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📅 Vacation Scheme Applications 2025–26
Planning to apply for winter, spring or summer vacation schemes? Join our dedicated threads for support, deadlines, and discussion:
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2025–26 Vacation Scheme Deadlines
Includes winter, spring and summer deadlines + a handy rolling/non-rolling checklist. -
TCLA Vacation Scheme Applications Discussion Thread
Ask questions, share tips, and support each other through the application cycle.
Let’s make this your strongest application season yet 💼
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2025–26 Vacation Scheme Deadlines
2020-21 Direct Training Contract Applications Discussion
- Thread starter Jaysen
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Fwiw, it is exceedingly easy to overanalyse things like this when, in fact, they're of no material consequence!
They might not have asked you questions because they felt you gave them to everything they needed and others didn't, for example.
As hard as it is, try and just put it to the back of your mind, focus on other things etc - ultimately it's now done and you've clearly done the best you could do and you're a very diligent, conscientious candidate. Fingers crossed for you.
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Got a VI invite from Shoosmiths 😁 this is my first ever video interview (it was my first ever application). I tend to get very nervous during interviews, soes anyone have any tips to calm the nerves? As obviously I want to show my best!
I thought the same, if they invite us for a VI on 22nd of June. How are they going to have enough time to review to invite to AC for end of June. I hope we hear back next week at the latest. But I am slightly worried.I know just thinking realistically to submit a VI and then review them in time for AC’s starting end of this month, doesn’t leave much time! Hopefully good news will come soon! Have a good weekend
It sounds like it's gone well to be fair, based on what you're saying.
Anecdotally, I came out my initial Travers VS interview and all I could think about were two mistakes I knew I had made. Two big, glaring errors that would almost certainly cost me the scheme. I'm now going to train at Travers. I spoke to my initial interviewer after signing my TC and turns out she never even noticed the mistakes I made during the interview.
Try not to worry too much about these things because the chances are you're building them up in your head.
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This is such a good point! I completely forgot they said AC dates starting the 28th JuneI know just thinking realistically to submit a VI and then review them in time for AC’s starting end of this month, doesn’t leave much time! Hopefully good news will come soon! Have a good weekend
Exactly! Hopefully we hear back next week! Fingers crossed and good luck!!!This is such a good point! I completely forgot they said AC dates starting the 28th June
So I gave up on my law journey in April to do something else. It's important to persevere when you set goals, but it's also essential to trust your instinct. Many people will find they don't enjoy law following an open day or even a Vac Scheme. That's perfectly fine. Given the time and money pursuing a law career, I'd say it's super important to listen to your instincts and not to keep going because you feel the law is the career you ought to be doing - not least if someone else has persuaded you of this view.
Law is super challenging. A meaty, at times soul-destroying job with few parallels other than maybe banking and consultancy. It's crucial to remain open-minded about careers for as long as possible because you still have easy access to multiple careers fairs and alumni working in a range of sectors at university. Please make the most of them and come to as informed a decision about your career as possible.
Law is super challenging. A meaty, at times soul-destroying job with few parallels other than maybe banking and consultancy. It's crucial to remain open-minded about careers for as long as possible because you still have easy access to multiple careers fairs and alumni working in a range of sectors at university. Please make the most of them and come to as informed a decision about your career as possible.
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To follow on from the comments we have had recently regarding thinking whether commercial law is truly for them, it took me 9 years to work out working in law firms wasn’t for me.
Unlike many of you, I fell into it by chance where my first job was at a city law firm. I then got trapped into it, because put frankly, legal graduate recruitment tends to pay at the higher end of the scale. I left twice and yet was lured back in by good pay. Both times I was uneasy about going back, but I felt like I couldn’t give up a pay rise and a good opportunity. I let my “I always work hard and like to” attitude and “I can do this to prove myself” cloud my ability to think about whether they were really the right opportunities for me.
And I also got caught up in the prestige, not just of law but being at “leading firms” at the top of their game. I wanted to work with the best in my field in a way to prove myself and my abilities - which is a really unhealthy attitude to take to be frank with you.
Of the nearly seven years spent in law firms as an employee, I can honestly say I only enjoyed 18 months of them. And that was ultimately down to the people I worked with at that time who made all the hard work and stress worthwhile. As soon as those people left, I was unhappy
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but looking back, I shouldn’t have stuck with law. I have subsequently found working with other sectors far more interesting, and yet they also provides the elements I was always so keen to be around and that I thought law could only provide (I never want to be the smartest person in the room for instance, in fact I’d prefer to be one of the least smart).
I also realised that I was never really designed to succeed in law firms. My personality traits don’t tend to work as well in them, which ultimately led to me suppressing my character, which in turn led me to be unhappy. I have the attributes to succeed in them (which I did) but my attitudes and approaches didn’t work as well, which in turn led me to second guessing myself far too often. Although that is sometimes a good thing, it became a huge issue for me when I knew I wanted to do something the right/best way but wasn’t allowed to.
I know I am not looking at this from being a lawyer, but there are a lot of parallels with my experience and those I see in candidates when I speak with them or when I read their applications.
Yes, this career will be the right one for many people. But it won’t be for many who currently think it is too. I’d really encourage people think think carefully about what it is that is truly motivating them before committing to any career, but given with law you have to play the long game, you definitely have to think about it even more carefully.
Unlike many of you, I fell into it by chance where my first job was at a city law firm. I then got trapped into it, because put frankly, legal graduate recruitment tends to pay at the higher end of the scale. I left twice and yet was lured back in by good pay. Both times I was uneasy about going back, but I felt like I couldn’t give up a pay rise and a good opportunity. I let my “I always work hard and like to” attitude and “I can do this to prove myself” cloud my ability to think about whether they were really the right opportunities for me.
And I also got caught up in the prestige, not just of law but being at “leading firms” at the top of their game. I wanted to work with the best in my field in a way to prove myself and my abilities - which is a really unhealthy attitude to take to be frank with you.
Of the nearly seven years spent in law firms as an employee, I can honestly say I only enjoyed 18 months of them. And that was ultimately down to the people I worked with at that time who made all the hard work and stress worthwhile. As soon as those people left, I was unhappy
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but looking back, I shouldn’t have stuck with law. I have subsequently found working with other sectors far more interesting, and yet they also provides the elements I was always so keen to be around and that I thought law could only provide (I never want to be the smartest person in the room for instance, in fact I’d prefer to be one of the least smart).
I also realised that I was never really designed to succeed in law firms. My personality traits don’t tend to work as well in them, which ultimately led to me suppressing my character, which in turn led me to be unhappy. I have the attributes to succeed in them (which I did) but my attitudes and approaches didn’t work as well, which in turn led me to second guessing myself far too often. Although that is sometimes a good thing, it became a huge issue for me when I knew I wanted to do something the right/best way but wasn’t allowed to.
I know I am not looking at this from being a lawyer, but there are a lot of parallels with my experience and those I see in candidates when I speak with them or when I read their applications.
Yes, this career will be the right one for many people. But it won’t be for many who currently think it is too. I’d really encourage people think think carefully about what it is that is truly motivating them before committing to any career, but given with law you have to play the long game, you definitely have to think about it even more carefully.
has anyone else still not heard from Harbottle?
Anyone else think the Freshfields application platform is absolutely abysmal? Wishing everyone would move to apply4law!
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