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Willkie Live: How to Write a Successful Vacation Scheme Application

7 Oct 2025 5:30pm (UK) Zoom (registration required)

Learn exactly how to write a successful application to Willkie Farr & Gallagher, with live examples + Q&A with Gemma Baker.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="1stCycleApplicant" data-source="post: 218220" data-attributes="member: 36764">Dechert Written Exercise completed!!!My goodness, that was intense. It took me about 3 minutes to actually find the brief/question, so not the best of starts. But, I managed to find my feet around the 3-4 minute mark. There wasn't too much law to digest, and the brief was relatively straightforward. Essentially, they provide you with a clear structure to follow within their own question. I finished with about 10 seconds to go, rivalling the nail-biting suspense experienced during every Mission Impossible movie. Yet, in the spirit of a Tom Cruise character, I was able to press submit just in time. Overall thoughts:Pleased, relieved, stressed. It's always hard to judge with these things. You never really know how well you have done, nor what it is they are explicitly looking for, let alone whether what you wrote was correct. What I can say, however, is that I am pleased with the effort I put in prior to the exercise, as well as how it went on the day. Regardless of whether I proceed to the next stage or not, I am so happy to have had this experience. You learn a lot about your strengths, yet, more importantly, your weaknesses in these scenarios. For example, I over-stretched myself today. I believe I tried to do too much in a short space of time, leaving me with a matter of seconds to submit. I wish I had had at least 3-5 minutes to proofread everything. Thus, on reflection, I will make sure to set a more realistic standard of what I should aim to deliver. That way, I can produce a high-quality piece of work, but also have the time to check over it. Despite that obvious misstep, I am pleased that I was able to understand the law and apply it to the facts/brief. Indeed, that is the most important part, as, without it, you can't even begin to write a decent answer. If I am subsequently rejected by the firm, I will be eager to receive feedback and reflect upon it. Previously, I would simply brush it aside and move on. Not this year. Every time I fail, I will reflect. I will attempt to understand what went wrong, so that I can practice and improve. It's great that I had this experience so early on in the cycle as the feedback I receive will hopefully aid me in all future applications. Despite the clear and obvious defence mechanism you see above, that being, already accepting defeat haha, I really hope to make it to the final stage. Next step, Willkie Video Interview tomorrow...</blockquote>

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