TCLA Vacation Scheme Applications Discussion Thread 2025-26

[Andrei Radu]

Thanks so much for your response! I agree that the potential consequences would lead to a negative effect. However, interest rates have been cut thrice this year and once again (potentially) in December, and the budget seems to have been received better than expected (softening inflation). Inflation has come down to 3.6% after some persistent months at 3.8%.

Besides the budget, do you reckon these are actually positive economic indicators for (somewhat) better dealmaking? Of course not 2021/22-style but mild improvement(?). I was also wondering about if/how this affects the attractiveness of private credit.

I definitely agree with you on the tailwinds you mentioned - in fact, from what I have been reading and hearing, global dealmaking has been surging in the last quarter, and some people in the field have actually drawn comparisons to the 2021 boom. Basically, a number of different factors seem to be coming together to enable a boom in M&A and capital markets activity:

• Dry powder: Post 2022 with the rise of interest rates, a lot of PE funds have chosen to sit on huge pools of capital (estimated in the trillions) rather than enter investments with lower projected rate of returns as a result of the unavailability of cheap debt. This put the industry under pressure, as investors wanted to see their cash put to work. As interest rates have finally come down, a lot of PE funds feel like now is the moment to make up for all the lost time.
• Exists pressure: on the other side of the PE industry, the difficult economic conditions and the unavailability of financing made exits difficult. This once again put pressure on PE funds, as they were unable to return money to investors, which led to the rise of secondary funds. Now, a lot of PE funds that have been keeping portfolio companies longer than they wanted to see this as a perfect moment to sell to larger corporates or list on a public stock exchange.
• Pent up appetite for corporates: on the strategic side of M&A, because of the difficult macroeconomic environment of the last few years, corporates have generally been holding back from big transactions. This led to many deals that would have normally been more spread out over the last few years be postponed, and now that global markets see this period as of one of relative stability, there is a lot of pent up demand for M&A deals.
• Reduced worries around trade policy: Looking only at year back, there was a lot of optimism about the economy and about a rebound in dealmaking after the election of Trump, who thought to have a strong pro-business economic policy. That was all brought to a halt by the imposition of high tariffs on many trade partners and by all the chaos that followed. Nonetheless, overall tariffs ended up being scaled down significantly, and things seem to have broadly calmed down on the trade policy end. This alleviates many macroeconomic worries and makes businesses a lot more willing to pursue cross-border M&A deals;
• A more relaxed merger control regime: with the Trump presidency in the US and a more pro-business EU Commission agenda, competition authorities have become a lot more willing to green light deals in the last year, which once again alleviates a major worry companies have when contemplating large deals.
• AI investments: as there is an ever growing demand for chips and for data centres to service generative AI usage, there has been huge investment in the area, leading to a boom in tech M&A;
• Uncertainty, leading to a need for scale and diversification: While uncertainty is normally thought to negatively affect M&A, in the current environment it arguably has the opposite effect. As investments in AI are reaching multiple trillion dollars figures and there are increasing worries of a bubble forming as a result of relatively unimpressive returns, many companies are unsure as to where the most value truly lies in the supply chain for AI tech, and, to an even larger extent, are unsure as to what the future role of AI in the global economy will be. Thus, there is a need for diversification which can only be achieved through scale: the larger a company is, and the more diversified its business and investments, the more likely it is it will be able to profits irrespective of how things turn up.

If you want to learn more about this topic, I have linked a recent podcast from Goldman Sachs here, as it presents a significantly more nuanced and detailed analysis of all these trends.

 

[user55998384]

does anyone know if the pathways to practice as fieldfisher or rolling or not - website says conflicting things and haven't got a repsonse from grad rec yet

 

[pfoapplicant]

Hi guys,

Does anyone have any experience of Taylor Wessing's verbal reasoning and critical thinking test? If anyone has any tips to offer, I'd be tremendously grateful!

 

[yk1906]

Hi guys,

Does anyone have any experience of Taylor Wessing's verbal reasoning and critical thinking test? If anyone has any tips to offer, I'd be tremendously grateful!

