Get Everything You Need to Secure a Training Contract
Now half the price. Join TCLA Premium for £30/month and get step-by-step application support, daily commercial awareness practice, and 700+ successful examples of past applications and interview experiences. Plus so much more.
Willkie’s new graduate recruiter and two trainees will break down what the firm looks for at the interview stage, common pitfalls to avoid,
and how you can demonstrate confidence, clarity, and genuine motivation throughout an assessment centre.
Today · 5:30 pm (UK)
Hosted by Isabel Elsey
Live Q&A on applications & interviews
Join us for a live Office Hours session with BCLP’s Graduate Recruitment team.
This is your chance to ask Isabel Elsey your specific questions on how to write a standout
vacation scheme application and what BCLP looks for during interviews and assessment centres.
Get clear, practical advice directly from the person who reads and assesses applications.
@Abbie Whitlock@Andrei Radu Hi both, would you have advice on how to approach this question? Thanks!
What are the commercial advantages of Lewis Silkin's sector-focused approach, and how might it support the firm's growth in a competitive legal market (200 words).
A few commercial advantages of a sector-focused approach that come to mind are:
Ease of service: essentially, a sector-focused firm will deliver legal services in a way that is a lot easier for the client to use. Firstly, if a firm organizes teams more around sectors than practice areas, it looks and is a lot more similar to the client's business. Businesses perceive themselves as players in a certain industry and do not neatly separate their legal needs between the different workstreams of different practice areas. Thus, the legal service of sector-focused firms seems a lot more tailored to the client. Secondly, industry-focused firms tend to have partners with significantly broader expertise. Hence, the firm can provide a 'one-point-of-contact' system to clients, which is easier to navigate administratively.
Strategic advice: the idea is that if you spend years and years working on matters in a single industry, by the time you become a more senior practitioner you will have almost as much technical expertise in the sector as the client themselves. Having this kind of deep insight and knowledge of the industry will not only mean that you can give better advice to clients on particular mandates, but it will also mean you will be in a better position to form a client-lawyer relationship which goes beyond that. This way, you will have a good chance of getting to know all the insides of the client's business and becoming their go-to strategic advisor. Thus, the client gets the benefit of exceptional business and legal advisory services simultaneously.
Industry reputation: if the firm generally does a lot of high-end work in a particular sector, it will become very reputable with businesses in that sector. The fact that firm will simply be a very well-known name definitely helps in terms of shaping advantageous negotiations dynamics with opposing counsel. A great example of this is Kirkland in the PE sphere. Simply because of the firm's reputation in this area, it is able to obtain advantageous terms for clients by insisting they are "market terms". Because nobody does as many deals as they do in PE, it is sometimes difficult for the other side's counsel to counteract Kirkland's claims.
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.