Does anyone have any advice on choosing vac scheme departments? I will of course choose what I find interesting and want to experience, but can anyone give any further recommendations?
Hi
@LEL,
So for when I was doing vacation schemes, I did as
@FS suggested and tried both a contentious and non-contentious seat (generally). I then thought about the practice areas that I was most excited about or interested in at
that firm. For example, at White & Case I did EIPAF (a particular strength in London), whereas at Akin Gump I sat in Litigation (an area I was interested in exploring) and Insolvency (a particular strength in London).
I would not consider the number of hours rumoured to be worked in certain departments. I would also ignore rumours of conversion rates (personally I never heard that one practice area was 'harder' on a vacation scheme than another anyway).
So in short, balance what you are interested in with what the firm is good at. Think about if you were to practice at X firm, what area(s) you would want to explore on your TC!
Hi, does anyone have any advice for the Debevoise AC /Open Day? There will be an interview based on an FT article so I was wondering if anyone has any advice on that as well? Thank you!
Hi
@robynm09,
Congratulations on being progressed to the AC stage with Debevoise! That's awesome news.
For article-based interviews,
this post should be helpful.
This post about ACs in general might be worth a read too.
I hope that is useful!
Besides choosing what you’re interested in, I guess I’d say try to do a seat in both a transactional and a contentious seat (if both are an option) - try out the best of both worlds!
@FS agreed. This is great advice!
Taylor Wessing AC invite 🥳 Any advice or tips would be really appreciated!
Hi
@lellie23,
Congratulations on getting progressed to the AC stage! In addition to the posts I suggested above for
@robynm09,
this post may also be helpful (where
@James Carrabino provides some fantastic advice). I would also recommend
@AvniD's post
here.
I hope that helps.
The biggest thing to do now that you have been invited, in my opinion, is to do preparation little and often if you can. The AC will come around quickly, but you will have at least a few days to prepare (which is
plenty of time). Think about the areas that you feel comfortable about, and try to focus on those that you (currently) do not.
Please do reach out if you would like to ask any further clarifications!
In an interview question of what deals is the firm currently working on how much detail are you expected to go into?
Hi
@TinaT,
To summarise the below,
if you are going to bring up a particular deal, I would advise you to feel very comfortable discussing it and thinking critically about it under pressure. This is difficult to answer in the abstract, but I have been in an interview where half of my interview was centred around my thoughts on a commercial issue which was relevant to a deal that I mentioned. It therefore helps to have a strong footing in both the deal you are considering, but also the wider commercial context in which it is taking place.
If it helps, the process that I went through when thinking about a particular deal was this:
1. Research stage. I googled the deal to look for any news coverage that I could find about it or the firms involved and their strategies. This would take approximately 30-40 minutes
maximum. I actually quite liked this stage(!). I often would print the articles I found.
2. In line with the above, I would look at the Partners/Counsel/(Senior) Associates listed as being involved with the deal and consider their backgrounds (often using LinkedIn). 10-20 minutes
maximum. I would add this, where necessary, to the information I had compiled in 1. Often I just hand wrote particularly interesting pieces of information (e.g.,
if a Partner who went to my university worked on it, other interesting deals they worked on etc.).
3. Digestion stage. I would read through and highlight the information that I had compiled in Stage 1. This took approximately 1-2 hours.
4. Noting stage. Using the information that I had highlighted in 3., I would note down the key points that I had gathered in 3. Often I felt like I retained quite a bit of background, so this stage really was only the
key points.
5. Critical thinking stage. Thinking about the sort of questions they
could ask me about this deal if I spoke about it (including those concerning related wider commercial issues). These would always include basic questions like "why did you pick this deal?", "which departments do you think were involved?" as well as more difficult ones, such as "what do you think were the commercial implications of X?" or "what do you think would have been challenging working on this deal?". This stage would last an hour or so (although I would think about it up until my interview as often it took me a day or so to sit with the question until I felt comfortable answering confidently on it).
Do ask any clarifiers if you would like to! On hand to help as always 🚀