Hi, I would advise practising via the link to a practice test they send! I found it to be familiar with the real test

 

[AGB2060]

Has anybody heard back from Jones Day after the application for Summer Vac Schemes? I've seen a few interviews and rejections but pretty sure it was about Winter/Spring

 

[llblawstudent]

Anyone heard back for sidley spring/summer?

 

[panda1989]

Do we need to address davis polk to anyone and sign it off?

 

[Bread]

I am filling out my skadden work experience and it seems that the "to" section of the work experience is mandatory. How do we add/say that certain ones that are ongoing?

 

[Amgrad]

I am filling out my skadden work experience and it seems that the "to" section of the work experience is mandatory. How do we add/say that certain ones that are ongoing?

I'd put that based on my contract when it's gonna end, but for permanent role Idk for sure as they mentioned if you are offered a TC make sure you don't have conflicted terms with your current employer.

 

[pfoapplicant]

Hi, I would advise practising via the link to a practice test they send! I found it to be familiar with the real test

Cheers - I really appreciate the advice! I presume there weren't any mathematical questions on the test?

 

[yk1906]

Cheers - I really appreciate the advice! I presume there weren't any mathematical questions on the test?

No, not at all!

 

[Abbie Whitlock]

Hi @Abbie Whitlock and @Andrei Radu: for a q on why the firm, i have structure it in terms of paragraph 1) work paragraph 2) int presence and 3) blended in qality of training + pro-bono work - i have advised to have quality of training as a point on its own but i do not have too much substance on it as attending insight days + speaking to trainees there was no like specific stnad outs that i got so do you think my structure is okay?

Hey!

Your structure seems absolutely fine - you don't necessarily need a separate paragraph on the quality of training, especially if you don't have enough meaningful detail to justify one. It's better to keep your points concise and well-supported than to add a standalone section that feels light and slightly empty.

If you've attended insight days and spoken to trainees but didn't get a single standout "unique" point, you can still weave training into another paragraph. For example, you can reference the firm's reputation for thorough, hands-on training or the consistency you heard from trainees, without needing a dramatic "USP". It's better to be honest and grounded than forcing detail that isn't there.

Overall, your three-part structure (which is similar to what I would usually follow) is perfectly acceptable. What matters most is that each point is specific, genuine, and tied back to why you want to train there.

 

[Abbie Whitlock]

I am filling out my skadden work experience and it seems that the "to" section of the work experience is mandatory. How do we add/say that certain ones that are ongoing?

Hi!

If the "To" field is mandatory, I would likely select the current month and year if the form doesn't allow you to enter "Present" in the box. Many application systems do require a date format, so the common workaround is to put the current month / year to indicate the role is ongoing.

You can also clarify in the description section by writing something like "(Ongoing)" or "Currently in this role" - this should avoid any confusion!

Best of luck with the Skadden application

 

[msclm]

Good luck to everyone staring vac schemes over the next few days/weeks you got this!

 

[TheSlapDotCom]

Good luck to everyone staring vac schemes over the next few days/weeks you got this!

thank u sm u too!!

 

[user55998384]

Hey!

Your structure seems absolutely fine - you don't necessarily need a separate paragraph on the quality of training, especially if you don't have enough meaningful detail to justify one. It's better to keep your points concise and well-supported than to add a standalone section that feels light and slightly empty.

If you've attended insight days and spoken to trainees but didn't get a single standout "unique" point, you can still weave training into another paragraph. For example, you can reference the firm's reputation for thorough, hands-on training or the consistency you heard from trainees, without needing a dramatic "USP". It's better to be honest and grounded than forcing detail that isn't there.

Overall, your three-part structure (which is similar to what I would usually follow) is perfectly acceptable. What matters most is that each point is specific, genuine, and tied back to why you want to train there.

thank you so much!!

 

[Andrei Radu]

Davis Polk keeps sending me a reminder to my unsubmitted app, whilst I think it'd be a waste to apply if I am ineligible as I don't have a law degree or studying PGDL. How can I tell them to withdraw my app if there's no button like Linklaters?

