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Future trainee at Slaughter and May, anonymous

Of course! I’ve jotted down a couple of points below which will hopefully be of some use (they’re probably slightly generic, but perhaps useful).

1. The written exercise is very time restricting. I was provided with information and had to write a business strategy for a company, so general knowledge of business models (SWOT, Porter’s Five Forces etc.) is definitely useful! Avoid going into too much detail, otherwise you will not finish it in time!

2. After you finish the written exercise you’re given around 15 minutes to read an article, and you sit in the reception to read it (which I hadn’t experienced elsewhere). My article was on technology in business, so touching on AI. The partner then comes to collect you and takes you to the interview. Don’t expect them to start with the article first! The first 30 minutes of my interview was based on me, motives, commercial awareness etc. Apparently it depends on the partners, so just be aware that this may be the case.

3. My interview was very commercially focused in comparison to other interviews, although that was just my experience. My interviewers also placed a lot of emphasis on which other firms I had applied to, and why! So be prepared to back your decisions up. Make sure you know why they are different to the other firms you have applied to (i.e multi-specialist, their international approach is very different). The interview itself is very much a conversation. The interviewers are really interested in getting to know you! Definitely be commercially prepared and be up to date with the news, and have opinions on everything you read! (I know everyone says that, but it was particularly true of Slaughter and May).

4. For the article, my advice would be the same for all firms - make sure you clearly articulate yourself succinctly, and sum up the article in your own words and outline the key arguments in the article. The partners really do push you! They do challenge your views, so stand firm when they do challenge you! They will challenge everything you say (more so than at other firms). I’ve heard a lot of people say how terrible the “interrogation” was at Slaughter and May, but I really didn’t feel that. It is challenging, but I think it challenges you in a good way. I genuinely felt that I was having a debate with the partners.

5. The short interview with HR at the end is a strange one. You sit in the reception and they ask you how you think they day went, what you thought went well/bad, what you had learnt etc. I had a really positive experience, so it was easy to discuss the day with HR. They ask again which firms you have applied, whether you’ve had any interviews/offers etc. Just be friendly and yourself. It’s part of the interview, but it’s just very informal.

From a Skadden future trainee.

The AC is structured into 3 parts: an interview with a partner + associate, a group exercise, and a panel discussion (consisting of graduate recruitment, a trainee, an associate and a partner).

Interview

Nothing out of the ordinary here. The partner and associate will have the candidate's application form and CV with them and it will typically just be a discussion of things from these. Most interviews tend to revolve around the candidate's interests, extra curriculars, achievements, leadership roles, motivation behind why Skadden, etc. The interviews tend to be very organic and evolve naturally through the answers given by the candidate and what is on their application form, rather than Skadden having a prescribed set of questions to get through. The main advice I have is to come across enthusiastic, confident and relaxed. Nail those three things along with articulate answers and the candidate should come across very well.

Group Exercise

This varies year on year but will likely consist of working in a pair, having to discuss together an issue/scenario, coming up with an articulate answer and discussing it with the room (all the other candidates plus a few Skadden associates/graduate recruitment). If working in pairs make sure neither dominates and that both of you participate. If discussing something with the rest of the room be receptive to counter arguments and views; try not to take too hard line approach and be open to discussion. The firm is not trying to test your technical knowledge of a particular area in this assessment. Rather, it is the soft skills, the ability to think on your feet, to craft an argument and to persuade eloquently to a group of others. Again, my main advice here is to come across confident, relaxed and articulate.

Panel Discussion

Very simple - ask questions! I don't know how Skadden evaluates candidates here, but I think it's simply a case of demonstrating that you are interested in learning more about the firm, its people and their stories. To excel here I would recommend doing basic research beforehand, such as reading the Skadden Chambers Student feature, and asking questions about the firm / the people on the panel. Things like asking about future firm strategy, office expansion, any new big areas for development within the London office, why X associate chose to qualify into Y practice area following their TC at the firm, etc. are the kind of things I would be thinking about here. It is a case of taking an interest in the firm and showing that by asking a few questions that are interesting and useful.

From future trainee, Jazil Eddaikra

Please see below for my tips regarding Clyde & Co Vacation Scheme interview/assessment centre.

Preliminary Point

Before listing the tips, I just want to emphasise that the process/interview structure may well have changed since I completed my AC (Feb 2017). Hopefully the tips are still useful.

AC Structure

Group commercial exercise.
45 min interview with an Associate and member of HR.

Group Exercise

You will be in a group of approx. 8 candidates.

You will do better if you bring in wider commercial knowledge. Each candidate is given a commercial case study to read through (same for everyone). Everyone will then answer a list of questions relating to the case study. It's important to understand the economic backdrop – which economies are doing well etc.

You are strongly being assessed on interpersonal skills – LISTEN to the people, nod when they speak (sounds silly but this is important) and refer to other candidates by their names. If someone makes a great point – say “that’s a really good point made by John” and then build on it. At beginning of exercise, volunteer to be the script / keep track of time.

Interview

One member of grad recruitment and one associate/senior associate/partner.

Prepare for the 'classic' questions, such as 'why law?', 'why Clyde & Co?' etc. Prepare a commercial news story to talk about (if asked) and ensure you are well versed in the story you mentioned in your application. Try and talk about something interesting/relevant to firm.

