TCLA General Discussion Thread #2 (2021)

[TCLA Community Assistant]

What are the repercussions of signing the offer letter, terms of employment and all the paperwork and then reneging later on before even starting working?

There aren’t any unless you have been given any form of financial support or there is a specific term in your contract that states a repercussion.

 

[Jaysen]

Macfarlanes doesn’t have a cover letter anymore! (Unless I’ve totally missed that in their app!!)

Nope you are completely right, my mistake. I still have in mind their prior (very long) application form but they did change this.

 

[Jaysen]

Thank you - need to prepare ahead as my masters is very time consuming and I want to make sure I fire out my finance/law apps asap! Are there any upcoming competitions for premium? Unfortunately mine ran out during my exam season

Definitely - we still run our forum giveaway every week (and you can win more than once). We'll also be launching a new competition closer to September/October.

 

[Jacob Miller]

I've just graduated with a mid 2.1 (literally 65%) and I am so disappointed with my final year results (63%). I thought I would have done well but it was a marked decrease from my Y2 average (67%). It was in part due to me studying remotely for the entire year- ie: being in a different timezone and being unable to engage with my classes as much but not sure if this is something I should be explaining in my cover letters and all. Also thinking about giving up on law because I don't think a 65% will cut it for training contracts.

I've only just seen this - apologies! It seems as though you've already had some great advice, but I thought I'd chuck my hat in the ring here anyway.

I would tend to agree with others, firstly, that there's definitely nothing wrong with these grades. A 2.1 will satisfy almost every TC offer made, so I wouldn't be concerned in that regard. For what it's worth, my grades were hovering in that mid-60's space at the point I was applying for vac schemes and when I was given my TC offer. I also think that most firms are understanding of the trials and tribulations faced by applicants in the last year, so I don't think there's any shame whatsoever in that affecting your performance.

My final comment: there's absolutely nothing, based on your grades alone, which says that law isn't for you. Especially when taken together with the numerous other elements of an application (or applicant, potato potato), grades only make up a comparatively small component part. If your grades are making you think otherwise in that regard, I would really try to take some time and perspective to maybe reset your mental space a bit and come back stronger.

Fingers crossed for you and wishing you every success in your applications.

 

[Jacob Miller]

Does anyone know whether it’s possible to balance doing TC and VS apps with the LPC? Has anyone had experience in doing it? I’m just wondering how much free time you will have. Any feedback would be much appreciated!!

Having not yet done the LPC, I can only comment based on what I've been told of the course relative to my own experiences (LLB undergrad).

From everything I've been told, this should be fairly well manageable if youre doing the one-year LPC but may be challenging if you're on the 6 month LPC. Fwiw, I balanced VS/ TC applications while doing my LLB and working 2-3 jobs, with an average of a 100-105 hour working week (not healthy or recommended but doable for a few months tops as long as you can get some decent respite after).

As with all things, it really is a matter of how much you want it and how much time you're willing to devote to it even if that's at the expense of other things (sacrificing an hour or two's sleep, spending less time on Netflix each evening etc). If you really want it, you'll be able to make the time! Obviously there are some caveats here: be cognisant of your mental and physical health, don't destroy yourself over it, but broadly speaking I think people often perform at their best with a bit of time pressure rather than having all the time in the world!

 

[futuretraineesolicitor]

Hello @Jessica Booker, hope you are doing well. I attended virtual sessions conducted by Linklaters in December 2020 but the email address that I used to sign up for those events was quite unprofessional and I am not going to use that email address again to apply to them via the Direct TC route, later this year. If I mention having attended these events while applying for the Direct TC, will they cross-check? I'm worried that they won't find anything because obviously, I applied to those events with a different email. Should I be worried?

Thanks in advance.

 

[TCLA Community Assistant]

Hello @Jessica Booker, hope you are doing well. I attended virtual sessions conducted by Linklaters in December 2020 but the email address that I used to sign up for those events was quite unprofessional and I am not going to use that email address again to apply to them via the Direct TC route, later this year. If I mention having attended these events while applying for the Direct TC, will they cross-check? I'm worried that they won't find anything because obviously, I applied to those events with a different email. Should I be worried?

Thanks in advance.

No - they haven’t got time for that.

 

[Jacob Miller]

Hi @Jessica Booker . Hope you are doing well. Could you please tell me, when do people really start practising for the WG test? How many days/weeks/months in advance? I understand that there is no correct answer for this, but I'm going to make direct TC apps from Nov this year (or whenever they open). Does it even make sense to think about the test at the moment?

Also, is there anything else that I can do to prepare for Direct TC apps from today?

Thanks in advance.

At the risk of sounding harsh (and I dont intend to at all!) but this really is a "how long is a piece of string?" question.

