Non Schogger/Stoakes books that I found useful

[Adam Gilchrist]

Mods - please move this to the appropriate subforum if I haven't posted it in the right area.

Hi guys! I recently secured a TC at an MC firm, having completed their VS. This was the first assessment center & VS that I did, and I came from a non-law, non-business, non-economics background & degree. Because of all of this, I wanted to do some preparatory reading in advance.

Jake Schogger & Christopher Stoakes's books are often mentioned on the forum, and with good reason: they are very useful.

However, I felt that I had a lack of initial understanding of the city, commercial law, banking and business as a whole, so also read a couple of extra books that greatly helped me. I've just listed them here in case anyone else feels in a similar position to me. They're all fairly short (200ish pages or less), and can each be read in a day or so, in chunks.

• The Very Short Introduction to Banking (Goddard & Wilson, 2016)

The VSI series is brilliant anyway, but this book is especially useful. It has one of the clearest explanations of capital markets that I've ever encountered, and also works through the 2008 crash comprehensively. It also covers areas like hedge funds, monetary policy, and securitization in simple but comprehensive form. I did a banking seat on the VS, and the book greatly helped me. My TC interview also covered central bank responses to Covid, and the book helped me to discuss this confidently.

• Reading & Understanding Economics (Boakes, 2009)

As I said, I had no proper knowledge of economics prior to getting an assessment center invite. The book is simple, covers areas like competition, monetary policy, fiscal policy, supply & demand, financial markets, and exchange rates. It's a nice starter guide, and is written engagingly. Each chapter is accompanied by an article or articles from a newspaper that is discussed at greater length. Most people on the forum won't need the book - it's for beginners chiefly, but is in-depth enough for your needs.

• Reading & Understanding the Financial Times (Boakes, 2010) [2nd edition, 'Updated for 2010-2011'])

Does what it says on the tin. In each chapter, he takes you through different FT topics (dividend policy, equity/debt financing, capital structure, stock market behavior, etc) and what to make of these areas. Each topic is accompanied by a real FT article on the issue. There's also a guide on specific areas of the FT (benchmark government bonds, official interest rates, etc) and how to interpret them and their changes.

Commercial awareness really wasn't an issue for me. You should make sure to read a broadsheet daily - both the main news section, and more importantly the business section, and for the latter, I made notes on anything that interested me. That gave me a solid platform, and I also used the finimize email (3 top commercial stories of the day) and the FT daily briefing podcast (both free) to top this up.

Hope this helps!

 

[dosblancos7]

Thanks! I appreciate the summary and will check those books out! Congrats as well on the TC

 

[futuretraineesolicitor]

hey @AdamGilchrist sorry about the stupid question but did you feel like these 3 non schogger books + one schogger and one stoakes were enough to make you feel confident that you meet the minimum threshold? btw which one of these 5 tackles businesses properly?

 

[Alice G]

@AdamGilchrist

Thank you so so much for this! Super helpful to know some more books to develop understanding and commercial knowledge

 

[Karin]

Thanks a lot for sharing this! I can also recommend Tomorrow's Lawyers by Richard Susskind

 

[dosblancos7]

Mods - please move this to the appropriate subforum if I haven't posted it in the right area.

Hi guys! I recently secured a TC at an MC firm, having completed their VS. This was the first assessment center & VS that I did, and I came from a non-law, non-business, non-economics background & degree. Because of all of this, I wanted to do some preparatory reading in advance.

Jake Schogger & Christopher Stoakes's books are often mentioned on the forum, and with good reason: they are very useful.

However, I felt that I had a lack of initial understanding of the city, commercial law, banking and business as a whole, so also read a couple of extra books that greatly helped me. I've just listed them here in case anyone else feels in a similar position to me. They're all fairly short (200ish pages or less), and can each be read in a day or so, in chunks.

• The Very Short Introduction to Banking (Goddard & Wilson, 2016)

The VSI series is brilliant anyway, but this book is especially useful. It has one of the clearest explanations of capital markets that I've ever encountered, and also works through the 2008 crash comprehensively. It also covers areas like hedge funds, monetary policy, and securitization in simple but comprehensive form. I did a banking seat on the VS, and the book greatly helped me. My TC interview also covered central bank responses to Covid, and the book helped me to discuss this confidently.

