Who are our competitors?

[JYP]

Is it just me or is this question rather forced? I recently had a interview and the partner asked me who I believed their competitors are (I was quite puzzled as I have no idea how I am even supposed to research this) and it resulted in an awkward silence for a few seconds and then I replied with a few firms in the same "category" as the firm in question (City firm).

Needless to say I was rejected about 45 minutes after the interview (amazing turnaround in all honesty) - now this question just seems quite desperate. I was hoping someone could give me a way to find out who a firms compeititors are and how to go about answering this.

I take quite a bleak view of the question in general, rather I cannot fathom why a law firm expects a law student to know who a particular firm is under threat from. Not to mention that students do not just send out one application (pretty much self-explanatory) and its often the case that they are applying to said "competitor" firms too and surely everyone knows this.

I dont believe for one second that law firms are really that naive to believe students have only applied to their firm so the other "who else have you applied for" question just seems absurd.

 

[Abstruser]

Hi, I'm really sorry to hear about your rejection. I understand it must be incredibly frustrating to fall down at this hurdle, and I hope you manage to get some meaningful feedback from the firm. I just have a few thoughts on how to answer these kinds of questions moving forward:

On identifying a firm's competitors, I think this question is really so that your interviewers know that you have researched the firm. I don't think there is a 'right' answer here but its more about having an awareness of the legal market generally and where the firm is situated in that spectrum.

I messed up this question at an interview once and it also cost me the VS, and at the time I was quite bitter about it thinking that surely if I had researched the firm enough to produce a decent application, it was unreasonable to have to know much more about the firm. However, in hindsight I think it is because the application process is really extremely competitive. When choosing between two equally capable candidates (and there are an abundance of capable candidates in this competitive process) I think a firm would 100% prefer to hire the candidate that has considered other firms and can clearly explain why they want to work for that firm specifically.

A few points that might help when answering this question:

• International strategy. Global firms that compete for large international transactions are less likely to compete with firms that focus more on domestic or national work.
• Practice area. Does the firm have any particular strengths in a certain practice area? If so they are more likely to compete with other firms sharing similar strengths in that area (eg private equity) than firms that specialise more in, say, international arbitration.
• Geographical strengths. Is the firm known for its strength in a particular geographical region? Similar to the point above.
• Transaction value / market segment. Have a look at the firm's recent deals page. Does the firm exclusively carry out high-value, upper market work (over £500m value) or is it more mid market (around £50m to £500m), or is it a mix of both? Based on that profile, you can get a sense of which other firms would also be competing for work of a similar value.
• Innovation. Does the firm provide any ancillary legal services like project management, legal resourcing etc? If so, it probably competes with other firms providing a similar service.

On answering "who else have you applied to", I don't think its about saying you haven't applied anywhere else. I think they absolutely do expect you to have applied to other firms and it would probably be quite concerning if you said you hadn't applied anywhere else. However, I think this question is more about demonstrating that you have been applying to/targeting firms based on a coherent strategy or objective, rather than just sending out an application to any and every firm.

Those objectives might include:

• Practice area (having strong interest in finance, so targeting firms with top-tier finance practices)
• Training structure (wanting to try a lot of things, so targeting firms with training structures that allow that)
• Smaller groups (wanting to work in smaller teams, so targeting firms with smaller trainee intakes)
• Internationality (desire to work either abroad or have an international element to work, so targeting firms accordingly)
• Culture (wanting to work in a culture of inclusivity/diversity/innovation etc, so targeting firms accordingly)

I know exactly how frustrated you feel and I am sorry if my answers may not really be what you need to hear right now. However, I hope this is helpful nonetheless and all the very best for your other applications. If you have any other questions feel free to PM me.

 

[Jaysen]

Is it just me or is this question rather forced? I recently had a interview and the partner asked me who I believed their competitors are (I was quite puzzled as I have no idea how I am even supposed to research this) and it resulted in an awkward silence for a few seconds and then I replied with a few firms in the same "category" as the firm in question (City firm).

