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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kay Aston" data-source="post: 182972" data-attributes="member: 36759">Hi there [USER=29878]@ashwright[/USER] ! Thanks for the questions, and i'm so glad you took inspiration from our journeys  ✨ [USER=36740]@Amma Usman[/USER] has given some absolutely fantastic insights, so I don't have too much in addition to add! But my personal thoughts are below:1. I agree that studying a law degree doesn't really give you an advantage in case studies. Aside from understanding some basic bits of contract law such as warranties and indemnities, I cannot think of any LLB content I actually needed to use in any of my case study assessments. Even warranties and indemnities are not things that I learned in depth in my LLB, so for all intents and purposes I was largely in the same boat as a non-law student. It is important to remember that a lot of firms now recruit roughly 50/50 law and non-law students, so they make the assessments universally accessible to all applicants (for efficiency and fairness).Most of what is necessary to know in case studies is the commercial/business acumen element of commercial awareness. i.e. how does an M&A deal work from start to finish, which documents are drafted, how do respective teams of a law firm get involved, etc. Its less commercial awareness in terms of reading the FT and being aware of current affairs, and moreso about understanding how transactions work, how law firms and clients make money, and the drivers behind business decisions. [USER=36740]@Amma Usman[/USER] has outlined some excellent resources so far. I hugely second the recommendation of The Money Machine by Philip Coggan. Even as a trained accountant, this book managed to explain some financial concepts in such a clear and simple way that I had never even thought about in such a way before. In terms of understanding how each department of a law firm would feed into deals, the Training Contract Handbook by Jake Schogger was a lifesaver for me, as well as podcasts created by individual law firms, which often interview trainees about the types of work they contributed to various deals.2. I completely second [USER=36740]@Amma Usman[/USER] 's point about journalling. I kept a 'commercial awareness journal' (which in actuality was a Notion page), where I would read 1 article a day (usually FT), and spend 10-15 minutes writing down my thoughts about what effects it could have, macro, micro, effects on different shareholders, and lastly how it could affect the work of the law firms I was applying to, focussing on all different departments.You already mentioned podcasts, which I am also a massive fan of. The FT briefing and Watsons Daily spring to mind. Additionally, newsletters can be a great source for keeping up to date, specifically those targeted to commercial awareness such as LittleLaw, which is excellent because it not only gives you the news headlines, but it explains how they apply to law firms, which is something you will likely need to do in interviews/AC's.3. I think I touched on this in answer 1 but my experience in studying for my LLB was extremely different for training for law firm applications. The best method for the latter is simply practice, and discussing it with people out loud so you can be sure that you can actually discuss and explain difficult concepts in interview.I hope this was somewhat helpful, happy to answer any further queries! ✨</blockquote>

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