Also, specific question for @Andrei Radu since you a future trainee there, how is your experience at Barbri? I heard its alumni has the highest SQE pass rate compared to other providers, wondering after completing PGDL at BPP/ULaw we can pick Barbri as SQE prep?

I would say Barbri has a couple of important pros and cons as a course provider, which makes it well-suited for some people but not others, depending on how you best learn. Its main advantages would include:

• Flexibility: as an online and self-paced course, you can study anywhere and at any time, for however long you want to. This means you can make your SQE prep fit the rest of your schedule, which makes Barbri a great fit for people who work part time, full time, or have other major commitments.
• Efficiency and saved time: the total amount of study time required by Barbri is overall lower than that of other course providers, as it does not include the LLM part of the course and also does not have many of the practical and somewhat time-consuming tasks like the other providers. Furthermore, you have the option to watch its lectures at 1.5 or 2x speed, which can enable you to go through the material quicker, and you also save a decent amount of time by not having to commute.
• Design of platform and planning: in my opinion, its the online platform is very easy to use, quite interactive, and makes it very easy to track progress and plan ahead. In particular, its PSP (Personal Study Plan) function allows you to specify what days you want to be working and what days you want to take breaks or vacations in and then automatically generates an evenly spread set of tasks to complete until the exams; this makes it easy to simply tick off lectures, readings, and tests every day as recommended by the PSP. By comparison, the other course providers seem to provide less step-by-step guidance to their students, who will as such sometimes use the available materials in quite different ways.
• Focus on MCQs: by comparison to the other providers, I would say Barbri has a way heavier emphasis on learning by doing, and in particular, learning by doing as many MCQs as possible throughout the course. Thus, you will get more exposure to MCQs, which some people say is the best way to prepare for the exam.

As for disadvantages:

• Barbri covers less content than the other providers: Barbri's philosophy is to teach you really well the majority of the content, focusing on what comes up often, rather than trying to give you all the information that could possibly be relevant to an SQE question. This means that some subchapters (for instance, in business law, the chapter on balance sheets) are excluded almost entirely by Barbri. This in turn means that you could get a couple of questions in the SQE that you simply do not have any idea about.
• Barbri's MCQs are overall easier than those offered by the other course providers, and also easier than the actual SQE exams - in large part, because Barbri's questions are less heavy on the fact patters, which means there are less red herrings to distract you from the right answer. Thus, the experience with Barbri mocks may not be the most representative one for the actual exam; and the scores you get on Barbri tests may not be indicative of what you could expect to score on the SQE. To an extent that is true of all large course provides (bar Revise SQE and QLTS, which are thought to be the same/somewhat harder than the SQE), but it seems to me the general opinion is that the Barbri tests are the easiest among the major providers.
• Less socialising and support: with Barbri, you will not get to have a campus or classmates you meet with on a daily basis. This means that (i) you do not get the benefit of meeting people and making new connections; and (ii) you may not have access to all of the sets of notes and insider resources that people generally share with their classmates at the other course providers.

 

[Unknowncabbage]

Has anyone got any tips for Hogan Lovells' Job sim, i.e is the prep time for the VI unlimited and are they primarily motivational? would really appreciate anyone's insight.

 

[Andrei Radu]

Do we need to address davis polk to anyone and sign it off?

I do not have any insider knowledge about this matter, but I did this back in the day when I applied, and I would advise you to do this as well. As for who to address it to, it should be fine to write "Graduate Recruitment Team/Early Careers Team".

 

[Andrei Radu]

Do you think it's a mauvais ton to mention an upcoming internship if it's at a very prestigious place?

I would not say so, provided you integrate your mention of this in a way that makes sense in the context of the point you are making. For instance, if you are describing your ability to manage time well and juggle commitments well, you could explain how alongside academics, extracurriculars, and other responsibilities, you managed to invest significant time to build your commercial awareness, an effort that resulted in you answering technical questions well in an interviewing and receiving this internship offer.