N/A (student) Review

It wasn't always enjoyable, but it was what I expected from a successful, high profile commercial law firm. The day certainly gave me food for thought, as although I am a happily competitive person who strives to beat both my own past record, and other peoples', I was slightly dismayed at the attitude of some of the other people my age who were there. There is a fine line between competitiveness and pettiness/arrogance. However this is not a reflection on the company itself, more perhaps the people it selected to attend.

As the insight day was obviously only for a single day, it is hard to comment on this with certainty. The lady overseeing us was very professional and attentive, but the trainee/young lawyer (I'm not sure which) overseeing our team activity brainstorming activity was quite unfriendly and I think my team felt a little uncomfortable in his presence

Not that much at all regarding the commercial activity we were assigned. However due to its nature, this was to be expected and this is not necessarily a bad thing at all. I think the lack of help motivated us to try harder as a team, although we didn't win overall at the end of the day.

It showed me what professional life would be like working for such a commercial law firm in the future. The day showed me the need to think on my feet, and to be confident in myself and my ideas. Moreover, it highlighted the need to take the initiative and how essential effective communication, both to team members and those you are presenting to, is in a professional working environment. I would attempt to develop and apply all these skills were I to work for such a company in the future.

The day was split between the initial presentation and the competitive commercial game. I thought the day could have been broken down into smaller, more manageable chunks - instead of taking notes and listening to presentations for a few hours, we could have had time for more questions. Furthermore, I distinctly remember the power points being very rushed, then us being allowed to have a break before lunch, which I thought was a little pointless - the information given to us during the power points about life in the company and career paths would not be available to those not attending the insight day, so I would have appreciated if we were allowed to digest the information we were offered properly.

Very competitive - which was fun! It was clear that everyone was quite pleased to be there, and I met some lovely people. I also saw some girls from my own university, which was fun and made me proud to be able to represent the university in such a high profile company. There was definitely an excitement present thoroughout the day.

As stated before, this is clearly hard to gauge during a single insight day. However it was good that they gave us someone who was there throughout the entire day who we could ask questions to. There was no individual feedback at all, but this was perhaps due to the nature of the day. That said, I could not expect too much - if I had been there for a longer period, I would hope that Taylor Wessing would indeed have helped me develop as a young professional.

Due to the nature of the activities we did (one commercial 'game' and listening to presentations), it is hard to ascertain what life may be like here, as there was very little law throughout the day. This was rather disappointing for me overall - during lunch when we were allowed to mingle with employees, I asked how much law was practically applied day to day (as in, applying my law degree), and a substantial number of the people I spoke to did not even do a law degree. This gave me the impression that law students had no real advantage over the non-law students, making me question the vocational viability of my degree if I was hypothetically to work within the company.

Please see above as my comments regarding the usefulness of a law degree within Taylor Wessing as I strongly feel this related to my impression of the firm. However I most certainly recognise that Taylor Wessing is an impressive and high achieving company to work for. The employees were definitely the type of professional I aspire to become. The competitive commercial game possibly gave the impression that it is a very competitive environment to work in, but this was really all I could base my impressions of the company culture on (as that is the only thing we actively took part in). I feel like I understood the company work ethic but not the finer details.

Very very useful - it made me realise what kind of attention and intelligence would be demanded from me in a law firm of that rank. It has made me slightly anxious about law school, which has manifested itself into a determination to work even harder in second year and achieve great results, so that I may apply again to Taylor Wessing (or a firm of similar rank) with confidence. The only negative thing for me was quite personal, and has already been mentioned - this may be incredibly naive but I was very surprised at the apparent lack of applied law present - the emphasis being on commercial awareness, and expanding clients' business. Personally I was not aware of much law being applied day to day, with this opinion based on my questioning employees during the lunch break (as well as the commercial game). This made me think that I could have done another (and frankly easier) degree and still be able to work at Taylor Wessing. This is not to say that those with a non-law degree are inferior in any way - more that if I study law and work in a law firm, I do expect to be applying my learning every day, and from what I was being told (by Taylor Wessing employees) this was not the case.

I could have applied to have my expenses reimbursed, but as I live in London and the day was in London, I felt that applying to get back the money spent on my oyster would be quite petty and highly unnecessary! I was more than happy to spend the few pounds travelling to be able to attend the insight day.

Brief networking opportunities at lunch, but no meaningful connections made. However, I was not aiming for this. There was a good window of time available for us to thoroughly question current employees, which I most certainly took advantage of. In this respect, meeting the employees was more important to me than networking on this particular insight day, therefore I was satisfied.

Please see above

No - to be honest, I don't think anyone asked, and we were not told. Normally the law firms do mention company sports teams, pro bono work etc, and are quite keen to inform us of these activities, so although this thought didn't occur to me at the time, it is rather surprising the firm didn't bring this up of their own accord.

I would certainly recommend applying. It was a very interesting day, and gave me lots of food for thought both about what direction I want my career to go in, and what would be expected of me at a high level law firm.