TCLA Vacation Scheme Applications Discussion Thread 2025-26

[TortillaTC]

Goodwin second open day invite! Applied few minutes before the deadline

 

[Lawlawland]

Anyone else attending today's Linklaters Open Evening?

 

[Meena]

did anyone do Latham’s VI? How dreadful was that!!! would love to talk about it with anyone that’s done it, I don’t know how to feel about it

 

[nbjani]

Hey would anyone be able to tell me if the White and Case post-application assessment contains a VI?

 

[confusedbird]

Hi @confusedbird first of all, I think my approach would be to try to identify three key themes I can discuss both from the perspective of a challenge and from the perspective of an opportunity, since (i) the same situation can often be both a challenge and (if one responds to it the right way) an opportunity; and (ii) a 6-point discussion of separate challenges and opportunities may feel too segmented and may disable you from analysing them in detail.

Secondly, I think what is crucial to make your answer less generic will not depend on the topics you choose to discuss, but on how you go about discussing said topics. At the end of the day, there are a limited number of broad topic that represent clear challenges/opportunities for the legal sector as a whole, so it is hard to see what you may find to make your answer unique here. However, you can analyse the same topic from many different perspectives and defend many plausible views - this is where I think creativity and independent thought will play a bigger role.

For instance, the increasing emphasis large companies and financial institutions place on firms having strong practices in both London and New York is both a challenge - as it disadvantages many firms who do not have such established presences - and an opportunity - as the firms who can establish themselves as transatlantic players will likely be able to win market share. When discussing this topic, you can consider a wide variety of talking points when deciding on the view you want to present:

• The financial costs of establishing a strong presence in these jurisdictions: London and New York are widely known to be the two most profitable legal markets in the world; as such, hiring leading partners and top associates in such places will involve huge upfront investments (for instance, Paul, Weiss is known to have invested over $200 million in London). Such investments will generally diminish profit pools and may make existing partners unhappy, which is a significant issue in a very competitive market for partner talent.
• Difficulties in integration: to hop on this trend, firms need to make many lateral hires from different firms, which can be problematic in that (i) they upset current power dynamics in the firm and cause political rifts; and (ii) they may simply take a while before they are fully integrated and can function together as a cohesive team, as the different firms they would have come from would have all done things in slightly different ways.
• Pace of expansion: you may contrast the different strategies of pursuing gradual growth, such as Kirkland and Latham did in both financial centres over the last two decades, or huge investments in short periods, such as Paul, Weiss and Sidley Austin recently did in London and such as Freshfields is currently doing in New York.
• Mergers: you could also explore how this trend ties into an increasing number of transatlantic mergers, such as A&O Shearman and HSFK; and whether this is something other UK and US players may seek;
• International office closures: you can look at how the increasing centralisation of high-end cross-border mandates in New York and London has led to a decreasing importance and comparative profitability of offices in other jurisdictions, which has led to firms like A&O Shearman closing shop in multiple jurisdictions.
• Practice area/sector spread strategy: you can also look at how this is largely a private capital-driven trend, but how different firms are implementing different strategies - some have a pinpointed focus on PE work, some aim for a more full service offering, others have a more niche-expertise and sector driven approach; some aim to service the needs of mainly existing clients, others aim to aggressively expand books etc.

Thank you @Andrei Radu for answering this in a detailed manner!! I appreciate this because I spent hours overthinking if I was approaching this wrong and if others were talking about something completely different that was not on my radar rather than discussing these creatively.

 

[Lawlawland]

did anyone do Latham’s VI? How dreadful was that!!! would love to talk about it with anyone that’s done it, I don’t know how to feel about it

IKR!!!!! I want to get it off my chest!

3 different questions stuffed in one, and we are also expected to give our personal experiences along with the answer to those 3 questions... and 1 minute to prepare all of these.... It was daunting to say the least.
It takes at least 45 seconds to read the whole question and understand it fully, let alone prepare for it. I did the VI first before the test. And I was kinda heartbroken after that, and did the test similar to WGT with that sadness.

I have lost my hopes for the open day. I hope the same question comes for the vac scheme, so I can be prepared.

 

[Suii]

I attended as an open day at HSF last year. I wanted to ask when I put this as an open day in work experience or in other applications is saying HSF OK or do I have to say HSF Kramer.

 

[coolwizard22]

Hey would anyone be able to tell me if the White and Case post-application assessment contains a VI?

If you mean the one that automatically comes after the application, it does not. Only SJT and critical thinking

 

[LawAspirer]

Did anyone do the Milbank assessment yet? I'm wondering if theres a VI part

 

[johnsmith]

Yeah, I am actually not too sure. It's either just slow at sending out the second stage or maybe they have a minimum benchmark before the second stage. Id appreciate if anyone who applied for the October OD could tell us whether everyone gets the second stage invite or not, as that will help with clarity.

I reached out to them to clarify I hadn't missed anything important. I'll let you know what they say when they come back.

 

[anon78365222111]

I just did the Milbank online assessment. How did everyone find it?

Did it have a VI or was it sjt if you don’t mind sharing, hope it went well !

 

[helenaskelton]

Has anyone heard from Sidley post AC?

 

[nbjani]

If you mean the one that automatically comes after the application, it does not. Only SJT and critical thinking

Great, thanks!

 

[msclm]

Has anyone heard from Sidley post AC?

Do you mean post partner interview?

 

[opticskibidi]

What was the Milbank assessment was it an SJT or just video interviews or a combination of the two?

 

[13h]

does anyone know what the next step for dla is after the wg? on the website it says telephone interview whilst others are saying vi

 

[mg42guy32]

does anyone know what the next step for dla is after the wg? on the website it says telephone interview whilst others are saying vi

Telephone or virtual interview (think zoom) they scrapped pre recorded interviews

 

[safari3]

does anyone know what the next step for dla is after the wg? on the website it says telephone interview whilst others are saying vi

It was a VI last year but they have now changed it to a short telephone interview (10-15 minutes) that assesses your motivation and alignment to the firm’s values

 

[s123]

Sidley WVS )

 

[SamiyaJ]

Sidley WVS )

Mic drop!! Congratulations ✨✨✨