Unlock the Power of Online Signature Lawfulness for Vacation Policy in United Kingdom

How to eSign a document: online signature lawfulness for Vacation Policy in United Kingdom

hello and welcome to the bright Network webinar all about vacation schemes and commercial law thank you so much for joining us today we're really excited to have you on board so we've had a lot of demand from our members asking about more information about how to apply for vacation schemes top tips advice so we're bringing you today a really exciting webinar all about these vacation schemes and as you can see I've got a very exceptional panel with me today who'll be answering all of your questions towards the end of the session so please do send them in um and equally sharing some of their experience with you so this going to be a real deep dive into vacation schemes and hopefully you'll come away with some fantastic advice and tips so our speakers in the middle we've got manes Tanner who's an associate at Simmons and Simmons next to me fisha Khan who's currently studying at soas and has been through two vacation schemes already and on the end we've got Jonathan Andrews who's studying English at Kings and who completed a winter vacation scheme at Hogan levels so in terms of how we're going to structure this webinar we'll spend the first 1550 minutes having a chat with mesh um and he's going to talk through his professional experience to date and then give you his top five tips um on how to successfully apply to a vacation scheme we'll then spend 10 minutes chatting with theisha and Jonathan um where they'll tell you about their experiences during their vacation schemes and how they think you can do your best to apply for a vacation scheme yourself and then we'll go to a Q&A so we've already received loads of questions from you guys thank you so much but please send in questions throughout the session so I've got my little tablet and we'll be running through those um we've have been in undated though so if we don't get through everything I do apologize but we'll do our best to get through as many as possible so let's dive straight in mesh thank you so much for joining us thank you we would love to hear about your experiences um in your in your career and about your time of vacation scheme so I hand over to you no problem at all well good afternoon everyone um I'll spend a few minutes just telling you a bit about my journey and how I came to be where I am now which is an associate at Simmons and Simmons um and then after five minutes or so I'll jump into sort of the main event of the day which is talking about um my top tips for you getting vacation schemes and then moving on beyond that to training contracts uh which is of course something that that I went through although it seems a long time ago now um so just just give you background about where I've come from um I uh graduated in 2009 um but before that I spent four years at Oxford studying law um and I started applying for vac schemes in my second year as a lot of you are probably thinking about doing at the moment um and I actually tried vac schemes at at various law firms across the country and a different range of law firms and I'll come on to talk about why that might be potentially quite important for you guys when looking around uh at your potential careers in the law um so and this is going to tell you how how old I am and how long ago this was I actually did three vac schemes in the north of England of firms called penon kobitz and Walker Morris and actually only one of those Still Remains uh kobitz actually went under in the recession so that no longer exists uh and for those of you who have heard of penon you might know that that's now part of Slater and Gordon which is the uh the giant Australian ambulance chasing firm um and I also did one at Walker Morris in Leeds and and the reason I did that is because I wanted to try out what it would be like to work at various different uh firms across the country and with with a different sort of style and Ethos um and and in that regard I also did some in London as well so I did fact schemes at Herbert Smith freeh Hills or Herbert Smith as it was then again showing how old I am um and also at ashurst then I had a bit of a sort of a turn of events which was a year in Paris as part of my degree uh and I decided that I wanted to work a bit when I was in Paris so I uh I jumped at the a chance of paralinguistic in London uh and that obviously took up my two years I had a very interesting training contract there uh including one seat my fourth seat in the Middle East in Abid Davi and actually that's where I qualified as solister out in the Middle East so I qualified with Herbert Smith in Dubai I then stayed with Herbert Smith in DUI for a while and then made the transition over to Simmons and Simmons in DUI uh and I spent two and a half years in Dubai with Simmons and Simmons and then I moved back to London about a year ago and I'm a mid-level associate at Simmons in the dispute resolution team so that's a very Whistle Stop tour throughout my career um and feel free to ask me any questions later on about my journey uh and I think I'll just move on now to talking a bit about vacation schemes uh and applying and my five top tips so I guess you all know what a vacation scheme is uh in Broad terms but effectively it's the period between one and three weeks where you can get to try out what it's like to be a sister in a law firm uh and increasingly now law firms get the chance to look at you and judge you and assess you uh and hopefully take you on for a training contract at the end of the vacation scheme um now vacation schemes are becoming more and more important and uh I'll come on to my experiences later on but most relevant for you guys is that I'm actually interviewing a lot for vacation scheme candidates so I'm happy to give you any potential not inside knowledge but at least some knowledge later on on what we're looking for in the candidates that that we're looking at but as I said most importantly is that law firms increasingly are now recruiting directly from their vacation schemes so they're becoming more and more important and a lot of you will find that the application process for a vacation scheme is exactly the same as it is for a training contract so I want to just run through five top tips uh that I would say are most important for you in succeeding at obtaining a vacation scheme and potentially converting that into a training contract