Make sure you have numerous examples ready for competency questions. Try to use a different example for each competency question. Examples of competencies they might examine:

- time management/organisation;

- communication;

- conflicting deadlines;

- ability to use initiative / start new tasks;

- teamwork;

- challenging relationship; and

- your strengths and weaknesses.

From my experience, the contents of the interview will vary depending on interviews. Generally, HR will focus on competency questions and the fee earner will ask commercial/legal related questions.

If they press/grill you, stand firm and back yourself (without coming across as aggressive!)

Finally, the most important thing is to come across as enthusiastic throughout the entire AC. Ultimately, they want to hire people who seem genuinely interested and passionate about pursuing a career at Clyde & Co.

(1) Dentons Interview Experience

Chris Dunne, future trainee at Dentons

Know the firm and what it stands for / how your mentee fits into that picture

• Research general commercial areas such as finance/energy etc
• Approach anything they give you logically
• Make sure you Know how to do basic calculations when looking at profit/loss & balance sheets

When was your Hogan Lovells interview?

November 2017

What was it for?

Winter Vacation Scheme

Please describe the interview process at Hogan Lovells.

The assessment centre consisted of a situational judgment test to confirm the scores achieved online- followed by a case study being handed out to prepare for the Partner interview. The case study was about the Saudi Aramco IPO and about the controversy surrounding a potential listing in London. The interview lasted an hour and was with two partners. For the first half hour it felt like a general interview, covering why I wanted to work for Hogan Lovells. This did not go well for me at all as this was my third round of applications and they knew I had never applied to the firm before and I had not prepared a good enough answer for why I was only applying to them now. Also i don't think I was clear enough on why I wanted to work for them in terms of their specialisms. The case study carried the second half of the interview (lasting another 30mins with the same people) and was fairly straightforward- discussing the pros and cons of a listing in London versus Saudi Arabia, what lawyers were doing, what the controversy was about.

What advice would you give to future applicants for the Hogan Lovells interview?

If you are an older/more experienced candidate have a good answer for why you are only just applying to Hogan lovells (particularly if you have experience at 'better' firms)

When was your Davis Polk interview?

Summer 2018

What was it for?

Vacation scheme

Please describe the interview process at Allen & Overy.

Probably the 'easiest' out of everything I have done, as it only involved a single one-hour interview.

I felt welcomed and the interviewers did their best to guide me and relieve my stress.

What advice would you give to future applicants for the Allen & Overy interview?

As with any US firm, make sure you have read widely around the role of law firms in transactions, in this case M&A. I found that Davis Polk was less concerned about your personal experiences and competencies (given that the second interviewer was not even in the room when I was asked these in around 5 minutes), but more so about your 'commercial awareness'. This involved a case study within the interview (for which you are given around 30 minutes before it to prepare), which in my case related to a [Redacted] company wanting to invest in [Redacted] and asking for some [Redacted] in case the investment does not go as planned, for example in case a dispute arose.

The process was 'easy' as far as that is possible, but you will still be called to discuss highly technical aspects, and in my case this involved basic contract law.

*Redacted specific case study details.

CMS Cameron Mckenna Interview.

From Kishan Mathy, a future trainee at CMS:

The assessment day consisted of a case study and two partner interviews. One interview was a competency interview and the other was just a general chat.

The case study involves reading multiple documents and answering the questions set. My advice for the case study would be to show a clear structure in your work that shows how you have reached your conclusions. Also, keep in mind to manage your time properly and that your writing is clear and concise. It is your ability to analysis the documents given to you and present your thoughts clearly that is being tested.

The competency interview is straight forward. The partners have a list of prepared questions they must ask you. I advise using the STAR method to structure your responses.

Finally my advice for the general interview is to answer the questions succinctly and not fall into the trap of waffling. Show your personality. You might also be asked about your thoughts on a current issue so make sure you have at least one current topic you can confidently talk about.

Cleary Gottlieb Interview.

From a future trainee at Cleary Gottlieb:

My assessment day involved a short interview, a negotiation session (you will be put in a team with other participants) and also a group presentation on a competition scenario.

I would recommend researching the firm to be prepared to explain why he/she would like to work at Cleary in the interview and making sure to work well with the team mates in the group Assessment she is assigned.

Baker Mckenzie Interview.

From a current trainee at Baker Mckenzie (vacation scheme application):

So the day consists of three exercises. The first is a group exercise which you will complete with three other candidates. Ironically my trains were delayed and I turned up soaking to this, five minutes late. However I had the belief that it couldn't get any worse which I think helped in my favour. As part of the task you had to recommend a few suggestions regarding this business expansion that was taking place. Across the table you had a few key bits of information about the business that would impact on the advice you give so its important to just consider these all in turn and then make suitable recommendations.

I was able to stand out quite easily because this exercise is timed and at the end one of my group members decided to go above and beyond what was requested instead of just providing the information the suggestion you had for the business.

I suggested we just finish slightly early instead of wasting our time so I think that went down well with Grad rec (who will supervise this task) so I think it best to not act like a sheep. You then have an interview with a senior associate - very basic competency so not much more to say on that. The partner interview - you are given a case study before hand which you need to examine and write down some key bits of information. they will have some classic signs of what they want to discuss - foreign jurisdiction elements, market shares/competition issues, employees they want to keep.