I would answer this in much the same way as I answer questions about how long applications ought to take: it depends on a million and one factors. Here are a few factors to consider though:

How much time per day/ week/ study session can you devote? How quickly do you take information etc in? How confident do you feel with WGs and similar psychometric tests as a starting point? What format do you like taking notes? Some notation formats take much longer than others.

--
In regards how you go about prepping for TC's, again, hard to give specifics. Some firms' apps are identical year to year - these are the easiest to prep for for obvious reasons. Similarly, though, there are a lot of commonalities across a variety of other applications. While I always recommend against copying and pasting anything, it's maybe worth having a think about some key areas where there are going to be similarities across multiple apps and putting a plan together for these.

Good luck!

 

[Jacob Miller]

Hello @Jessica Booker, hope you are doing well. I attended virtual sessions conducted by Linklaters in December 2020 but the email address that I used to sign up for those events was quite unprofessional and I am not going to use that email address again to apply to them via the Direct TC route, later this year. If I mention having attended these events while applying for the Direct TC, will they cross-check? I'm worried that they won't find anything because obviously, I applied to those events with a different email. Should I be worried?

Thanks in advance.

People swap email addresses all the time, I cant imagine this being a problem.

 

[Jacob Miller]

So I got the 2.2 in second year - so it does count towards the final degree classification too. Can people still secure TCs with that?

Also, I may have the option to resit the 2.2 paper as I had mitigating circumstances at the time - what would firms think about the resit - even if it improved the overall grade?

Quite a number of my second year grades were 2:2's - similarly to you, these were due to mitigating circumstances (broke my back). I always explained this and it never really posed a massive problem for me - my grades went exponentially up afterwards and I ended up graduating with a 1st and 90%/90%/100% in my 3 final semester subjects. Where possible, it's just important to show that the lower grades were a blip and directly correlated to the mitigating circumstances.

 

[Jacob Miller]

Hi everyone - hope all is well.
Just got everything confirmed for my masters - just wanted to ask, does S&M (and other firms) who use cover letters usually have the same criterion for them every year?

Almost invariably either identical or overwhelmingly similar in the very least. For firms who change their questions open, there are still key areas you can prep for as Jaysen says (eg why law, why X firm, etc etc). For firms who want a CV, spend some time on your CV to get it up to scratch and looking nice.

 

[Matt_96]

Feeling quite disgruntled about the feedback I received from my only summer vacation scheme (rejection). They said my work was detailed and thorough and that I was competent and would make a great trainee but said I was insufficiently enthusiastic about working in the office in which the scheme was based.

This is really mystifying to me because the office was in the place where I went to uni, still have loads of friends and even knew someone who worked in the same building, and when they gave me the option of coming in for one day to see it in person I went at last minute at my own expense to show my dedication. I don't think I could have been more enthusiastic short of tattooing 'I love x city' onto my forehead!

The only possible trigger I can think of is that they asked me what other firms I was interviewing at, and I was honest and said that they were the only firm in that city that hadn't rejected me and so I had to do interviews with some London ones too. Should I have just lied? I literally can't think of anything else they were basing this on. Unless insufficient enthusiasm is just a code word for something else that they didn't want to say.

Maybe I'm just ranting but it seems like such a ridiculous reason for turning someone down, especially after telling them they were highly competent and would make a great trainee!!!!! How should I interpret this? I was offered a chance to arrange a follow up call 'after reflecting' and I'd like to but have no idea what I should be reflecting on. They said I did a good job....

 

[TCLA Community Assistant]

Feeling quite disgruntled about the feedback I received from my only summer vacation scheme (rejection). They said my work was detailed and thorough and that I was competent and would make a great trainee but said I was insufficiently enthusiastic about working in the office in which the scheme was based.

This is really mystifying to me because the office was in the place where I went to uni, still have loads of friends and even knew someone who worked in the same building, and when they gave me the option of coming in for one day to see it in person I went at last minute at my own expense to show my dedication. I don't think I could have been more enthusiastic short of tattooing 'I love x city' onto my forehead!

The only possible trigger I can think of is that they asked me what other firms I was interviewing at, and I was honest and said that they were the only firm in that city that hadn't rejected me and so I had to do interviews with some London ones too. Should I have just lied? I literally can't think of anything else they were basing this on. Unless insufficient enthusiasm is just a code word for something else that they didn't want to say.

Maybe I'm just ranting but it seems like such a ridiculous reason for turning someone down, especially after telling them they were highly competent and would make a great trainee!!!!! How should I interpret this? I was offered a chance to arrange a follow up call 'after reflecting' and I'd like to but have no idea what I should be reflecting on. They said I did a good job....