later on I think the first top tip is preparation and early preparation now I think a lot of you will be either in your uh second year or potentially in your third year if you're doing a four-year degree at University um now I am all for saying that you should try and enjoy your lives before you jump straight into a career but that said it's quite important that you do start thinking about your training contract on your future career in the law as early on as possible um as later on in does get more competitive you're then facing competition from people who are younger than you uh and also you're in the sort of peak of your uh application process as it were you're you're doing your degrees and uh you will be in the zone as it were for for applying for these places um so try and get started really early on and that doesn't mean you've just got to dive in and and start your first application form I think the key really is getting to know where you want to go what type of firms you're looking for uh and really getting to know those firms and I'll come on to talking a bit about that in the course of my next few tips now tip number two uh is being ambitious but also being realistic um now all of you will want to work at at the best firms possible and that's absolutely a fair goal to be going for be absolutely ambitious but also um I think it's a very good time to sort of take a look in the mirror uh and assess your own strengths and weaknesses uh and also decide what type of law firm is going to be best for you uh and what type of law firm you're capable of getting getting to now the sad reality is um there aren't enough places at all the magic circle firms for all of you some of you will get there some of you may not but the important thing is some of you may not may not want to get there or or may not apply for those places so it's very important to take a step back at this stage uh and start to look at your own strengths and weaknesses your own personality uh and really have a good go at assessing where your skills lie and how appropriate that is going to be for certain law firms um I started with a spreadsheet I I literally just opened up Excel uh and started putting in the names of some law firms and then started populating various rows and columns with um aspects of those law firms that I could gain from publicly available sources uh and then I sort of stood back and thought well which of these law firms do I think I'm going to be suited to and you look you can look at a range of characteristics really um where would you like to work in the future the great thing about the careers that you're going for are that you're going to join international law firms if you have a particular desire to go and work in America at some point then maybe you want to start thinking about America law firms if you want to stay nationally and potentially work in other cities within the country then you should be looking at a more Regional firm or a national firm which allows you to do that and getting started on this process very early on will really help you along the way uh if only to eliminate some of those law firms that that you're not interested in because they don't suit uh the characteristics that you're looking for so my tip is to start really early on uh the worst thing possible is sending that application in at 5: to midnight on the deadline day uh and realizing later on that you could have done x y and Zed to improve that application so get started early on now my third tip is coming back to what I said about the firms that that I worked at and the firms that I took a vac scheme at is try different types of firms because um I think as you'll come on to hear later on there are lots of different types of firms and spending time at them in the course of a vac scheme is really one of the best ways of getting to know them um you can go to all sorts of law fars and and events at University and meet people from the law firms but the best way possible of getting to know these firms is to spend a few weeks with them which a fact scheme enables you to do now there are various ways in which a firm can be uh distinguished from other firms one of the biggest is is the personality of the firm and the ethos the reason why I enjoy my job at the moment so much at Simmons and Simmons is because uh it's it's a firm full of wonderful personalities um people who are not afraid to be themselves at work uh and I really like that about it we have a a really good camaraderie with all all of our colleagues and it's a great place to work um for some people they might not want that they might want to acquire a firm um somewhere where they can um tuck themselves away and get on with work or yeah there's a range of different personalities from Law Firm to law firm and uh it's a good way of testing which law form you're going to be suited to um to try try as many vaces as you can now as I said I tried some vaces in firms in Manchester and and Leeds uh and of course you know there are lots of good firms up up there and it's not to say that you have to join the top London firms internationally in order to have the best possible training contract and to set you in the best possible stad going forward some of you may prefer to go to a slightly smaller firm or a firm that specializes in certain type of work uh and often the best way of actually knowing what type of firm you're looking for is to go and try a few different types so don't be afraid to say well I'm going to try a couple of applications to magic circle firms I'm going to try perhaps one to an American firm to see what that's that's like uh and then perhaps one or two to a slightly smaller firm or a regional firm for me going to those Regional firms made it clear to me that I wanted to be in London and doing my training contract there but very importantly I had to go and test out that theory I had to go to those firms in the north where I had an absolutely wonderful time but for me it confirmed that I wanted to start my career in London um so my tip for you number three is to try as many different firms as you can moving on I think um my fourth tip uh is going to be do your homework and I think this is actually something that I can't overestimate enough and it comes out of the fact that I'm currently interviewing a lot uh for vacation scheme candidates and training contract candidates and it is abundantly clear in all cases where candidates haven't done their homework now it's a cliche to say you should