Please state the month/year you interviewed at the firm.
February 2023
Please specify what the interview was for.
Direct Training Contract 2025
Please give an overview of the day with approximate timings.
My interview was conducted online. This was not an issue, just make sure you are constantly engaging with the interviewer.
9am Briefing
9.30am multiple choice case study
10:30am case study reading and writing time
11:45am graduate recruitment interview
12:45pm crisis management task given
1pm partner interview
2:30 trainee Q&A
Please provide a summary of each assessment on the day with approximate timings.
Two parts to the case study:
1. Online multiple choice questions: 30 minutes to review a contract, do SJTs, prioritise emails.
2. Written case study: 25 minutes reading, 35 minutes writing - candidates have to pick 2 legal issues and 1 commercial issue from the case given and summarise it in an email to a supervisor. It is not difficult to spot these issues from the documents provided.
Graduate recruitment interview: typical firm questions, competency questions and questions on candidates' skills and experiences.
Crisis management: 15 minutes before the partner interview, candidates will be given a crisis email regarding their case study (eg: PR management, cybersecurity issue etc).
Partner interview: goes through the content from the written case study with more details and questions, and how the candidate should handle the crisis.
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.
Part 1
For the 30 minutes MCQ - the first section (contract review) takes much longer than the others. I followed the advice of previous candidates and took 20 minutes on that section and 10 for the remaining 2 but did not regret this! No prior preparation is required for this part of the case study.
Part 2
For the grad recruitment interview, my advice is to absolutely know the firm inside out. That can be as simple as knowing two or three practice areas of the firm well and relating it to your own experience and why the firm is for you, as well as looking at other aspects such as pro bono, wellbeing, diversity etc. I would say that you should almost be gushing about the firm, this comes out through research and genuine enthusiasm about the firm. Also prepare for the usual competency questions, which are covered in other TCLA threads. There are about twenty questions in the previous threads and if you can answer all of those, you should be more than fine! Those competency questions are also interchangeable, so I would look at the Linklaters Agile Mindset Framework and use some personal examples from your experience to relate to those.
Part 3
For the case study interview, they will ask you whether you would like to start with the crisis management email or the actual case study email which you have drafted for them. With the crisis management email, no knowledge of the law is required, just a good understanding of how businesses work and how a firm would help a company deal with such a crisis.
For the main case study interview, I would highly suggest brushing up on M&A basics (basically refer to the TCLA guide, it is comprehensive enough and extremely helpful). I would also suggest pinpointing some practice areas of the firm that can assist in providing solutions.
The partner and managing associate who were interviewing me were really lovely. Their job is to probe you constantly and I did feel that I was interrogated for around 45 minutes, but they just want to see how you react under pressure. The most important thing is to stay calm, and even if you are unsure of how to answer a question, take a second and ask them to rephrase the question. They aren’t expecting you to answer all the questions correctly and it is important to know when to stand your ground and to also see when they are leading you down a certain path. This is a pure judgment call, but once again, staying calm, knowing how businesses work and knowing the general M&A technicals will stand you in good stead. General commercial awareness is very helpful, in terms of potentially relating the M&A case study to a similar deal in an industry that you have researched previously. As basic as it sounds, even listening to the FT podcast daily provides so much knowledge that can be helpful.
Were you successful?
Yes
