Sidley Vac Scheme- Question

[Vdfrz]

Hey everyone!

I am applying to the vac scheme in sidley and I ran into a bit of a problem. While writing about “why sidley” i mentioned how sidleys handling of an arb case involving IP rights was quite interesting.

Problem is, i am applying to the London office and although the website mentions that they deal with arb, its mostly done by the geneva office.

I can shift my focus and mention some M and A case handled by sidley, but it wont be genuine.

Any advise? Should I go ahead with my approach? Or tweak it a bit.

 

[Ram Sabaratnam]

Hi @Vdfrz

Ideally, you would focus on a matter that the London office was involved in. However, this doesn’t always need to be the case. Sometimes individuals might focus on transactions or cases that were quite market-defining (but which the firm’s London office was not heavily involved in) and which allow candidates to demonstrate strong commercial awareness.

What’s more important is that you convincingly connect the discussion back to your own interests and motivation for joining the London office. Therefore, even if it wasn’t something the London office had done, you should focus on why such work is relevant to your career in London with Sidley Austin. For instance, do you have any thoughts on how the arbitration matter might be related to the kind of work you will be doing in the London office? Was there anyone in the Geneva office working on the matter who also works out of London (perhaps David Roney, who I’m sure you already know is the global co-head of Sidley’s international arbitration and trade practice)? By reflecting on these sorts of questions, I think you can convincingly link the client matter back to your interest in joining the London office.