get to know as much as you can about the firm and I see candidates a lot of the time quote stats from from Simmons or just giving me other slices of information from The Firm but it's rare that I really get a candidate who's actually taken the time to read lots of information about the firm and really got to grips with what the firm is about what sectors it specializes in the type of work that it does and where it sees itself going in the future um it's very obvious where a candidate has just spent 10 minutes on the website for example and is churning out the odd fact here and there uh in order to try and convince me that they've read about the firm actually what you need to do is spend a lot of time and I appreciate when you're applying to many different law firms it's not easy to do but there's no point in making 20 applications where you've only skirted around each of those 20 law firms it's far better to do fewer applications uh and really get to know the firms that you're applying to so yes go on the website but really have a look through everything that the firm stands for uh and go through third party new sources as well because they will report things in a different light they may tell you things that the firm's website won't tell you uh and all in all it will just give you a better picture of what that law firm is about and then when it comes to the application process really bring out that knowledge and it doesn't mean just putting titbits of facts here and there into your application form don't sprinkle your application process with facts about the firm really get to know the firm and and have a discussion about it in your application uh and don't be afraid to challenge certain views of the firm or decisions that the firm's made it just shows that you're engaged in the application process and you're really getting to know the firm that you're applying to um and actually out of the five tips that I'm going to give you today the three that I've given you so far I think by far this is the most important and it's the one that really separates good candidates from weak candidates in what I'm seeing so far uh in the application process the better you know the firm the more it shows to us that you actually care that you want to apply to us uh and that you're deserving of a place and uh I think finally uh my tip number five for you um is to treat the VAC scheme after application like a training contract application as I said at the start vacation schemes are now becoming almost the sole way in which law firms are recruiting training contracts candidates now um and that's hardly a surprise I mean I supervise vac schemers all the time and we get two or three weeks assessing a candidate it is far better than looking at an application form and a few interviews that does tell us quite a lot about you but there's nothing compared to 3 weeks in an office putting you through your pay and getting to know you as a person um and that's the best way that we're we're recruiting candidates now so it's all the more important that you put as much work as you can into these vaccum applications uh get to the firms and now that's proving to be a very useful way into your training contracts so treat these applications as if they they were your training contract applications so those are my five tips um I'm more than happy to take any questions later on um but I think you're going to hear more let's say contemporaneous and recent uh tips from people who have just gone through the process thank you so much manes sh your top tips for us and your experience so as manes said please send in your questions we'd be asking our panel for about 30 minutes after you spoken to fisha and Jonathan so do get them sent in um and we'll now be moving on to the more contemporary members of our panel so F and johnsen thank you so much for coming in see us today uh so first of all we want to know how did you find your spring vacation so fisha you had two schemes that you did tell us about those how did you find the experience you know what did you learn from them thank you Chloe um so I did two spring vacation schemes and I think uh the most important thing that I learned is uh how how does a law firm operate so who are law firm's clients what different departments are involved in making a single deal work and I think I also understood uh the difference between um you know a corporate culture versus coming straight out of University so I think it relaxed me a lot more uh I think I I understood that PE it gave me an idea of what the law firm's culture is like how I will get on if I choose to do my training contract at those firms um so yeah those were my sort of top lessons I learned thank you and Jonathan you did a winter vacation scheme at Hogan levels what did you learn from that experience um well firstly it really helped to be in an office environment to learn about how lawyers actually work to make the law happen rather than just thinking about law so I didn't actually do a law um undergraduate degree but I researched about law beforehand so to come in and actually see how that works in practice was a huge help and I sat in employment and restructuring an insolvency at Hogan levels but they also put on a lot of different talks so you could speak to people from um Finance groups uh other other corporate um departments energy as well and you were really able to work out how each different um different department worked and there were obviously a lot of areas where they were quite similar um driven by normal business need it was also really interesting to see how they were all very very different in their own way and to see how they all worked together obviously but to see how even though it's one overarching firm um each department is very very different and how your career can be so vastly different depending on where you sit even within the same firm thank you now congratulations are in order because you've both secured training contracts which is excellent thank you um so I just want to find out how does your vacation scheme experience help you choose the right firm for you for your training contract and how do you think it's going to help you when you start your new sorry your new role great um so I think doing a vacation scheme really helped me because I understood um what are the different practice areas involved uh what are the clients of the law firms are working with and most importantly it kind of gave me an idea of uh you know how sort of how