They will have some classic signs of what they want to discuss - foreign jurisdiction elements, market shares/competition issues, employees they want to keep, your standard case study which you present your findings back to the partners and then the expand on your points e.g. why is this a particular issue for this client or what other departments might be able to help with this. Have to say was one of my easier interviews - got nearly all the case study points straight away so not hard to spot.

Ashurst Interview.

This is from an anonymous future trainee at Ashurst (for a TC app) -

Thanks for getting in touch. I didn’t do a vacation scheme at Ashurst, I just did a straight training contract application. However, if the interviews are similar, then your mentee can expect to write business report, have a short interview with HR based around his CV and experiences, and then a longer interview with 2 partners which is more scenario based.

Overall I found the process fairly relaxed compared to other firms. The interviewers are really keen to find out more about your personality, management styles and thought process. Your mentee should prepare to be able to discuss the points raised in his/her application and CV.

The culture at the firm is key: they focus on personality and pride themselves on the social and supportive aspects of the firm.

I hope this helps - if you need anything else please let me know.

When was your Allen & Overy interview?

November 2017

What was it for?

Vacation Scheme

Please describe the interview process at Allen & Overy.

I was greeted by very nice grad rec people, then taken to a little room with other applicants, with other rooms coming off it. We were made to feel welcome and offered snacks. The day was explained to us clearly. We each had a room allocated to us that we would sit in for the interviews, and it felt nicer compared with other experiences where you enter a room that the interviewers are already inside. I had half an hour to look over a case study about a potential merger, with several documents (about 7 or 8) related to the transaction. Once that was over, an interviewer came in to discuss what I had read and act as the 'client'. it started with a quick pitch that I had to make, about whether I would recommend the merger, an outline of the key issues etc. But it was fairly informal. After the pitch, the interviewer discussed what I had said, and brought up some issues that I hadn't covered, either because I didn't have time or because I had forgotten them the first time.

After this hour, another interviewer came into the room for the usual kind of interview, covering motivation, competencies, some commercial awareness etc. The questions were all pretty standard really, and the interviewer was very open about the fact that he has to check certain things off, and shows appropriate levels of recognition that it wasn't an ideal system. Some questions included things like 'how will the role of a lawyer change in the next ten years', we discussed emerging markets geographically, I of course had prepared a few commercial awareness points to discuss.

After the interviews were finished, a trainee came to take each of us individually for a tour of the offices and then a chat in the office cafe about whatever we wanted to discuss, going through questions I had. The trainee was of course very friendly, just trying to help where they could, and by this point I was very relaxed, having finished my interviews.

What advice would you give to future applicants for the Allen & Overy interview?

Make sure you're familiar with company balance sheets, working out profit, understanding sales data and trends. Think about mergers and what kinds of issues there will be - think about all of the different departments that will be involved in the transaction, and the roles of lawyers in each. Think about how you would take data and turn it into advice for a client, ie the best strategy for the business.

Prepare commercial topics to discuss, read financial and business news, be prepared to discuss your competencies, like times you have failed and how to come back from that.

(1) DLA Piper Interview Experience

Anonymous 1 - This is from a future trainee at a different firm, but she interviewed at DLA Piper for a vacation scheme.

Group Exercise

The usual tips would come in handy like checking the time and prompting the others how long is left, referring to everyone by their names and sustaining open body language. Specific to DLA Piper's group exercise, there's a lot to digest so I started from the back and worked my way to the front in the event the others didn't have time to get to the end. I was marked up on using real life examples (e.g. any bad/good press a company has had for something). I'd also advise not being afraid to stick to your guns.

Hey guys,

I was lucky enough to get taken along to this all day conference yesterday which featured both a cracking guest list and free breakfast & lunch, an all-round win really.

I thought you may find it helpful to hear a little bit about some of the things that were mentioned, as it'll directly affect you all in the near future. You have to bear with me though, I lost some of my notes from the day so there will be parts mostly from memory.


Session 1

The morning session was all short talks (around 10 minutes) about innovation in the industry & what kind of future it may hold.

We heard from David Halliwell (Director of Knowledge & Innovation Delivery at Pinsent Masons) who spoke at length about how the roles within law are changing. He pointed some of the roles now available include legal technologists, legaltech project managers and legal engineers (although Scottish firm Cloch Solicitors are trying to trademark the term apparently, so be careful how you use it!). He went on to talk about how this reflects the move in the industry from the traditional route and how it may well open up to a point where we have far, far more roles on offer within law firms.

Next up was Isabel Parker (Chief Legal Innovation Officer at Freshfields) who spoke on the topic of diversity, namely cognitive diversity. The idea of pushing creativity within firms, rather than mechanical operatives. She mentioned the need to look for out of the box candidates, rather than hiring within their own image. So, on that note, I think we can expect more and more paths to pop up as the magic circle and others look for a different kind of thinker.
Parker also spoke about the need for law firms to encourage more people to get involved with technology but also to allow solicitors in firms the freedom to play (and fail) with technology. On that note, David Halliwell spoke about how Pinsent Masons have set up a programme which allows solicitors to have a coupon inhouse which counts as a "discount" against their billable hours targets, thus hours they plug into lawtech sessions are hours they don't have to try to make up elsewhere.

