Law Vacation Schemes

[yogivest]

Hi all,

Dd studies at Oxford and got a 68 in his first year of studies. She would like to apply for law vacation schemes, as some firms offer them to second years.

Any tips on how to improve her chances?
Are her grades strong enough?
She has a few different experiences with different City firms already

in her*

That's what happens when you have ds2 nagging you as you're trying to type... off to bed he goes..

2:1 not a problem even for magic circle. But she needs plenty of extra curricular, leadership positions especially. Can she get an important JCR position? Start a network? Does she play team sports at university level? She will need examples of working in a team, leadership etc.

Her application forms need to be fluent, stellar, like an essay, and she has to be thoughtful and concise in interview.

Many thanks for those replies ladies, I'll pass the tips on to her.

My DC at Oxford have had lots of Magic Circle vac schemes between them and all were done in the second year - that's the standard window.

Hugo I'm really not sure she will stand out purely as an Oxford undergrad. It seems to be almost a rite of passage for Oxford undergrads in Law, History, Classics esp to do a Magic Circle vac scheme and there are droves of them each year, esp when you add in their Cambridge contemporaries.

Good luck to your DD, my DD has just started her training contract and one of the main things that was drilled into her was when applying for vac schemes she was to make sure that each application was particularly unique to each firm.

DD applied for six, received four offers and accepted three. All of the processes varied a little from firm to firm after initial application. She had to complete a combination of critical thinking tests, Skype automated interviews with set questions and timed responses, assessment centre days and face to face interviews.

DD did some research and decided not to apply to magic circle firms as she potentially wanted to be in a smaller cohort of trainees. She decided to only apply for American law firms based in London. She was interested in corporate finance so she kept up to date with articles in the Economist, read young lawyer and business articles online and in newspapers. She also spent hours reading about transactions each firm had been involved in and this helped her demonstrate commercial awareness at interview.

My dc has just been rejected from law vac scheme. She has a very similar academic profile to a friend (ie A level grades and university grades so far, though less stellar GCSES) who was accepted onto 2 schemes and offered training contracts at both. Friend also bilingual in sought after language and more active in societies etc . Would languages be an important way of sifting applications?

Nope. But society activity is. Not sure why a PP thought extracurricular activities are not relevant. I don’t mean ‘I like football’ I mean, ‘I created a football club, held events, formed a committee, took minutes, blah blah’. They are looking for something extra. Something showing an active ambitious and confident personality.

Thanks Dust. That’s helpful. Probably easier to up activities rather than become bilingual. Having spent their childhood having pursued one main interest uni they decided to try various things, but have organised formals, had JCR office, played a sport (not very seriously) and attended different societies. Perhaps too spread out. Lots of socialising though!

I do think being as engaged as possible in commercial Law helps and demonstrating you can juggle lots of activities by organising them or playing an active part in them. It isn’t just about grades, it will be an demonstrating an all round personality and ability too.

Languages isn’t a bad attribute to have and there is no reason language grads cannot get into vac schemes and be offered training contracts. They have more potential to work in European offices for example as a friend’s DC did for a Magic Circle firm. However attending a top university and doing an academic course does help - a lot.

Top uni as well as doing a lot of stuff on top I'd say. The commercial awareness thing too, but I'm not sure DD1 ever had much of it at vac scheme time (she got three Magic Circle vac scheme offers). Lots of common sense though, coupled with top uni and a lot of stuff. DS2 was similar but had picked up much more commercial awareness by interning at an investment bank.

I forgot to say: lots of swatting up on the Financial Times and the big financial issues to hit the news in the last 6 months - that can be important for the interview.

I had a lot of language, history etc grads in my intake.