Latham & Watkins Interview 2019 - 2020

[Jaysen]

Please state the month/year you interviewed at the firm.

February 2020

Please specify what the interview was for.

Spring Vacation Scheme

Please give an overview of the day with approximate timings.

12.00 pm - Arrival
12.15 pm - Case Study
1.00 pm - Lunch with trainees
2.00 pm - Application Interview
2.45 pm - Presentation + Interview

Please provide a summary of each assessment on the day with approximate timings.

Case Study

The case study has not changed from previous years. You are asked to advise your client and write a report on whether they should go through with an acquisition. You have four options to choose from. Acquire company A, acquire company B, acquire both or acquire neither. 45 mins to read documents and type up the report.

Application Interview

Interview with two partners on different aspects of your application. My interview was very commercially focused. 45 minutes long.

Presentation + Interview

Again this aspect of the AC has not changed. You are given a topic to present on five days before your AC and you can spend as much time as possible researching your answer. There are no presentation facilities but you are allowed to prepare a handout. This was supposed to last 45 minutes but mine only lasted 30 mins.

Please list any interview questions you were asked.

Application Interview

As I mentioned, the interview at Latham was one of the most commercially focused ones I have ever done. I basically didn't get asked anything about myself as you would sometimes get at other firms. They used my application as a starting point for all of the commercial questions. So I got asked about issues facing the retail industry, the IPO market, the difference between US and UK firms (because I had done a vac at a UK firm before) and a whole host of other things I honestly can't remember anymore. The only personal question I got asked was why I had failed to convert a previous vacation scheme to a training contract.

Presentation + Interview

The questions I got asked were very much just follow up questions to things I had mentioned in my presentation. I'm not sure there's any generic questions you can expect to get just because it's mostly about pushing you on things you've already said.

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 Study

You are writing the case study as if you are a business analyst. This means that there isn't really much room to be talking about how you would resolve legal issues. As a law student I really struggled with this because I felt like lots of M&A case studies at ACs are usually focused on the legal issues. The thing I found most helpful was getting a good understand of Porter's Five Forces because it really helps you think about purely business issues as opposed to legal ones. Another helpful tip which I would highly recommend doing for any AC is looking up consulting case studies online and practicing them. Again this was especially helpful in increasing my understanding of businesses and helped me learn what kind of business solutions/strategies (as opposed to legal solutions like contracts etc) companies can take when choosing to expand/acquire.

The case study at Latham was extremely time pressured. In fact I didn't finish writing my report. However, in my feedback while they acknowledged this was the reason I didn't score as highly in the case study they also said I had quite a detailed analysis of what I did cover. So I would say if you're running short of time definitely choose to develop the quality of your points rather than trying to race through them all.

Application Interview

Brush up really heavily on commercial awareness. Identify things in your app that can be used to ask your commercial awareness questions and prep based off of that. For more general news I highly recommend the FT News Briefing Podcast on Spotify.

Presentation + Interview

Choose the focus of your presentation wisely. I played this to my strengths and picked a region/area I knew quite a lot about already because I knew this meant that any curve ball questions they threw me I could probably handle. Do a broad PESTLE analysis but then also think about doing a cost-benefit analysis (revenues? deal flows?), and consider more practical issues like recruitment for example. (Don't want to be giving too much away about the presentation topic so I'm sorry if this section is a bit vague)

Were you successful?

Yes

 

[Jaysen]

Please state the month/year you interviewed at the firm.

November 2019

Please specify what the interview was for.

Winter Vacation Scheme 2019

Please give an overview of the day with approximate timings.

12pm Arrival, 12.15pm Written Assessment, 1pm Lunch with Trainees, 2pm Competency Interview with Two Partners, 3pm Presentation with Two Partners

Please provide a summary of each assessment on the day with approximate timings.

Written Assessment - 45 minutes to read through M&A bundle and advise a company to pick one of four options: (i) To purchase company X, (ii) To purchase company Y, (iii) To purchase both company X and Y, or (iv) To purchase neither. Write a business report on which option you picked and provide the reasons and the risks of the option you picked.

Competency Interview - Two partners asking you questions based on your application form.

Presentation - A few days before the AC, you will be emailed a topic, which is always "Which country should Latham expand to next?" You have to prepare a 5-minute presentation and answer questions about the country you picked.

Please list any interview questions you were asked.

Why did you choose Latham, instead of [the other firms I interned at]?
Why are you interested in private equity?
How did you go from human rights (because I did pro bono) to commercial law?
Why London, and not your home country?

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.

Written Assessment - Type as soon as possible! It doesn't matter if you don't completely understand everything in the bundle - just make a decision quickly and start typing! Bullet point your main points but use full sentences.

Competency Interview - Go through your application form with a fine tooth comb. The interviewing partner asked me a very short sentence that I wrote in one of my essays and it caught me off guard.

Presentation - Even though they say that a handout is optional, I would really suggest preparing a handout. Thoroughly research the country that you chose, e.g. how can foreign lawyers practice in the country, what is their legal system like etc.

Were you successful?

Yes