Third session was from Shruti Ajitsaria (Head of Fuse at Allen & Overy). Shruti was probably my favourite speaker of the day and is generally just a great source of friendly information - if any of you want something to put on your CV you may want to look into (politely) contacting her to find out if you can go down to Fuse to see what they do down there, as she mentioned she was open to the idea yesterday of solicitors coming in and I doubt she would mind law students contacting her too.

Shruti spoke about how she got to opening Fuse after working as a derivatives solicitor at A&O for a long time and becoming frustrated at the lack of tech coming through. She mentioned an example of frustration during the GFC. A&O had a ton of derivatives agreements, which were created in Microsoft Word, printed off, signed and filed away somewhere. They had thousands of these, with 90% of them being pretty standard with identical clauses. After the crisis began, clients would need to know what the contract said about e.g. insolvency. So they would have to dig out the derivatives contract, from thousands, flick to the right page to find the insolvency clause. Or they needed to know whether the contract was signed. So they would have to dig out the derivatives contract, from thousands, flick to the right page and check whether it was signed etc. She said a simple monitoring program which could have automated this would have saved them hours of time but the problem was this was how derivatives had always been done and change is a difficult thing to push in law firms.

Fuse works with all departments of A&O and encourages them all to work with the tech companies and try to create something, with the end goal to try to develop a better work/life balance for their lawyers and attempt to cut down on the 60/70/80 hour week by moving the time-consuming manual labour over to technology.

Last up in the session was Julia Salasky, (founder of CrowdJustice) who worked for Linklaters and the UN before growing frustrated with the lack of creativity with which she was able to do her work. Everything is very much how it has always been, so she wanted to do something differently. She spoke a lot about having an entrepreneurial attitude and what that means; she basically boiled her most important lessons down to not being afraid to fail and accepting that there are some fires which you can't put out as you work. Sometimes you have to let the fires in the business burn whilst you concentrate on other areas.


Session 2

The second morning session talked about the skills that the next generation of lawyers need/the current missed when they were hired. It featured research from BPP and talks from Jo-Anne Pugh (Director of Strategic Design at BPP), Adam Corphey (Head of Innovation Technology at BPP) and Mark Collins (Global Head of Knowledge Management at Herbert Smith).

They had conducted research before the conference with 77 legal entitites (inc. Global firms, National firms, Regional firms, Small/Boutique, in-house etc) to find out exactly what they felt were missing. The 9 areas they highlighted for future candidates, with the ones they chose as most important in bold, are:

• Commerciality - i.e. commercial awareness, understanding the law firm is a business, understanding business trends etc

• Tech/Digital skills - i.e. the ability to analyse tech and data, awareness of lawtech (with exposure to it a big plus in their eyes - you can get exposure by heading to demo events etc)

• Written Communication - Interestingly, they said written communication is a major area which needs improvement upon hiring. They said the ability to write concisely with attention to detail just isn't there in new hires, even when simply drafting written comms in the form of emails, and they spend a lot of time developing this.

• Client facing skills - Personally think it's a bit of a weird one for them to have highlighted. It doesn't seem an area that students can work on that heavily? Maybe Jaysen will disagree and come up with examples of how to develop these skills but personally believe this is something which law firms should expect to teach, not expect future candidates to have.

• Flexibility & Resilience - I think probably obvious that adaptability is a big skill to be sought out by firms at the moment. With Lawtech & the SQE coming in, there seems a lot of change to be afoot in the legal industry and they want candidates that they feel can deal with this.

• Professionalism - Not just how you present yourself at interviews (appearance, etiquette etc) but also other areas too such as your social media presence, as social media begins to play a bigger part of day-to-day professional life and moves away from being a totally separate entity.

• Time & Self-management - Law firms want, more and more, someone who can demonstrate that they can manage themselves and their time effectively. They mentioned examples such as demonstrating project management skills (even on a small scale such as planning and organisation of group activities).

• Teamwork - They highlighted the various real functions of what they meant by this. They don't just mean playing in your local football team but rather displaying emotional intelligence and a desire to work within a team to better serve firms who are, increasingly, working across business functions with mixed teams.They also said email has begun to destroy internal social interactions and they want candidates who would prefer to walk across the office and actually talk to the person they need to.

• Creativity - The final skill they selected as important, they want candidates who are creative and have new ways of thinking. Try to figure out ways of displaying this on your application but, also, take it with a pinch of salt given I'm not entirely convinced they mean they want an entirely new breed of candidate, rather a slightly creative variant on the ones they get now.

Hi

I'm looking forward to the application courses!!

I'm just curious, in your experience how much do you guys think it's about application technique, like good writing/tailoring your application over stuff that you can't control like grades/experience?

I haven't had much luck in the past and I've always thought it was just because of my average grades and average experiences, but reading the posts here seems to suggest that plays less of a role?

Hey everyone,

You may have seen the email we sent round recently.

We're developing a series of mini-courses to help you practice for interviews and case studies, and learn about commercial law and business.

I'm keen to hear what content you'd like to see so I've created an anonymous poll where you can choose up to three (if you want more then please choose what you want to see the most).

And if there's anything on there that I haven't covered or if you just want to add more information, please let me know in this thread.