Needless to say I was rejected about 45 minutes after the interview (amazing turnaround in all honesty) - now this question just seems quite desperate. I was hoping someone could give me a way to find out who a firms compeititors are and how to go about answering this.

I take quite a bleak view of the question in general, rather I cannot fathom why a law firm expects a law student to know who a particular firm is under threat from. Not to mention that students do not just send out one application (pretty much self-explanatory) and its often the case that they are applying to said "competitor" firms too and surely everyone knows this.

I dont believe for one second that law firms are really that naive to believe students have only applied to their firm so the other "who else have you applied for" question just seems absurd.

Sorry to hear about the rejection. I think the strength of your answer would depend on what you mean by category. Some of the older categories like 'silver circle firms' can be quite outdated (because a Macfarlanes/Travers is very different to an Ashurst or HSF).

This is a pretty common interview question, and it's something you'll have a better understanding of over time. It's very tricky, but I don't think the interviewers' motivations are quite as bad as you think, unless the interviewer was expecting you to have the one 'right answer'. In reality, I expect they were looking to see your thought process.

One way to approach this would be to look at a firm's core practice areas. You can use Legal 500 or Chambers and Partners to look at firms that are grouped within similar tiers. If a firm is known for a particular practice area expertise, you'll likely see it mentioned on Chambers Student/RoF (e.g. Kirkland and private equity, Clyde & Co and shipping, Jones Day and mid-market M&A etc.). That's not a perfect approach, but you could help yourself in your answer by explaining that you're focusing on a particular area and the firms competing in that area. You could also consider the international reach (e.g. is it another firm trying to becoming a global one-stop shop?), its international reach (is it a US firm trying to compete in London?), its clients (does it have strong public sector clients?) etc. Not all of this information will be obvious, but the more you research firms, the more you'll have an idea of how to group firms.

If an interviewer asks you: 'Where else have you applied?', that strikes me as quite a different question, more about your motivation rather than your commercial understanding. You are right that firms know that you'll be applying to multiple firms, and you don't need to pretend you aren't. You just want to show that you have some kind of strategy, so even if the firms you're applying to are completely different, you might want to explain what led you to take that approach.

 

[Jaysen]

Hi, I'm really sorry to hear about your rejection. I understand it must be incredibly frustrating to fall down at this hurdle, and I hope you manage to get some meaningful feedback from the firm. I just have a few thoughts on how to answer these kinds of questions moving forward:

On identifying a firm's competitors, I think this question is really so that your interviewers know that you have researched the firm.

I messed up this question at an interview once and it also cost me the VS, and at the time I was quite bitter about it thinking that surely if I had researched the firm enough to produce a decent application, it was unreasonable to have to know much more about the firm. However, in hindsight I think it is because the application process is really extremely competitive. When choosing between two equally capable candidates (and there are an abundance of capable candidates in this competitive process) I think a firm would 100% prefer to hire the candidate that have considered other firms and can clearly explain why they want to work for that firm specifically.

A few points that might help when answering this question:

• International strategy. Global firms that compete for large international transactions are less likely to compete with firms that focus more on domestic or national work.
• Practice area. Does the firm have any particular strengths in a certain practice area? If so they are more likely to compete with other firms sharing similar strengths in that area (eg private equity) than firms that specialise more in, say, international arbitration.
• Geographical strengths. Is the firm known for its strength in a particular geographical region? Similar to the point above.
• Transaction value / market segment. Have a look at the firm's recent deals page. Does the firm exclusively carry out high-value, upper market work (over £500m value) or is it more mid market (around £50m to £500m), or is it a mix of both? Based on that profile, you can get a sense of which other firms would also be competing for work of a similar value.
• Innovation. Does the firm provide any ancillary legal services like project management, legal resourcing etc? If so, it probably competes with other firms providing a similar service.

On answering "who else have you applied to", I don't think its about saying you haven't applied anywhere else. I think they absolutely do expect you to have applied to other firms and it would probably be quite concerning if you said you hadn't applied anywhere else. However, I think this question is more about demonstrating that you have been applying to/targeting firms based on a coherent strategy or objective, rather than just sending out an application to any and every firm.

