RateMyPlacement
Every day, I and the rest of the cohort participated in workshops and presentations organised by graduate recruitment team on the firm's culture and values and on the practice areas. Working within my team, I checked and responded to emails, drafted letters on behalf of clients, proofread documents, wrote news briefings for clients and carried out research on different matters.
In the morning, I attended presentations on topics that varied from an overview of the Firm's key departments, to the Global Inclusion and Diversity group. I had lunch with the other vacation schemers, or my trainee buddy, and grabbed coffee with associates/partners. As I sat in a Real Estate team, my tasks ranged from reviewing and drafting leases, and other agreements, and undertaking research tasks. I also sat in on a client call.
Each day was different. There was a session or two every from various departments within the firm. This includes Corporate & Financial Transactions, Litigation & Investigations and Real Estate. You are also placed within a team and given live/real work to complete. Each student has a trainee buddy and partner/associate supervisors. You are encouraged to contact others within the firm to find out about their roles and departments. Everyone is really friendly and open.
Involvement in real client work as a trainee might be involved in at the firm. A series of talks to give insight to different parts of the firm, such as departments, I&D and innovation.
A hybrid mix of partner and associate-led workshops alongside live work, with the opportunity to get involved and support everything from research, case management through to client meetings and presentations.
I was tasked with drafting letters and emails, research notes and client notes on real-life matters.
The scheme involved a combination of presentations, group case studies and tasks for the team students were sat with. For myself, that involved conducting research, reviewing documents, drafting letters, and other typical trainee tasks.
I enjoyed the vacation scheme immensely as it was a great opportunity to learn a lot more about the firm, and also to develop personally through the challenges faced at work. I gained a better understanding of what the real estate department does in practice, and also about different aspects of life as a trainee at BCLP. My supervisors were very supportive and guided me through the questions I had, and always provided helpful feedback for my assignments.
I enjoyed the vacation scheme to a large extent. Generally, the people at the firm were very willing to get to know us, delegate meaningful tasks, provide guidance and feedback. BCLP's practice areas and strength in real estate and asset finance were quite different from the other firms I had internships in. Therefore, the scheme was a great learning opportunity. The small intake of the HK scheme enabled us to build deeper relationships with our batch mates and our buddies.
I highly enjoyed my internship at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner. The programme was well designed, with numerous learning sessions and coffee chats (virtual).
Real work opportunities. Trainees, associates and even partners are very engaging and of course encouraging. They invest time in training and nurturing talents. Lots of inter-office webinars that keep colleagues updated of the recent legal development, which are rare in their competitors. The recruitment team has so far striven to keep everything open and honest, even if it sometimes means disappointment to candidates. Overall the firm has been great in managing expectation, whether it is related to work or not.
The scheme was well put together and exposed me to BCLP at a level I didn't expect. Although virtual, I feel I didn't miss out on anything BCLP had to offer. The friendly culture of the firm was as evident as the firm's high-quality training - further increasing my desire to begin my legal career with BCLP.
I really enjoyed the Virtual Vacation Scheme offered by the firm. We were allocated a Trainee Buddy in our chosen seat and had virtual coffees with other members of the department. The webinars were very interesting and it was clear that the sessions had been well thought out and prepared. Although unfortunately, it was not possible to undertake real tasks for the department, I very much enjoyed writing a position statement for a 'pretend' case and learned a great deal in doing so.
The virtual vacation scheme was brilliant and far exceeded my expectations. I was concerned with it being a virtual scheme, I might not get a feel for the firm. However, through the virtual sessions and number of representatives of the firm I got to speak to, the firm's culture shone through. I was also able to take part in several case study sessions to gain an in-depth understanding of the work the firm does.
The vacation scheme had become virtual because of Covid-19 and so I was expecting less from the scheme. However, I was mistaken. I thoroughly enjoyed the scheme, as I got to attend numerous sessions and socials with the firm. I got to arrange coffees with trainees, associates, senior associates and partners. I also heard a session from the UK managing partner. The trainee buddy system was helpful in understanding the dynamics of the firm and as a person to refer to whenever you need anything. Overall, the scheme was very enjoyable despite being virtual.
It was a really good insight into the firm. It was really well structured and gave myself and the other vacation schemers a really good feel for both the culture and the work at BCLP. This would likely have been a 10 had it not been for the pandemic forcing the scheme online, which sometimes lacked interaction.
It was a really positive introduction to the firm, especially as the vacation scheme was intended to run for 2 weeks instead of 1. I really enjoyed having the opportunity to learn more about the culture of BCLP, as well as looking at case studies of the work that you have completed in the past. The only drawback was the technical issues, but as I said on the scheme that was largely due to my own connectivity and the other issues were quickly resolved.
For an online scheme, it was fantastic. We had fantastic engagement with partners, associates and trainees. We even had a session with the London Managing Partner. Very well organised and the technology run surprisingly well.
I enjoyed the vacation scheme to a great extent! I gained so much information about the firm and from a wide range of speakers. This included an Introduction to the firm, Introduction to Innovation, Client and International Secondments available, and also Pro Bono and Corporate Responsibility.
