I've had some trouble with researching firms due to a number of reasons.
When I look at firms of interest, the first thing I look for personally is their practice strengths relative to their competitors. This is because I have an (admittedly faint) idea for what type of practice I might be most interested in, so I target firms of at least some renown in that area.
The issue that follows is that I feel full-service firms (like CMS) don't really have a particular specialism, and it is harder to showcase the motivation to join that firm because of X and Y practices in particular.
Following on from this, some firms do not display representative experience (e.g. Taylor Wessing). This makes it hard to know what kind of work is carried out within the departments, and what parts of a sector they service. I've resorted to alternative means of researching the clients a firm works with (like Legal 500), but they are rather limited.
Finally, some firms' strategies internationally and locally remain indiscernible, despite research. DLA Piper for example - I see no ambitious future plans or recent milestones. DLA appears to be perennially-strong in the mid-market across the board. They have one of the largest office networks worldwide, having grown it slowly since the 2005 tie-up... and... that's it? No recent groundbreaking mergers, like BCLP's fully-integrated merger, or A&O's and CMS' ideas for US tie-ups... Seems like it's committed to slow growth and consolidation. Not much exciting stuff talk about. If I'm missing anything, do enlighten me.
P.S: Sorry to revive an old thread, just thought these are uncertainties others might share or want to discuss.
Hi Ricky
I understand your problem as I have been struggling with this too.
At first glance, all City law firms are similar. Their clients are mainly large corporations, banks or investment funds etc. The key is to find one thing that you find interesting and focus on that.
Let me give you an example. CMS has this initiative called CMS Equip. The initiative is aimed at start-up, giving them legal advice and service at a fraction of the actual cost, in the hope that they are able to win work from these firms when they become a more mature company. When you are writing about why you want to join CMS, you need to emphasise this point but make it in such a way that you are open to experiencing the full service offering that CMS has to offer. This way, they know that your angle is start-ups that has a potential to grow into mature companies in the future, which is in line with the firm strategy.
On the second point, that the firm do not show representative experience, your strategy of researching Legal 500 is good enough. Just make a generalised statement about the kind of work that they do and use that as your anchor point. I think for the purpose of application, you don't need an extensive understanding of the work that they do. You find that information when you work for the firm (or do a vac scheme).
On your last point, I agree. It is very difficult to find out exactly what the firm strategy is. It makes sense because law firms (even companies) don't publish this publicly. The only way you can find out is to deduce this based on how they market themselves. If I were you, what I would do is to find a few key people in the practice area that you are interested in and see what are the common themes in the work that they do. You can then deduce their strategy.
One final thing that I learned to be useful when researching the firm is to break down like this.
1. What the firm is selling, i.e. service offering? This is usually representation in a deal or defence of a litigation etc.
2. Who are the buyer of those service offering and why are they buying? This can be legal departments (in the case of large corporations) or CEO (in the case of start-up) or fund manager etc. Choose one segment of the legal market and try to find out who makes the decision to hire a law firm.
3. How do the firm make themselves available to potential buyer, i.e. marketing? This can be by publishing article about a specific issues facing business or sponsoring a trade event etc.
4. How do the firm turns that marketing into paying clients? This can be more difficult but just make a few deduction based on the information that they have on the website. For example, they may say that every client has a dedicated partner, account manager and project manager. They may have training session that clients may join. They may have diversity initiative or climate change initiative that will help clients boost their reputation.
I am no where good at this and always looking for opportunity to learn. Let me know what you think.
Kind Regards,
Syafiq.