Those objectives might include:

• Practice area (having strong interest in finance, so targeting firms with top-tier finance practices)
• Training structure (wanting to try a lot of things, so targeting firms with training structures that allow that)
• Smaller groups (wanting to work in smaller teams, so targeting firms with smaller trainee intakes)
• Internationality (desire to work either abroad or have an international element to work, so targeting firms accordingly)
• Culture (wanting to work in a culture of inclusivity/diversity/innovation etc, so targeting firms accordingly)

I know exactly how frustrated you feel and I am sorry if my answers may not really be what you need to hear right now. However, I hope this is helpful nonetheless and all the very best for your other applications. If you have any other questions feel free to PM me.

^ great advice!

 

[LuLa]

Is it just me or is this question rather forced? I recently had a interview and the partner asked me who I believed their competitors are (I was quite puzzled as I have no idea how I am even supposed to research this) and it resulted in an awkward silence for a few seconds and then I replied with a few firms in the same "category" as the firm in question (City firm).

Needless to say I was rejected about 45 minutes after the interview (amazing turnaround in all honesty) - now this question just seems quite desperate. I was hoping someone could give me a way to find out who a firms compeititors are and how to go about answering this.

I take quite a bleak view of the question in general, rather I cannot fathom why a law firm expects a law student to know who a particular firm is under threat from. Not to mention that students do not just send out one application (pretty much self-explanatory) and its often the case that they are applying to said "competitor" firms too and surely everyone knows this.

I dont believe for one second that law firms are really that naive to believe students have only applied to their firm so the other "who else have you applied for" question just seems absurd.

Hi! I'm really sorry to hear this and to be honest this is the kind of question that caused me a lot of mental pain and overthinking in the past. I also used to "rank them together" based on whether they were MCs, SCs or US but also had to realize (the hard way) that this doesn't really work out.
So this cycle, whenever they asked me I adopted a different strategy and said:

"depends how we look at it. if we take the kind of work that the firm does, considering im interested in x department I think the firm's most prominent competitors are y and z. so for example: "slaughter and may is particularly strong in public M&A. when it comes to that its main competitor I would say is Freshfields." however when we look at banking then A&O would be the biggest one.
potentially then also go into other practice areas that interest you (eg in private equity if we stick with the slaughter and may example, the biggest competitors then become the US powerhouses like Kirkland or Latham or Weil".

then you could state "in terms of international reach, considering the firm wants to grow/is growing/ is established in x y z markets its biggest competitors are..."

i also think a really good one to add would be tech and the firm's general strategy for the future. that is one i brought up in all my interviews this year when they asked me about competitors/why i wanted to work at a specific firm. i think especially now where the legal profession is changing quite a lot it is very important to work at firms that are revolutionizing their model with a look to the future (eg Ashurst's ADV and "digital" practice area/ A&O's "Fuse" and legal service centers/ Dentons' NextLawLabs/ Slaughter and May's "Luminance") etc... I find that if you make the interviewer understand that you made an educated decision about applying to the law firm because you think it will genuinely help you become a lawyer who can still be competitive in the workplace of the future they will rate you highly .

 

[JYP]

WOW! This forum is absolutely amazing, genuinly I was not expect that level of detail and I wish I would have asked before the interview as it has allowed me to look at it differently (probably would have had a far more informed answer too)

As a third year law student I was not really all that clued up with how to use the legal 500 and the whole tier system was hugely confusing (I am getting more used to it). I am glad I signed up here and I am hopeful I can use the advice above in the future.

With it being my first interview it was rather frustrating but I guess looking back it was my own fault/inexperience.

I think the what other firms threw me off as I looked at it from a negative perspective and said no one else and they probably thought I was strange or completely obsessed. My reasoning was I did not want to offend them by making them think they were just a name on a long list of applications I chucked around.

