BCLP VS Question

[Dwight]

Imagine you are a trainee at BCLP and you have been working on a task for an associate in the Finance department. The associate is away and a partner in the department urgently wants a summary note of the research to send to a client, and has asked you to send it to them by tomorrow morning. How would you react? (300)

I have never seen such a question in an application form or interview and I have had experience in both, so with that in mind - I am struggling. However, I have some initial thoughts:

. I would want to speak to the partner about the task but not sure if that should be the first thing I do as he is likely to be busy. Also, If I did - what would we even talk about?
. Instead I would try to find another associate/senior associate in the finance team that has completed a similar task previously and maybe they could help me with the task
. Also, I could ask other trainees in the finance team to help - multiple heads is always better than one

What do you guys think? Any advice on what I should mention/how I should structure the question?

 

[T202]

- check your schedule to see if there are other urgent tasks at hand, if not, notify other partners or people who have given tasks to you quickly that you have been pulled to assist this urgent matter and will try your best or just make sure that all the other tasks will not be hindered due to this or at least will mitigate the impact.

- dig out previous summary notes that was done by the parter to grasp his style, structure, tone, content, format (and many more other stuff that you can get from reading a couple of those), then try to micmic that and make sure that you set out extra time to proof read your work so that it is client-ready when you later ask either another associate or the partner to review it.

- use the library, knowledge lawyer, legal support lawyer, and both physical and electronic resources available at the firm and apply a logical and methodical approach to the client's query (aka the research task).

- State that you would give it a go independently and see how much you can do first because having real responsibility is really cool and that's what you want in your training contract.

- Ask other trainees / associations to have a look at your final product as you said.

- State that you appreciate the possibility of staying late but also understand that your primary obligation as a trainee is to demonstrate good teamwork and if it's urgent you are more than happy to give a helping hand because team effort is important to you.

Just some thoughts. Hope that helps. Don't phrase it the way I did please haha.

 

[Tarnjeet]

Please detail any academic awards, positions of responsibilities and/ or any interests or hobbies outside of academics and work experience (please list in bullet points). (max. 300 words)

Do you guys think that I can include reaching the semi-final of a commercial awareness competition in this answer- I don't think it can be classed as an 'academic award'. But can it classed as an 'interest'?

Thanks,

 

[layk]

Please detail any academic awards, positions of responsibilities and/ or any interests or hobbies outside of academics and work experience (please list in bullet points). (max. 300 words)

Do you guys think that I can include reaching the semi-final of a commercial awareness competition in this answer- I don't think it can be classed as an 'academic award'. But can it classed as an 'interest'?

Thanks,

I think you could - they generally mean awards and I would put down music awards etc myself and they were never disputed

 

[Tarnjeet]

I think you could - they generally mean awards and I would put down music awards etc myself and they were never disputed

Thank you.