Vacation Scheme Student Review

I really enjoyed the insight I gained into the firm and the legal industry during my week. Not only did I see the types of skills needed and tasks undertaken by a trainee solicitor, but I gained a really good understanding of the firm's clients and some of the challenges and trends impacting them.

Firstly, everyone in my department was very friendly to me, which immediately created a distinct lack of hierarchy. I was also kept busy and did lots of work which was not only challenging but useful for the department as well. This meant that I felt that I could contribute something useful to the work which they were doing.

I was assigned both an associate supervisor, who I shared an office with, and a trainee buddy who both assigned me work and were generally friendly points of contact. They were both very happy to answer any of my questions or give me some help on any tasks which I was undertaking, as was everyone else in the department.

The tasks I completed required a lot of careful attention to detail and research skills, which will be directly useful for my career, but I think that there were also a lot of other 'soft skills' which I witnessed as well. This included how to communicate with clients, how to run a meeting efficiently and how to interact with colleagues.

There was a good spread of both time spent in my department, doing work and other legal tasks, and other events which helped us to gain a wider insight into the firm, their staff and their strategy. This included networking events with partners and trainees and range of talks. Overall, there was a good balance.

Everyone who I met at the firm was genuinely really friendly and approachable. People seemed interested in me and valued my work. Although people were busy trying to finish work and transactions just before Christmas, that still did not create an atmosphere of stress in the department, which I really appreciated.

As the scheme was only a week long, there was not much time for training and development. However, they did give a presentation on how to develop the 'soft skills' necessary to be a successful lawyer, which was very helpful and helped the participants to evaluate themselves and consider what their unique strengths might be.

It gave a very good insight into the type of work carried out by the firm, the skills needed for the role and what the people there were really like. However, the scheme was only a week long and there were a number of social events, which would probably not be as frequent in a full time role with the firm.

I gained a really good understanding of the type of firm that they were- which is ambitious yet friendly and supportive- and the type of people that they employ. It was also useful as we met the Senior Partner of the firm, who outlined where he wants the firm to be heading in the future, and how that might impact their culture.

There were lots of opportunities for this as the Graduate Recruitment Team organised events for us to meet both trainees and partners of the firm, which helped to gain an understanding of the type of people that they employed. It was good to do this in an informal setting as well as it felt like I could be myself.

We had two social events- one was a drinks event on the first night, which was good to meet the other vacation scheme students. The other was a pizza making event on our penultimate night, which was really fun and it felt like we had really bonded as a group at that point.