Thanks,

Jaysen

Hi all,

I've just received a video interview invite from Royds Withy King - I've got until Wednesday to complete it. In the description they've just said that they'd like to know more about me through the interview - I haven't done a video interview before, I would appreciate some tips on how I can prepare.

Thanks in advance!

Hey everyone.

I know I said I’d do this back in March but then the final few months of my LL.B kicked into gear and I hibernated from life, mostly in the library. All done now, so thought I’d get around to writing this brief guide up on some of the tech magic circle firms are working on in-house or in collaboration with other companies.

Allen & Overy

A&O recently kicked off the second cohort intake of Fuse; an incubator for lawtech firms (by the way don’t be worried about phrases such as incubator and accelerators etc. Firstly, they don’t seem all that specific and thus if you use one in an incorrect fashion, I doubt anyone would really mind care that much. Incubators seem to be more for tech firms in their infancy, giving them access to the kind of work that allows them to change or test their products in a relaxed, collaborative kind of environment. Accelerators seem to be more for companies in the next stage of their life-cycle, those who are moving from adolescent stage to adulthood and often seem to be a way of hosts to choose which company it may invest equity in. They seem to be for a fixed time period and seem to finish in a demo day for investors to watch. But again, there don’t seem to be strict definitions to what each is).

The first cohort of Fuse seemed a success and led to three of those companies being invited back again to continue working within it:

Nivaura – A fintech startup that is developing cloud based startup for the issue and administration of financial instruments. I believe they recently oversaw two automated bond issues. A&O have also made an equity investment in them and a partner from A&O has joined the board. They seem pretty invested in Nivaura as a company.

Avvoka – A digital platform that incorporates contract creation, workflow and analytics. Essentially a cloud based platform that enables businesses to create, sign and store contracts to streamline the process of generation contracts.

Legatics – automates a whole load of things in the region of banking practices; automated Conditions Precedent, deal bible creations, issues tracing processes etc which people think will save a ton of time and cost for the firms. After the first Fuse incubator, A&O’s banking practice adopted the Legatics platform.

The second cohort of Fuse has also added five companies to it:

Bloomsbury AI – Focuses on natural language understanding and machine learning to try to create virtual assistants that can read and communicate (They have one called Cape at the moment which can read text and answer questions on it) https://alpha.thecape.ai/#/

Kira Systems – Machine learning technology for document review and analysis (they think there is a lot of work to be done around saving time on due diligence and also saving time on contract review)

Neota Logic – Drag and drop AI platform that looks to automate legal processes, documents, expertise… whatever you can throw at it. The drag and drop aspect means you don’t need a tech background to build your own processes, merely a bit of training

Renosys – Fintech again – looking to change regulatory compliance approach of industry

Signal Media – AI business intelligence – BI is the software which helps companies make decisions. It covers a whole range of software such as analytics, reporting and generally plugs into a data warehouse and integrates with it to create reports or analytic tools that allow companies to make decisions. Sainsburys, for example, will use BI to try to stock in a smarter manner. i.e. they know how many oranges were bought in each time period last year via their data warehouse, their BI software allows them to make smarter decisions about how many oranges to send to each store so as to allow them not to run out but also to reduce waste. Signal Media, uses machine learning and AI to create a BI tool that can monitor news and events to create information updates for the company using it.

Fuse II has a focus on legaltech (tech supporting law firms), regtech (tech supporting reg compliance) and dealtech (tech transforming how companies negotiate and complete deals).

Outside of Fuse, A&O also have a big investment in MarginMatrix a digital derivatives compliance system – it has a focus on the OTC derivatives market and MM allows the process of drafting complex documents to satisfy regulatory requirements to be automated – Financial Times reported that this tech allows drafting time of documents to go from 3 hours to 3 minutes.

A&O and Addleshaw Goddard have also both announced new career paths - “training contracts” for those looking to work in a tech space.

__________________________________________________________________

Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance partnered with Kira Systems back in 2016, way before a lot of other law firms even considered Lawtech as a viable option. They’ve been somewhat ahead of the curve on that aspect (although of late the other big firms have caught back up).

Some of the tech companies they work with/use in their offices include:

Neota Logic – As mentioned above. They’ve created the MiFID toolkit which is to help financial institutions assess and address the impacts of the MiFID2 regulations which were implemented in Jan 2018.

Kira Systems – As mentioned above

Elevate – Produced Cael (Latin for Sky – because you can’t take the lawyer out of Lawtech) which is a cloud based series of software tools such as Cael Vision which creates reports based on any metrics required and Cael BillPrep which streamlines the area of billing to save time for Partners.

Litera Microsystems Contract Companion - A contract drafting tool that sits in Microsoft Word Toolbar which assists you in analysing contracts and drafting them too.

Tech for Integrity (t4i) – Not a tech company as such, t4i run, in conjunction with Citi, IMF and others, a tech accelerator with a focus on creating developments that put public trust back into tech. Clifford Chance award “Clifford Chance Legal Advice awards” to some of those companies that have a legal focus and thus help their tech come to light. Examples include AID:Tech – a platform that uses blockchain to ensure that beneficiaries receive social welfare and other aids directly to their digital ID.

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Freshfields

Freshfields run a lot of things out of their legal services centre up in Manchester; the Manchester LCS has a mandate to optimise the firm’s processes around six key areas (AI, blockchain, smart contracts, smart documents, tech expertise and automation). I don’t know that much about what is going on in there but it seems a lot of their tech focus is there.