Thank you guys! @Jaysen @LuLa @Abstruser (also your advice is exactly what I needed to hear)

 

[futuretraineesolicitor]

Hi! I'm really sorry to hear this and to be honest this is the kind of question that caused me a lot of mental pain and overthinking in the past. I also used to "rank them together" based on whether they were MCs, SCs or US but also had to realize (the hard way) that this doesn't really work out.
So this cycle, whenever they asked me I adopted a different strategy and said:

"depends how we look at it. if we take the kind of work that the firm does, considering im interested in x department I think the firm's most prominent competitors are y and z. so for example: "slaughter and may is particularly strong in public M&A. when it comes to that its main competitor I would say is Freshfields." however when we look at banking then A&O would be the biggest one.
potentially then also go into other practice areas that interest you (eg in private equity if we stick with the slaughter and may example, the biggest competitors then become the US powerhouses like Kirkland or Latham or Weil".

then you could state "in terms of international reach, considering the firm wants to grow/is growing/ is established in x y z markets its biggest competitors are..."

i also think a really good one to add would be tech and the firm's general strategy for the future. that is one i brought up in all my interviews this year when they asked me about competitors/why i wanted to work at a specific firm. i think especially now where the legal profession is changing quite a lot it is very important to work at firms that are revolutionizing their model with a look to the future (eg Ashurst's ADV and "digital" practice area/ A&O's "Fuse" and legal service centers/ Dentons' NextLawLabs/ Slaughter and May's "Luminance") etc... I find that if you make the interviewer understand that you made an educated decision about applying to the law firm because you think it will genuinely help you become a lawyer who can still be competitive in the workplace of the future they will rate you highly .

Hello @James Carrabino @George Maxwell @AvniD, hope you are doing well. Just had one question regarding the last part of this answer and I'd be grateful if you could please answer it for me. The last part of this response suggests that all firms who have Legal Delivery Centers are competing with each other but I just don't understand this fully. For example, Ashurst has a New Law wing called "Ashurst Advanced" which is located in Glasgow, Freshfields has one in Manchester, and A&O also has one but I don't think this makes A&O and Freshfields competitors of Ashurst for obvious reasons. A&O and Freshfields are ranked higher in most practice areas than Ashurst barring Projects I guess. So, I don't understand how these firms are placed in the same category just because all of them have legal delivery centres.

Thanks.

 

[Romiras]

Hello @James Carrabino @George Maxwell @AvniD, hope you are doing well. Just had one question regarding the last part of this answer and I'd be grateful if you could please answer it for me. The last part of this response suggests that all firms who have Legal Delivery Centers are competing with each other but I just don't understand this fully. For example, Ashurst has a New Law wing called "Ashurst Advanced" which is located in Glasgow, Freshfields has one in Manchester, and A&O also has one but I don't think this makes A&O and Freshfields competitors of Ashurst for obvious reasons. A&O and Freshfields are ranked higher in most practice areas than Ashurst barring Projects I guess. So, I don't understand how these firms are placed in the same category just because all of them have legal delivery centres.

Thanks.

I imagine the idea is that they're competing on price offering (i.e. whoever can innovate and offer the best price wins the mandate over their 'competitors'). It's a relatively simplistic view and isn't reflective of what is actually quite an asymmetric market (depending on which industries you're looking at).

It's better to focus on what type of work the firms try to compete for, their international coverage, conflicts, etc.

 

[futuretraineesolicitor]

I imagine the idea is that they're competing on price offering (i.e. whoever can innovate and offer the best price wins the mandate over their 'competitors'). It's a relatively simplistic view and isn't reflective of what is actually quite an asymmetric market (depending on which industries you're looking at).

It's better to focus on what type of work the firms try to compete for, their international coverage, conflicts, etc.

Thank you, Romiras. Just a follow-up question, please? I get the price offering thing but don't you think that these delivery centers work to support the original mandate which is being handled by actual lawyers. I mean it's not that these centres have their own clients (please correct me if I'm wrong here though). So even if let's say Ashurst's delivery centre prices its offering the lowest, would the clients still choose Ashurst over A&O and Freshfields for, let's say a PE deal? I guess the pricing of the delivery centre would not entice the client as much as Freshfields' or A&O's PE expertise.

