CMS Academy Participant Review

I greatly enjoyed CMS's virtual experience. The tasks/insights provided were engaging and enjoyable. From my perspective, a particular highlight was the client visit. Being entrusted to converse with clients - and conduct a meeting - was both a good exercise in organisation and provided excellent insight into the work CMS does. There were a good mix of active activities involving participation and working with others, whilst at other times there were more laid-back sections of the programme. Despite the challenging circumstances, I feel CMS struck a great balance. I felt that, even virtually, I met and connected with a large number of the participants (and CMS personnel) which was great.

It was quite clear throughout the whole week that CMS were incredibly invested in all of us. This was evident by the excellent range of activities, insights, and other experiences on offer. Given the circumstances, it would have been far easier for CMS to have provided a "bare-bones" week, with some exercises to keep us occupied. This, however, was clearly not what happened. Also, being able to interact with high-level CMS lawyers (and clients) definitely showed how much value CMS places in it's Academy participants.

I could not have asked for a better week. Support was provided in a number of ways. If there were any IT issues at all there were always staff at hand; while there were none, if there were any other issues the I would have felt more than comfortable contacting another member of the team. In addition, the wellbeing sessions with Antonio were a surprise hit for me. Being slightly cynical at first, I found they were a great way to break up the day and provide breaks on what was at times an intense week.

The CMS Academy this year was restricted to an online business of law week. I would say that - as opposed to a more traditional placement - there were no "black letter" law (i.e. academic) skills which I gained from my time. This would have been different if the internship week had gone ahead. However, the other skills which were explored in the week - in particular teamworking, networking (virtually!), organisation and creative thinking - will definitely assist me throughout the rest of my professional career.

The whole week was meticulously planned and executed. Being provided with a physical programme prior to the week commencing allowed me the opportunity to get acquainted with the outline of what was an extremely busy virtual experience. In terms of flow, the week was broken up by a number of breaks and less-intense networking sessions which provided some relief between the tasks we had been given. The only day where I recall being extremely fatigued at the end was the Thursday - but this was due to a fairly intense - tech heavy - afternoon and probably to be expected. An excellent experience.

As will be gathered, the week was extremely varied in terms of activities offered. This led to a number of different atmospheres being present - sometimes more stressful, at other times more relaxed. At all times, however, the enthusiasm of those running the scheme was in abundance. There was no point where I would characterise the atmosphere as negative. While some points were definitely more high pressured (such as being under time constraints to come up with an idea etc), the week as a whole had an extremely positive, exciting atmosphere.

It is clear that CMS invested a lot of time and resources in providing us with a varied and exciting programme. Giving us opportunities to work together as teams - planning a client meeting in addition to the end of week presentations - was particularly useful. In addition, the fact CMS procured such a diverse and wide range of clients for us to interact with gave us an excellent opportunity to learn more about the skills a client looks for in its outside legal team. Also extremely useful was the presentation training, which gave me and my partner much to think about.

This was an excellent week in providing a high-level overview of the work CMS does and the culture and values that the Firm holds. What was missing was an insight into the "day-to-day" work which the Firm does. Whilst we were provided with opportunities to network with fee earners from a number of levels, which was definitely useful. there is no substitute for actually being in the office being given work. This was, of course, largely due to the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, which made the normal internship section of the Academy impossible. Hopefully this will not be the case in future years. If, however, the Academy next year will be online then perhaps being given a piece of work to be reviewed (whether formally assessed or not) from the relevant office being applied for might be useful.

We received a wide education in the culture at CMS. This was gleaned both from talks from figures at the top of the Firm and also from networking experiences with fee earners from various CMS UK offices. Being given access to such a range of figures in the organisation was useful in establishing a broad view of the culture at CMS. In addition, various presentations from persons on the CR and D&I schemes and programmes at CMS was also useful in this regard.

This scheme, while undoubtedly showing CMS in a good light, was not terribly useful in deciding my future career path. The reason for this is simply that my mind has already been made up for some time - I am an LLB student, who has been aware with and involved with CMS for a number of years, and who is in no doubt about being a lawyer. I would say that - if I were only toying with the idea of becoming a lawyer/being involved with CMS - the scheme would have been extremely insightful in this regard.

The payment for the scheme was more than adequate given the circumstances. It would have been very easy to give a token payment but being recognised for the full weeks work (which was, at times, quite intense) definitely shows how much CMS values those it is investing in.

There were various opportunities for (virtual) networking throughout the week. While not ideal, the virtual experience was perfectly good at introducing scheme participants to various employees of the Firm. Particularly useful was being able to spend time with those from the Firm's regional offices that we were applying to. This allowed us to add to our broad view of CMS with insights as to what life will be like working in the relevant office to us.

As mentioned above, I found the events extremely useful. All employees I interacted with were extremely engaging and clearly eager to share there experiences working at CMS. The "speed networking" event, where we spoke to a procession of different people in breakout rooms went smoothly and was an excellent way at speaking to people across the different CMS UK offices. The unplanned nature of the event - not knowing who we would meet next - was both exciting and (by not really allowing for extensive preparation) made the conversation develop organically.

Through the various events provided during the week (talks, networking etc) I was able to find out a lot about the various D&I and CR initiatives CMS is involved with. The talks gave a broad overview, while the networking sessions allowed me to find out how specific persons are involved in such initiatives. Additionally, the networking sessions allowed me to find out from those working in my relevant office what the social life (and work/life balance) is like at CMS.

I would definitely recommend this experience to a friend. It was fantastic.