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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jaysen" data-source="post: 26296" data-attributes="member: 1">Please state the month/year you interviewed at the firm.November 2019Please specify what the interview was for.Summer Vacation Scheme 2020Please give an overview of the day with approximate timings.2:15pm arrival (I picked the later slot on purpose so I could sit in the Costa opposite and ensure I wasn't late)There was a bit of time to talk to the other people on the AC (I think there were about 5 other people there)There was no introduction from Grad Rec, we all just got put in our case study rooms. One person started with the competency interview because of a mix up. The day finished with an office tour with a trainee. Pretty sure this was not assessed. I left A&O at around 5 ish. Please provide a summary of each assessment on the day with approximate timings.Case study -- I'm estimating it was 45 mins to 1hr. Goes by quickly. I was interviewed by a banking partner. You have to read a booklet and plan a 15-minute presentation in 30 minutes. It’s the quickest 30 minutes of your life – the preparation is very time pressured as even though the booklet isn't long, it is quite long for the time you have to comprehend all the information and prepare a presentation. You don’t have time to go over all the issues in detail as you’ve probably gathered. My partner gave me a couple minutes to read over something properly when he asked me about it and I said that I hadn’t got the chance to read it in detail because of the time constraints. It’s not a test of reading quickly. My case study was a pharma company buying a [redacted] company. It changes from year to year. Knowing about [redacted] didn’t really add anything for me because all the relevant stuff you would have read in the news was in the booklet and you get the general gist that the regulation is loosening and so it’s probably a good buy. There are a lot of problems with the deal but I’d say focus on solutions when you’re preparing. The partner will probably ask you anyway. Think flexibly as well. At one point I said ‘I’d get an indemnity’ because this is what I had learned again and again but the partner asked ‘would the seller agree to this?’ and then proposed another solution. His idea was better than mine and so I agreed. Don't be afraid to disagree though. On the gender-pay gap I disagreed with what the partner said and literally said ‘I’m going to stand my ground on this one’. Probably works better on a more contentious issue such as the gender pay gap where you are more on an equal level with the partner rather than an issue like IP litigation. Don’t bring in irrelevant commercial awareness knowledge to bring it up. This was the case with a lot of my interviews. Case studies are more about thinking flexibly and finding solutions to the problem so I'd focus on that. Technical stuff you should be familiar with•    Different practice areas (especially IP litigation, employment issues, commercial contracts etc – how do you solve problems that come up here?) They typically feature in an M/A case study deal•    Confidentiality agreement with seller – bank needed information that would breach this agreement to give the loan – what do you do (waiver, but also note that the point of the confidentiality is to prevent the seller’s competitors from getting access to the information so they probably will be fine with the bank knowing is what I said)•    Contract to supply plastics until 2024, stated publicly that they will stop using single-use plastics by 2021. I said adjust with supplier and use new buying leverage from new acquisition to stop single-use plastics and maybe extend reusable plastics (as the contract said it was with plastics in general. I think it showed attention to detail to notice that)•    Putting money in escrow •    Indemnities (maybe putting a floor and a cap on a liability payment? or a time limit?)•    Equity/ debt – ways of raising money as a company•    Auction process – what do you do if you don’t want to overpay but the auction process leads to this by nature?Competency interviewIt was with the Head of Graduate Recruitment and the interview gave her the opportunity to get to know me better. I forgot about some opportunities that I could talk about but this ended up fine because it was less like a Q & A interview and more like a conversation. I would just prepare the competency questions on TCLA's website. I would also map out my experiences and the key skills I got from them just in case I got a novel question. Please list any interview questions you were asked.Case study Basically all of them were in relation to the issues listed above – so how would you solve this? What about this solution? What if they don’t agree? What if they don’t do this? Competency interview My interview was in November last year but I remember that there was no out of the ordinary competency questions.What is your best advice for each aspect of the assessment on the day? Please break this down for each assessment. This can include advice for preparation, as well as tips for the day.Case studyMy advice is to be really technically sound. I had researched a couple deals and was able to mention one with regards to an employment issue (I don’t even think it was an A&O deal). I wouldn’t force anything in though, if you know enough I think it shows through. If you do the work and research a lot on how a deal works and what the lawyer’s role in this, this shouldn’t be that hard. Emphasis on the hard work that goes in before though! Commercial awareness is really important and if you spend a lot of time on it some of the terms just end up in your lexicon and finding solutions to the problems isn’t that hard and it flows in your answers. I used the FT, corporate law academy and other sites quite a lot. I’d read an FT article and google every word I didn’t know the meaning of. Competency Prepare your skills and do not be too nervous -- it prevents your personality from showing through!Were you successful?Yes</blockquote>

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