 

[Kubed]

Thank you, Romiras. Just a follow-up question, please? I get the price offering thing but don't you think that these delivery centers work to support the original mandate which is being handled by actual lawyers. I mean it's not that these centres have their own clients (please correct me if I'm wrong here though). So even if let's say Ashurst's delivery centre prices its offering the lowest, would the clients still choose Ashurst over A&O and Freshfields for, let's say a PE deal? I guess the pricing of the delivery centre would not entice the client as much as Freshfields' or A&O's PE expertise.

Just chipping in there if that's ok - I don't necessarily think it's always so black and white. In an answer to a question about competitors, there's not really a correct answer as such (unless you compare wildly different firms to each other)...it's much more about demonstrating your understanding of the general commercial landscape and then using that identify what firms are doing similarly/differently to each other (and how those different factors might attract clients). Pricing might be a part of the considerations a client makes when choosing, but it's never as simplistic as being the only deciding factor.

 

[futuretraineesolicitor]

Just chipping in there if that's ok - I don't necessarily think it's always so black and white. In an answer to a question about competitors, there's not really a correct answer as such (unless you compare wildly different firms to each other)...it's much more about demonstrating your understanding of the general commercial landscape and then using that identify what firms are doing similarly/differently to each other (and how those different factors might attract clients). Pricing might be a part of the considerations a client makes when choosing, but it's never as simplistic as being the only deciding factor.

Thanks for your response, Kubed.

 

[Romiras]

Thank you, Romiras. Just a follow-up question, please? I get the price offering thing but don't you think that these delivery centers work to support the original mandate which is being handled by actual lawyers. I mean it's not that these centres have their own clients (please correct me if I'm wrong here though). So even if let's say Ashurst's delivery centre prices its offering the lowest, would the clients still choose Ashurst over A&O and Freshfields for, let's say a PE deal? I guess the pricing of the delivery centre would not entice the client as much as Freshfields' or A&O's PE expertise.

I think you might be misunderstanding what these 'delivery' centres do. They provide typically cheaper labour than having in-office, London-based paralegals. As a result of this, they can take on a lot of work that is just volume, process-churn, and as a result, allow firms like Ashurst and A&O to provide more competitive pricing.

Example: If you have a bunch of cheap paralegals or document production specialists based in Eastern Europe, which would cost 1/2 the amount to have an equivalent person in North England, for a specific process like due diligence reviews, updating trackers and diligence questionnaires, etc, then you would be able to naturally offer a better fee quotation than your competitor who would have higher costs because their paralegals are based in London which cost 4x as much.

Ashurst's delivery centre is working for its internal client, Ashurst (their fee earners), to help them produce an end product that is quick, efficient and hopefully cheaper. They are not pitching to outside clients to take over a specific part of the process (e.g. due diligence), and partner up with lawyers from A&O to do the 'premium' work.

 

[futuretraineesolicitor]

I think you might be misunderstanding what these 'delivery' centres do. They provide typically cheaper labour than having in-office, London-based paralegals. As a result of this, they can take on a lot of work that is just volume, process-churn, and as a result, allow firms like Ashurst and A&O to provide more competitive pricing.

Example: If you have a bunch of cheap paralegals or document production specialists based in Eastern Europe, which would cost 1/2 the amount to have an equivalent person in North England, for a specific process like due diligence reviews, updating trackers and diligence questionnaires, etc, then you would be able to naturally offer a better fee quotation than your competitor who would have higher costs because their paralegals are based in London which cost 4x as much.

Ashurst's delivery centre is working for its internal client, Ashurst (their fee earners), to help them produce an end product that is quick, efficient and hopefully cheaper. They are not pitching to outside clients to take over a specific part of the process (e.g. due diligence), and partner up with lawyers from A&O to do the 'premium' work.

Thank you so much for this explanation, Romiras. I do understand it now.