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TCLA Direct Training Contract Applications Discussion Thread 2025-26

For those of us still waiting for Ashurst, it’s defo a PFO cos I just saw this post on LinkedIn:


They done all their ACs and are doing final ints next week. The week after (May 29) will be PFOs! 😛
 
For those of us still waiting for Ashurst, it’s defo a PFO cos I just saw this post on LinkedIn:


They done all their ACs and are doing final ints next week. The week after (May 29) will be PFOs! 😛

If that’s the case it’s an absolute shame to leave so many people in radio silence for months. Really bad form.
 
Been on my mind for a while, sorry for the vent. Please ignore if you’d rather not read it because it details my frustrations with the process.

The threshold for getting a TC is ridiculously high, to the point that it doesn’t feel like the effort I put in is worth the payoff anymore. You put effort into researching a firm, make tailor made applications to each of them, and they reject you without even reading your applications if you fail a test or without any feedback or reasoning on why they rejected you. The process is as opaque as an AI until you clear 4-5 obstacles as if you’re in a freaking video game to get to an interview. Also, firms asking you to not use AI in the application is also such massive hypocrisy, since they definitely employ AI when reviewing applications and claim to want someone who can leverage legaltech.

I’ve seen so many posts this past month on LinkedIn of people from Oxford and Cambridge who haven’t even studied law getting TCs with leading law firms, and I just wonder what I’m lacking with each such post I come across. Is pedigree and being from a well-recognised school all that matters? Is having low A Levels truly such a huge setback that you’ll never move past it in your life? Is a 2:2 really the hill where ones talent goes to die on? How do you cover the aspects of your life which made you who you are and which firms claim they want to know over a 300 word answer? How hard do you have to work to get an interview where for the first time in the process, you get to interact with an actual human being? You never know, because they never tell.

I know firms receive thousands of applications for less than 50 places. I realise the limitations of being a human. But I’ve realised these firms don’t. They lay out expectations which anyone with a non-linear path would struggle with, and then claim they want to give you a shot. Every webinar, every training session, where someone encouraged me to continue applying all seems patronising to me now. I’m exhausted of putting in the work when I don’t even know why it isn’t materialising.

The job should have been the slog, but now you need to put it 2,3 who knows how many years to even get it in the first place. I’d like to believe I’m capable and competent, but this process has just made me lose all faith in myself ATP.
 
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