• Reading & Understanding Economics (Boakes, 2009)

As I said, I had no proper knowledge of economics prior to getting an assessment center invite. The book is simple, covers areas like competition, monetary policy, fiscal policy, supply & demand, financial markets, and exchange rates. It's a nice starter guide, and is written engagingly. Each chapter is accompanied by an article or articles from a newspaper that is discussed at greater length. Most people on the forum won't need the book - it's for beginners chiefly, but is in-depth enough for your needs.

• Reading & Understanding the Financial Times (Boakes, 2010) [2nd edition, 'Updated for 2010-2011'])

Does what it says on the tin. In each chapter, he takes you through different FT topics (dividend policy, equity/debt financing, capital structure, stock market behavior, etc) and what to make of these areas. Each topic is accompanied by a real FT article on the issue. There's also a guide on specific areas of the FT (benchmark government bonds, official interest rates, etc) and how to interpret them and their changes.

Commercial awareness really wasn't an issue for me. You should make sure to read a broadsheet daily - both the main news section, and more importantly the business section, and for the latter, I made notes on anything that interested me. That gave me a solid platform, and I also used the finimize email (3 top commercial stories of the day) and the FT daily briefing podcast (both free) to top this up.

Hope this helps!

I read some of the books so far- very nice to read! I wanted to ask if they explore shareholders in any way(more than just a brief acknowledgement?). I want to learn (and expand my basic understanding) of what shareholders do etc, and the structure of a company .

 

[Badawy]

Just what I was looking for! Finishing up on Stoakes and looking to learn more. I placed an order for all 3. Thank you!

Does anyone have any tips for a book that may expand on Schogger's? I find it difficult to place commercial awareness in a legal context as a non-law student.

 

[Zoo]

Just what I was looking for! Finishing up on Stoakes and looking to learn more. I placed an order for all 3. Thank you!

Does anyone have any tips for a book that may expand on Schogger's? I find it difficult to place commercial awareness in a legal context as a non-law student.

I was also a non-law student and when I was trying to place commercial issues in a legal context I thought about how the info I had learnt from the commercial awareness books (Schogger/ Stoakes, etc) related to the articles I read. For example, I would ask myself questions such as: what practice areas would be involved?/ Are there regulations that clients would need advice on?/ Does this bring to light M&A opportunities (or challenges) for clients? Etc...

If we look at the Financial Times’ article about Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of TikTok (https://www.ft.com/content/93aec618-8bb8-4997-9ed8-89c69e62d5b5) we can do some initial analysis:
- It will be increasingly difficult for Chinese companies to buy-up US tech companies (further symptom of US-China tensions).
- Growing role of politics in business strategy as some execs at ByteDance believe Trump threatening to ban TikTok is a ploy to enable Microsoft to buy the US arm of TikTok at a lower price. Shows that when law firms are advising clients they need to be very aware of the political environment.
- Growing scrutiny amongst governments and the public about how their data is being used. Clients will need advice on data regulations (e.g. GDPR) compliance, cybersecurity, etc...
- If the deal goes through, Microsoft would be able to enter the social media market and compete against Facebook and Google. This shows M&A being used to diversify a business and compete against rivals.
- Other US investors are looking at buying up minority stakes= law firm banking/ funding teams would be involved.

(Also look up any words or organisations that you are unfamiliar with e.g. I looked up the Committee of Foreign Investment in the US (Cfius))

This is a very rudimentary/ quick analysis and I’m sure you would be able to go into far more detail but ultimately putting commercial awareness into a legal context is about understanding the impact of news stories on law firms and their clients. It’s about asking questions and probing further into what you read using the knowledge that you have gained from the commercial awareness books as a basis.

I hope that helps a bit!

 

[futuretraineesolicitor]

Can anyone suggest books/resources which help us understand the landscape of how law firms work? the partnership models, how clients are charged etc etc- basically everything

 

[Karin]

Can anyone suggest books/resources which help us understand the landscape of how law firms work? the partnership models, how clients are charged etc etc- basically everything

Shearman & Sterling Whiteboard Wednesday videos are excellent in explaining how law firms work as a business (https://ukgraduates.shearman.com/videos-overview/whiteboard-wednesday-videos/). There is also a chapter about how professional services firms work in Chris Stoake's Commercial Awareness book, which I found very useful

 

[Karin]

Just what I was looking for! Finishing up on Stoakes and looking to learn more. I placed an order for all 3. Thank you!

Does anyone have any tips for a book that may expand on Schogger's? I find it difficult to place commercial awareness in a legal context as a non-law student.

