
GR app tips *
Diversity at A&O
Work through a case study and gain an insight into IP
2.) From 1:30 - 2:30:
How to build your Personal Brand
Interactive session with Nivaura (A&O’s Fintech partners) *
Pro-bono at A&O
3.) From 2:30 - 3:30:
Again, Pro-bono
Mock interviews *
Interactive commercial awareness session *
* = denotes those that I’m interested in. So effectively, its the last one that I’m struggling with..

Also if you have any tips on do’s/don’ts, how to make the best/a lasting impression, and how to get the most out of the day?

Hey all,

I've broken the once-a-week rule already as Amy Hillier has kindly offered to answer your questions this week. She's a future trainee at Clifford Chance and is helping me put together a very comprehensive interview guide - we'll be running through about 200 interview questions and how to answer each one!

To kick us off - Amy could you tell us a bit about yourself?

So the big headlines at the moment (28/02/2018):

• Toys R Us and Maplin went into administration
• Jay Powell, the new federal reserve chairman, was optimistic about the US economy in his testimony, which some think could lead to more interest rate increases.
• Despite Brexit, Toyota has joined Honda and Nissan by committing to build a new version of its car in the UK. This also follows the government's commitment to support the automobile sector after Brexit, where it has said it will invest up to £21.3m for Toyota's plant.

I still haven't decided whether it's more helpful to do a daily or a weekly round-up but we'll see how it goes. Feel free to discuss any of the topics, it would be good to see different perspectives! I'll try to pick out three interesting headlines, but you can also add anything I've missed out

Hiya!

We are quite a small community at the moment so I thought it would be a good idea to introduce ourselves here. Please also tell us an interesting fact about yourself if you want to!.

I'm Nicole, a future trainee

My interests: I love to bake and dance. My not-so-interesting fact is that I don't know how to whistle!

I wasnt sure where to post this so please move it if it's on the wrong place. This isn't really applicable to me yet but it will be soon. I was wondering if you had any tips on networking during schemes? How do you 'work the room'? Do I prepare?

Commercial Awareness Updates

Hey!

Seeing as we're quite small at the moment and that you guys seem pretty responsive, I thought I'd see if there was any interest in a daily commercial awareness update? I think it would help be stay on top of the news for later TC interviews. If I get enough votes I'll go for it! I was thinking I could post two or three main topics of the day and we could discuss them?

PS: I put weekly in the title in case daily becomes a bit too much!

C xx

Edit: You can find the March commercial awareness updates here: http://www.thecorporatelawacademy.com/forum/index.php?threads/commercial-news-update-march-2018.29/

The April commercial awareness updates here (I also start talking about the impact on law firms here too): http://www.thecorporatelawacademy.com/forum/index.php?threads/commercial-awareness-april-2018.67/

And the May commercial awareness updates here (Again I started covering the impact on law firms): https://www.thecorporatelawacademy.com/commercial-awareness-briefing-2/

Hi everyone

What are your thoughts on the differences between the magic circle law firms and US law firms? Which firm is it better to train at? Are you really likely to work more hours at a US firm?

I wasn't sure when we should start applying?

Mine was where I had to estimate the amount of people in the UK that used mobile phones. It was odd.