Outside of that in the company they use:

Kira Systems – As above – document review and due diligence

Neota Logic – As above. No idea what they’re developing, can’t find any information about it.

Leverton – AI data extraction for corporate documents such as real estate.

_____________________________________________________________

Linklaters

iManage (Previously RAVN) – A massive

Nakhoda – Pretty exciting as it is Linklater’s own home-grown tool (in conjunction with Eigen Tech). They’ve just announced a partnership with ISDA to create a platform to automate significant areas of the derivatives documentation and improve regulatory compliance for derivatives contracts.

LinkRFI – Rapidly classifies financial institutes that match the definitions of new legislation – i.e. It saves humans a lot of time by rapidly sifting through massive external databases to isolate client names for banks – it can process thousands in a few hours whereas the average time for a solicitor is around 12 minutes/name.

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Slaughter & May

Luminance – S&M actually invested in this AI company and use it for transaction due diligence. They came to the decision by running a competition between the tech and a group of associates over who could best complete the same due diligence exercises.

S&M also run a Fintech incubator but have announced interest in fintech, insurtech, lawtech, regtech and blockchain (which I’m sure feels left out without a tech suffix).

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I'll continue adding to this to keep the list up-to-date and will also begin to add other law firms on (MDR for example have an absolute ton of Lawtech to mention). I'm pretty sure this may be useful to know whilst applying to any of these law firms

Thought I'd re-post the introduction to AI and the legal profession here. We hope to do a guide in the future, but in the meantime, here are Jaysen's draft notes on a live webinar hosted by the European Legal Tech Association (ELTA)).

And thanks again to Jonty - I understand that you spotted the webinar in the first place!

Speakers: Richard Tromans, founder of Artificial Lawyer and Dr Francisco Martin, co-founder and CEO of BigML

Draft notes:

Introduction

• People underestimate machine learning. That's what we should look into in the short-medium term (machine learning is a form of AI where a program is designed to learn on its own).
• Machine learning can be used to solve complex problems i.e. NDA Lynn: automatically determines whether you should sign NDAs, which sentences are deal-breakers or not acceptable.
• Many tasks performed by lawyers can be automated and it’ll be used to achieve human-level performance at a higher speed for a cheaper price.

The current state of the legal market

• Lawyers in most law firms complete their work manually with the help of IT for a range of tasks like document management, communication, billing and virtual data rooms etc.
• There are some new developments in assisted technology. For example, contract express, but this is more to do with automation.
• The growth of machine learning and natural language processing (allowing a machine to understand natural languages) will have a dramatic impact on lawyers and in-house teams. The whole business relationship will change.
• For example, in M&A due diligence, natural language processing can help lawyers look for specific clauses or evaluate the risks.
• Expert systems like Dealogic (which I’ve used at my law firm) uses inputs from lawyers to form a machine. That alters the way in which lawyers work because the data is available immediately at all hours.
• Some companies are entering the litigation prediction space.
• Automation increases efficiency and productivity, its great for big law firms, and if small law firms can afford it, it will likely level the playing field.
• It’ll allow lawyers to focus on high-level work.
• It’ll affect the cost– typically a client will pay a fixed fee for a due diligence exercise, if you have an automated system such as Slaughter & May’s Luminance which reduces cost - you can increase profit margins.
• AI can also give new value, for example, traditional tasks which weren’t worth doing because the risks didn’t justify the costs could be made possible: this can create new and improved client relations.
• One of the speakers, Richard Tromans, was speaking to Google yesterday. Google performed a test where AI beat lawyers in their document review analysis/predictions. It was interesting to hear how lawyers overestimated their abilities!
• Lawyers/law firms not using AI may be in a riskier position or simply less accurate.
• Law firms need to think about how they’re using data. They should start collecting it and consider how it can be automated. Every time you a lawyer reviews a contract, all that knowledge can be used in machine learning to automate tasks or check clauses.
• Lawyers may need to change their mindset. They could start looking at contracts as data rather than about its textual meaning.

Practical examples

• A 2017 survey of the UK 100 law firms found the top 30 are using an AI/machine learning system – either for fully paid client work or in a pilot.
• Davis Polk in the US is now using Kira to do due diligence. Clients – investment banks – are reluctant to pay associates for this work and want a better solution. When a firm like Davis Polk, one of the best law firms in the world does this, that sends a message to the market.
• This is happening all over the world, Europe has interesting AI companies like French-based Predicted (litigation analysis), German-based Leverton (real estate AI). This extends to Singapore, China and Australia.
• It’s growing really fast. Two years ago, about 5 law firms in the world were using machine learning for due diligence, risk review and compliance, now it’s a huge number (and many aren’t speaking about it!).
• There’s a huge market for automation and a big commercial case, including with small law firms. Soon that cost will go down, and they can specialise in a certain area if that firm, for example, doesn’t offer M&A.
• Smaller firms are also thinking creatively about they can use technology to add value, for example, one firm hard-coded an interactive legal bot. There’s also simpler areas that they can automate such as standard contracts. The higher you go up – that’s where machine learning applies – if you want a like-human capability.
• It's likely that legal innovators – usually 2 or 3 partners at firms will lead this change (as well as external parties pitching). Some firms, such as A&O have already adopted innovation departments.
• Some clients have started to ask law firms about AI systems and how they will benefit the client.