I recommend watching A&O Anatomy of Deal

which helps to understand where the things mentioned in Jake Schogger's book fit in practice.

In general, I think Jaysen's courses on TCLA (especially the one on M&A) are extremely useful and helped me a lot when I was trying to understand what commercial awareness is and how it applies in legal context

 

[S87]

I was also a non-law student and when I was trying to place commercial issues in a legal context I thought about how the info I had learnt from the commercial awareness books (Schogger/ Stoakes, etc) related to the articles I read. For example, I would ask myself questions such as: what practice areas would be involved?/ Are there regulations that clients would need advice on?/ Does this bring to light M&A opportunities (or challenges) for clients? Etc...

If we look at the Financial Times’ article about Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of TikTok (https://www.ft.com/content/93aec618-8bb8-4997-9ed8-89c69e62d5b5) we can do some initial analysis:
- It will be increasingly difficult for Chinese companies to buy-up US tech companies (further symptom of US-China tensions).
- Growing role of politics in business strategy as some execs at ByteDance believe Trump threatening to ban TikTok is a ploy to enable Microsoft to buy the US arm of TikTok at a lower price. Shows that when law firms are advising clients they need to be very aware of the political environment.
- Growing scrutiny amongst governments and the public about how their data is being used. Clients will need advice on data regulations (e.g. GDPR) compliance, cybersecurity, etc...
- If the deal goes through, Microsoft would be able to enter the social media market and compete against Facebook and Google. This shows M&A being used to diversify a business and compete against rivals.
- Other US investors are looking at buying up minority stakes= law firm banking/ funding teams would be involved.

(Also look up any words or organisations that you are unfamiliar with e.g. I looked up the Committee of Foreign Investment in the US (Cfius))

This is a very rudimentary/ quick analysis and I’m sure you would be able to go into far more detail but ultimately putting commercial awareness into a legal context is about understanding the impact of news stories on law firms and their clients. It’s about asking questions and probing further into what you read using the knowledge that you have gained from the commercial awareness books as a basis.

I hope that helps a bit!

I would also outline that re TikTok: M&A can also be used to diversify your customers. Microsoft relies on corporate customers, so with TikTok they will reach out for the "average" customers.

 

[Blue cacti]

Thanks for sharing all these resources! When I was applying, I found podcasts helped reinforce what I had picked up from books. A particularly good one is the Wake Up to Money podcast - I used to listen to it daily and on the way to interviews.

 

[Badawy]

I was also a non-law student and when I was trying to place commercial issues in a legal context I thought about how the info I had learnt from the commercial awareness books (Schogger/ Stoakes, etc) related to the articles I read. For example, I would ask myself questions such as: what practice areas would be involved?/ Are there regulations that clients would need advice on?/ Does this bring to light M&A opportunities (or challenges) for clients? Etc...

If we look at the Financial Times’ article about Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of TikTok (https://www.ft.com/content/93aec618-8bb8-4997-9ed8-89c69e62d5b5) we can do some initial analysis:
- It will be increasingly difficult for Chinese companies to buy-up US tech companies (further symptom of US-China tensions).
- Growing role of politics in business strategy as some execs at ByteDance believe Trump threatening to ban TikTok is a ploy to enable Microsoft to buy the US arm of TikTok at a lower price. Shows that when law firms are advising clients they need to be very aware of the political environment.
- Growing scrutiny amongst governments and the public about how their data is being used. Clients will need advice on data regulations (e.g. GDPR) compliance, cybersecurity, etc...
- If the deal goes through, Microsoft would be able to enter the social media market and compete against Facebook and Google. This shows M&A being used to diversify a business and compete against rivals.
- Other US investors are looking at buying up minority stakes= law firm banking/ funding teams would be involved.

(Also look up any words or organisations that you are unfamiliar with e.g. I looked up the Committee of Foreign Investment in the US (Cfius))

This is a very rudimentary/ quick analysis and I’m sure you would be able to go into far more detail but ultimately putting commercial awareness into a legal context is about understanding the impact of news stories on law firms and their clients. It’s about asking questions and probing further into what you read using the knowledge that you have gained from the commercial awareness books as a basis.

I hope that helps a bit!

Thank you so much - infinitely useful. I think its quite a difficult jump to go from reading the FT to actually analysing it - I'm so used to just skimming articles and picking up 1-2 points. Your analysis is really helpful in making me realise how to actually go about it.

I really appreciate it.