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TCLA Vacation Scheme Applications Discussion Thread 2025-26
- Thread starter Ram Sabaratnam
- Start date
That’s completely normal. What’s helped me is turning the nerves into excitement. It’s quite nice being able to talk to real people at the firm, especially as the former stages of the application process these days are mainly testing/VIs.
Thank you! Yes, I would happily go in tomorrow and do the AC. Think it’s the wait now that I am finding uneasy. And I am glad as well that the firm doesn’t have a specific number of places, so I am not competing against others (which also helps the nerves). Trying to see it as an opportunity to show my knowledge of the firm, rather than a job assessment. Obviously I would absolutely love the job, but focusing on the outcome too much would stress me out. So I agree, it’s important to enjoy the process
I study Finance, and this is very useful. Here is some more advice too:
- Link equity financing to:
- Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) – when a firm first lists on the stock market to raise capital.
- Seasoned Equity Offerings (SEOs) – when an already listed firm issues additional shares.
- Both typically increase the number of shares outstanding, leading to share dilution (reduced ownership percentage and possibly lower EPS for existing shareholders).
- Firms can also issue shares through:
- Rights issues – existing shareholders are offered new shares, usually at a discount, to maintain their ownership proportion.
- Bonus (scrip) issues – free additional shares given to shareholders; no new cash is raised, but total shares increase, so dilution still occurs in value terms
- Be aware of financing restrictions often written into legal agreements:
- Covenants may restrict additional borrowing or equity issuance.
- Dividend restrictions can limit payouts to preserve cash for debt servicing.
- Asset disposal restrictions prevent firms from selling key assets without lender approval.
- These are designed to protect creditors and control risk-taking by management
- Always evaluate financing choices using the risk–return trade-off:
- More debt → lower cost (as creditors are repaid first when a company goes into liquidation) but higher financial risk (gearing/leverage) - this can limit the firm’s liquidity due to interest payments on debt
- More equity → safer balance sheet but higher cost of capital and potential dilution.
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This is so so helpful, thank you for sharing! On the matter, does anyone have any thoughts on if there tends to be conflict between equity investors and vulture funds/special situation investors when investing in a distressed company? And if so, how the lawyers navigate these?
No worries, I have rewritten it slightly so it is clearer. And for a distressed company, they are already experiencing limited funds
Debt investors (creditors) must be repaid first if things go wrong. Equity investors only get their cash invested back after all debts are paid
Distressed funds shall usually buy the debt to take control, purchasing debt at a large discount and then using their creditor rights to covert that debt into ownership. This could occur through convertible or exchangeable bonds.
The fund becomes the majority new owner, and so the existing shareholders would be heavily diluted.
Equity investors with to keep their shares alive and maintain ownership. Increases in company value will elevate their share value and return on investment. Yet the specialist funds wish to dilute the company ownership structure to fix the balance sheet.
You could argue that the distressed funds are correct because the equity shareholding will gain their value once the debt is largely eliminated/fixed.
Makes sense. How would convertible bonds work in practice? I haven't come across them before!
Convertible bonds are a type of loan that investors give to a company when it needs money. Unlike a normal loan, the investor has the option to turn that loan into shares in the company later on. This means that instead of only getting their money back, they can also benefit if the company recovers and becomes more valuable. Because of this, investors such as vulture funds have an incentive to help the company survive and improve, rather than pushing it into liquidation just to recover the debt.
This may be going into too much detail, but it could be a way to resolve the tension between the parties, so makes an interesting discussion point.
Hello, which DTC applications are open right now, including firms that allow you to reapply if you were rejected for their VS in the same cycle? I know the following:
- King & Spalding
- Fried Frank
- Paul Hastings
- Bclp
- Morgan Lewis
Not sure about W&C and Macfarlanes
- King & Spalding
- Fried Frank
- Paul Hastings
- Bclp
- Morgan Lewis
Not sure about W&C and Macfarlanes
Just checked last year’s thread and people got AC invites on 28 Feb for anyone wondering. Unsure if they’ll follow the same timeline this year considering they sent additional invites after the 10th. My test deadline was the 26th so idk
Hi, congratulations on receiving your AC. I also applied to London insight day/TC and got an email stating that the London Acs would only be on 24 and 25 March. Did you recieve the same email?
Morgan Lewis & Macfarlanes allow you to reapply in the same cycle if you are rejected before AC stage.
The rest is unlikely to offer you a place after being rejected in the same cycle. BCLP and White & Case would still consider if you ever had an AC in previous cycle but failed, but others three are difficult and certainly least possible.
Hey, thanks a lot! My email included a link to confirm the assessment day which is on 25/03. It also included FAQs. Hope that helps! And good luck
Is anyone still waiting for Sidley? Applied on the deadline and no updates after that...
Hi @Abbie Whitlock and others,
I was wondering how you would answer the "what is your weakness question" without really going into anything that feels like a reflag for a career in commercial law but also isn't a straw man answer. Something I related to was struggling a bit with turning professional connections into personal relations (I'm very comfortable in structured professional settings, meetings, networking events where there's an agenda, one-on-ones where the purpose is clear. But I've noticed that I sometimes default to keeping things transactional when the better long-term move is to invest in the relationship itself, finding the common ground beyond the work) and I took some steps to work on that and consciously paid more effort into it. However, I am worried that unless I frame this very specifically it may come across as an issue for US firms that generally have lean team.
I was wondering what some reasonable alternatives could be ?
I thought of these options, but not sure if it feels genuine enough or if its a bit of a redflag to talk about them:
"I have a tendency to want to feel completely across a topic before I put forward a view, which can be a strength, but I've noticed it can slow me down in situations where a provisional answer early is more useful than a perfect answer late. I've been working on learning to time-box research and give a working view with caveats, rather than waiting until I feel I've covered everything."
"I'm naturally someone who tries to work things out myself before asking for help, which is useful up to a point, but I've realised that in a team environment, there's a cost to spending too long on something independently when a five-minute conversation would have moved things forward. I've been more conscious about recognising that asking early isn't a sign of weakness ,it's actually more efficient for everyone."
What sort of answers have others gone with in interviews ?
I was wondering how you would answer the "what is your weakness question" without really going into anything that feels like a reflag for a career in commercial law but also isn't a straw man answer. Something I related to was struggling a bit with turning professional connections into personal relations (I'm very comfortable in structured professional settings, meetings, networking events where there's an agenda, one-on-ones where the purpose is clear. But I've noticed that I sometimes default to keeping things transactional when the better long-term move is to invest in the relationship itself, finding the common ground beyond the work) and I took some steps to work on that and consciously paid more effort into it. However, I am worried that unless I frame this very specifically it may come across as an issue for US firms that generally have lean team.
I was wondering what some reasonable alternatives could be ?
I thought of these options, but not sure if it feels genuine enough or if its a bit of a redflag to talk about them:
"I have a tendency to want to feel completely across a topic before I put forward a view, which can be a strength, but I've noticed it can slow me down in situations where a provisional answer early is more useful than a perfect answer late. I've been working on learning to time-box research and give a working view with caveats, rather than waiting until I feel I've covered everything."
"I'm naturally someone who tries to work things out myself before asking for help, which is useful up to a point, but I've realised that in a team environment, there's a cost to spending too long on something independently when a five-minute conversation would have moved things forward. I've been more conscious about recognising that asking early isn't a sign of weakness ,it's actually more efficient for everyone."
What sort of answers have others gone with in interviews ?
@Abbie Whitlock hi abbie!! whats the difference in the format of a memo and a report? how long in length should each be?
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