Risks of AI

• Not using the right data or using biased data. Tromans mentioned a US case where a company designed an algorithm to work out whether a person should be given parole. It was found to be completely biased against minorities as the designer had misunderstood data. The problem is the court in America started using it – so caution is needed about who are designing these systems and what data is used.
• Subjectivity can be dangerous if applied to litigation suits etc. To overcome these problems, algorithms need to be trained to make fair decisions and a human should still check the final end-product.

Where will AI lead us?

• Fully automated law firms will pop up and they will be unbeatable in performance/speed/cost: "the Amazon of the legal services".
• Fully automated back-ends for new companies i.e. corporate matters/financing/NDAs/agreements/terms and conditions.
• All major law firms will adopt AI review systems, litigation systems, for at least 10% of work in the coming years.
• Technology will continue to develop and become more sophisticated.
• It’ll vary based on practice i.e. IP v corporate may use it differently.
• The biggest mover has been M&A and the biggest transactional law firms have now created a new standard: within 18 months every major law firm will be using it – from Davis Polk to Freshfields to Jones Day.
• Litigation prediction tools are also being developed by established legal services like Lexis Nexis.
• Clients will get great value. For example, an insurance law firm can use AI to predict the likelihood of litigation suits, that will help insurance firms to predict their costs and they will significantly benefit. Alternatively, lawyers can offer to review sales contracts/service agreements for clients using natural language processing, and determine what type of customer agreements are most profitable/what will get challenged letter and what the probability of that is.

I asked a question about what students going into the legal profession should consider – in relation to AI. They said:

• Trainees and junior associates might want to consider getting involved in hackathons or groups in cities.
• Many legal AI companies, such as Neota Logic, are currently working with universities around the world.
• Paralegals are likely to get hit first, junior associates may be just enough to get by provided they have enough expertise. There will be a market for legal entrepreneurs.
• Law students at Columbia Law School have already been working on machine learning training.
• Some equity partners may think broadly about how many areas to automate, it may get to the point where – through expert systems and natural language generation – all documents will be automated, and only partners will look at the final documentation: this could be in the next ten years!

Hey guys,

It's mental health awareness week and I came across this interesting article from Legal Week: http://www.legalweek.com/sites/lega...-long-working-hours-on-lawyers-mental-health/, but it's under a paywall!

So I wanted to summarise some of the findings because I think it's really important that this kind of thing is open at an early stage. 130 lawyers were surveyed by Legal Week for this.

Legal Week - "Burnt out: new research highlights impact of long working hours on lawyers' mental health"

• They found that "91% believe long working hours are negatively impacting their mental health and physical health".
• Over 37% "regularly work more than 60 hours a week" and 15% do over 70 hours a week.
• "virtually all respondents" work a minimum of one weekend a month, almost half work do "two or three" weekends of the month (this one surprised me!).
• About 40% said "they had experienced mental health issues" while working as a lawyer. Of those 98% said work stress contributed to that.

I hope I don't scare you guys and I think it does vary a lot (the survey includes responses that vary from a lot to a little in the numbers), just something we can be aware of .

Hey guys

I used to find it helpful to write down all my extracurriculars/answers to competency questions, which I could then review before telephone, video and face to face interviews.

If you want to do the same, we created a ready-made PDF for you to use. You can access it here:
https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/thecorporatelawacademy/Law+Competency+Interview+Plan.pdf

Nicole

Hi peeps,

This is a bit late has anyone seen Allen & Overy's new legal tech training contract? http://www.allenovery.com/news/en-g...cheme-launched-by-Allen--Overy-in-London.aspx.

I thought that was pretty cool, looks like they'll be more and more non-lawyers at a law firm and they'll also get to do a similar training contract structure.

Thoughts?

Hi Jaysen,

This is my first time applying to the law firms - so I am actually quite new to all this process and it has been a rather daunting process as I see for every place there are approx 70-80 applicants.

I was currently looking at DWF as their deadline is in June so it gives me time before I apply for MC/SC firms in late July.

I have been struggling with my research - I just do not know how to find the competitors of the law firms.

You have suggested looking at Legal500 and Chambers Partners rankings - but a firm has offices in so many regions - Where do I even begin with finding who the competitors are - Which regions do I need to compare - Which areas of practice do I look into - HELP !!

Is there a particular structure that you implemented to find out who the competitors were?

Hi I just realised I'm going to have a really short time frame for training contract applications this year and so I need to preparing now. Do you have some tips on what I can do to make my training contract application stand out? I have admittedly been applying for a long time but I haven't really nailed it down yet

Hi everyone, I thought I'd start a new thread for the May posts like before.

Thank you @Nicole and @Jaysen for helping me to explain/tidy these up! I think they will also be sending these out in the next newsletter.