It might have just come down to other people having stronger ties to the city/location. If this is a regional firm/office, then they can place quite a heavy weighting on this as retention of people who do not have ties to the location can be tricky.

 

[Matt_96]

It might have just come down to other people having stronger ties to the city/location. If this is a regional firm/office, then they can place quite a heavy weighting on this as retention of people who do not have ties to the location can be tricky.

Thanks as usual Jessica. I agree with you as I definitely got that vibe. But I'm still struggling with the outcome a little bit as I really tried hard to show my enthusiasm for the area since I did study there for a long time and now have a number of substantial connections to the point that I visit regularly, which was a point I made known to them. I'm even going back this weekend (just as an example)! Could they really just have made that call based on where else I'm interviewing alone?

On another note, how could I explain my rejection in other interviews if they ask? I have two more coming up next week.

 

[5yearTC]

Hi, I just got my second year Law results from a good RG uni and achieved 63% average with a 58 (2.2) in a module - I'm absolutely devastated as I worked so hard this year. 2 questions if anyone could help:

1) What are my chances now of successfully applying to top international firms for vac schemes next year? Will this average or the 2.2 in the module really hinder my chances?

2) Do firms tend to look at the individual mark (eg favour someone with a 67 over a 63) or do they just need to see a 2.1?

Thank you

Hey! I actually ended up with 2.2 in two modules in my second year at a good RG uni - still managed to get multiple AC invites and a VS at an MC firm! As long as you're on track for a 2.1 I don't think it should be a problem

 

[Jaysen]

Feeling quite disgruntled about the feedback I received from my only summer vacation scheme (rejection). They said my work was detailed and thorough and that I was competent and would make a great trainee but said I was insufficiently enthusiastic about working in the office in which the scheme was based.

This is really mystifying to me because the office was in the place where I went to uni, still have loads of friends and even knew someone who worked in the same building, and when they gave me the option of coming in for one day to see it in person I went at last minute at my own expense to show my dedication. I don't think I could have been more enthusiastic short of tattooing 'I love x city' onto my forehead!

The only possible trigger I can think of is that they asked me what other firms I was interviewing at, and I was honest and said that they were the only firm in that city that hadn't rejected me and so I had to do interviews with some London ones too. Should I have just lied? I literally can't think of anything else they were basing this on. Unless insufficient enthusiasm is just a code word for something else that they didn't want to say.

Maybe I'm just ranting but it seems like such a ridiculous reason for turning someone down, especially after telling them they were highly competent and would make a great trainee!!!!! How should I interpret this? I was offered a chance to arrange a follow up call 'after reflecting' and I'd like to but have no idea what I should be reflecting on. They said I did a good job....

That's tough - honestly it could come down to many things, from the way you answered a particular question to a general feeling the interviewers had about your motivations. It can often be impossible to work out which part it was down to.

With questions like 'which firms are you interviewing with?', the firm may have raised a flag that your other interviews are with London law firms - it's hard to say. As you said though, there is little you can do here aside from naming particular firms and reiterating your interest in the city you are applying to.

I'd still take solace in the fact that you were told you were competent. I would also consider taking them up on the follow up call to see if they'd be willing to be more specific with their feedback.

 

[RP]

Hi all! I received a rejection after my first vac scheme which I thoroughly enjoyed and thought went really well, and I’m now feeling a bit down over what to do next. I’ve just finished my non law degree, and was planning on doing the GDL - but I’m now doubting if I’ll be able to secure a TC next cycle. Alternatively, I’m considering paralegalling next year to gauge a better idea of whether this career is definitely for me. Trying to be resilient by looking into my next options but I’m finding it a little bit daunting! Thank you

 

[futuretraineesolicitor]

Hi @Jessica Booker, hope you are doing well. For the question "what are the skills required to be a great commercial solicitor" , should we also tell them about instances where we displayed that particular skill or would that be too much? My guess is that it will make the answer very long if we give it a personal touch.

Thanks in advance.

 

[202023r]

Bit of a predicament here - was offered a TC and have to accept by end of this month. But I have another vac scheme starting next monday (26th) and that will be three weeks, ending mid August. I spoke to the firm that offered the TC and they are not necessarily willing to extend the offer deadline due to the transition into the SQE and them needing to finalise which candidates will be allocated to which route. So I was wondering what I can do in this situation?

 

[TCLA Community Assistant]

Bit of a predicament here - was offered a TC and have to accept by end of this month. But I have another vac scheme starting next monday (26th) and that will be three weeks, ending mid August. I spoke to the firm that offered the TC and they are not necessarily willing to extend the offer deadline due to the transition into the SQE and them needing to finalise which candidates will be allocated to which route. So I was wondering what I can do in this situation?

Accept and then renege if needed.