Trump withdraws from Iran nuclear deal

• The story: Trump announced that the US is withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal, which saw Iran accept restrictions on its nuclear programme in return for the lifting of international sanctions.
• Impact on law firms and clients: When sanctions were lifted, many investors and international businesses entered Iran. France’s Total signed a $4.8bn deal to develop South Pars, the world’s largest gas field, whilst other European companies, including Airbus, Boeing, Peugeot and Renault, secured lucrative deals in the region. But unless these companies can seek an exemption, they’ll be forced to scale back their operations and find alternative trading partners, or they risk falling foul of US law. They’ll need legal advice regarding their exposure to US sanctions and their ability to exit contracts and exercise termination clauses over the next 3-6 months. For those companies that do not comply with the sanctions or choose to circumvent the restrictions, it remains to be seen whether they will be targeted by US penalties.

Strong US dollar

• The story: Confidence in the US economy has led to a rising US dollar, but this has had rippling effects throughout the global economy. Argentina has been forced to raise interest rates three times – to almost 40% - in the span of eight days to stabilise its falling currency, whilst Turkey has summoned an urgent meeting to save the tumbling lira.
• Impact on law firms and clients: Many emerging market countries and companies borrowed in US dollars during the record-low interest rates. Now, as the US dollar strengthens, it has become more expensive for these companies to pay the interest on their debt. Law firms operating in these regions can help clients prepare for defaults on emerging market debt. Banking and litigation teams may negotiate terms or proceed with enforcement to help lenders recoup their funds, or corporate, restructuring and banking teams could work with borrowers and devise plans to help them pay their debt.

All-time high for private equity

• The story: In January 2018, a record number of private equity funds were operating in the market, raising a total of $744bn, according to a report from the Boston Consulting Group.
• Impact on law firms and clients: It’s boom time for private equity firms at the moment. Money is pouring into funds as investors search for a better return on their investments. But some are warning about the state of the market. Lawyers have helped private equity firms negotiate aggressive deal terms in riskier ‘covenant-lite’ loans, which are now at record highs. These loans, which are used to fund many private equity acquisitions, offer few investor protections and allow private equity firms to load debt onto their target companies. If the market takes a wrong turn, many companies will be in trouble.

Trump tax cuts KKR

• The story: KKR, one of the biggest US investment firms, is converting from a partnership to a corporation in response to the new US tax code.
• Impact on law firms and clients: Private equity firms tend to be structured as a partnership for tax benefits, where tax is only paid on an individual level. But since Trump cut the US corporation tax rate from 35% to 21%, a corporation structure is now a viable option for private equity firms. It also opens the doors to new investors because corporations can be included in stock market indexes, which could potentially boost its value. Most big commercial law firms are also structured as partnerships, but with their growth in size, debt, technology and global reach, there may be a time when it’s better to be structured as a corporation.

Those applications were rejected.

As a word of warning, if you find yourself describing a law firm in a way that could be applied to a number of other law firms, chances are it's too generic.

I know first-hand that tailoring an application is difficult because firms – despite saying they’re all different – often describe themselves in the same way.

So here is what I then did to find out what made a firm different:

Step 1. Research

I’d copy/paste all the relevant information I found about a firm into a word document. These are the sources I used:

Starting point

• Chambers Student Guide: Useful to get a sense of what the firm is like from an internal and external perspective. It provides a useful overview of the firm, any recent developments or achievements, and an insight into the firm's biggest practice areas.
• Roll on Friday: The profiles for the ‘firm of the year’ can be a very useful – and informal – outline.
  
• Lex 100/Legal Cheek: Can be a helpful insight into the culture of the firm.

Deals/awards/strategies

• The Lawyer: Useful for profiles, recent developments within the firm and insights into a recent deal. I’d usually go back 3-4 years if I found lots of information, sometimes even more. (Note, this is less useful now as much of the content has been moved behind a paywall).
• Legal Week: You should get access to 5 free articles or the opportunity to try a free trial (14 days). Good information on deals, lateral moves, firm strategy and international plans.
• Firm’s website: The graduate page will give you a sense of what the firm is looking for in candidates. It may also discuss the training programme, secondments and the kind of work you'll be doing. The main website is useful for finding out about any awards, recent deals or new investments.

Practice areas

• Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners: Useful for an insight into a firm’s strongest practice areas and how it compares to competitors – check the top tiers.

Step 2: Condense

After compiling the information, I would split my screen with the material on one side and a fresh word document opened up on the other side (alternatively you can print out the research document). I would then condense the information in my own words.

By doing this, you’ll not only come out with a useful file containing firm-specific information, but you’ll also start to pick up themes, remember facts and really understand the firm. This will be very handy when it comes to the interview.

Step 3: Sorting into themes

I would then group the topics into themes. Some of the ways a firm may differ include:

• International reach - presence in the US/Asia/Europe/Africa
• Practice area strengths
• Culture
• Financials - Size/profits per equity partner/growth
• Important deals
• Clients
• Management structure or management change
• Partner promotions
• Leadership strategy
• Recent mergers
• Training or development
• Lateral moves and recent partnership moves
• Growth (internal and external)
• Recent profit figures
• Innovation
• Mergers
• Brand reputation
• Trainee retention
• Technology
• Alternative service delivery - offshoring/nearshoring
• Size of intake
• Competitors

Step 4: Writing your answer

By this point, I would have a better understanding of the firm. I would pick one of the themes/areas above that interested me and then write down a few sentences (there may be a couple of points here) about why it did.

Once I completed a few, I would have a sense of what makes Firm X different from Firm Y and how it sits against its competitors.