International I wanted my work to be for example I really wanted to work on crossb deals so I was looking for more International firms versus uh smaller more Niche law firms uh and I understood a lot better about as mines was saying before to really differentiate a firm so I looked into things like uh who are the law firm's clients where do they have their offices what are their strategies uh what are their Visions um and most importantly what is the culture of the law firm like and I think that when I was making my training contract applications I was able to really differentiate the law firm from their from other law firms essentially and I think it also helped me understand me as a person and how I could sell myself so my skills for example uh the things I learned from my extracurricular activities my life experiences I was able to put that in in the application so that the law firm could see that I was somebody they would find interesting and they would bring me for an interview I what about yourself Jonathan um I I think after my doing my my certification scheme at Hogan levels my commercial awareness really really improved and Commercial awareness is one of those phrases that people always say you can't put a singular academic definition of it and it's not easy to pin down I think that's because it's hard to understand it if you haven't actually been in one of those um firms even if just for two weeks really seeing how deals actually work and it's a lot more impressive on forms for future vacation schemes or for training contracts if you can um say I have actually sort of spoken to um someone who's actually works on these deals they've explained to me how it goes through I've tried out um how you might go through this process yourself and just be able to explain that from what you've learned at the firm rather than just Theory from what you've um what you've maybe picked up speaking to to people events that only last a few hours or online which is helpful but you need that other um practical sort of side of it as well and um in terms of the fact that I was exposed to so many different areas of as well it really helped me to decide to to think the firms not just of how large they are or um what if they were magic circle or not but also what areas they actually um really excelled in and that helped me um get a training contract at readed Smith because I wouldn't necessarily have looked at it before but it I then found that it was leading in the areas that I really was interested in working in brilliant and now when we were talking earlier about applying to Vacation schemes fora you said that there was a couple of things you might have changed on your application can you tell everyone what those would be so the first thing that I would have changed is I would have definitely made my application more personal for example if you're a member of a sports club or if you're a part of the Law Society committee I would explain to them I would pick up a story and I'd really explain to the recruiter for example um how I planned out an event for example I was one of the events officer for the Law Society and I explained to them how I had organized the event I explained the hurdles i' had faced so I think that kind of described how I could also deal with obstacles and rather than just not showing myself in a positive life constantly I think it also shows how you evolve as a person when you have to deal with stress or you're dealing with time management issues so make your application more personal I think my second tip as I mentioned before is talk about the law firm you know if there's a deal that you found interesting talk about why that deal is interesting for you and I think two things come out of it a you're showing the fact that you're really interested in The Firm because you've seen what kind of clients that they're working with and I think be it brings out your commercial knowledge so that you understand the market events and how that affects a law firms the kind of um work that the clients mandate the law firms to do so I think it really shows that you're interested in the career and I think last tip I think would be to relax as M said do not write 20 applications and make them the same uh make it personal if you write really good eight applications I can guarantee like at least you'll get half of those interviews so you go forward and also uh this is just a side note um if most of the applications nowadays have a lot of um verbal reasoning test so make sure you're practicing them if you're good from the beginning that's great but just because you're a little bit weaker doesn't mean you're not going to go through that hardle the key is to keep practicing and I promise you you'll just get better better with time brilliant I hope you're making a note of all of those and Jonathan what are your tips for everyone who are watching um three top tips for success in applying to a back scheme yeah I'd say um make sure sure you uh make sure that you do a small enough number that you can do all in really good detail so I'm not going to put a number on it because some people can do um different numbers of application forms in great detail so I was able to do 20 or so because I was able to use that the time to really write in very detailed ways why I wanted to um work for those firms some people it could be less some cases it could be more but make sure that you're not just sending out identical um applications or very similar and one test a lot of recruiters have said to me is if if they can take the name of their firm out and replace it with another firm and it still makes sense it's not specific enough you really need to be talking about why you want to work for that firm and that's what brings on to my second point which is make sure you do a lot of research um beforehand and some firms like with with Reed Smith they will test you a lot on your application form they will have large uh long questions you to do a lot of research on about the firm others like cocing levels would be less so there'll be a handful of questions but even so when you get to interview you s be expected to talk about why you want to work there and if you can talk about what areas the firm is really good for um maybe some deals some of its Partners have done recently why you'd want to work there even if it's maybe some charitable initiatives that they're doing that you want to get involved in it that's that really shows that you thought about actually applying to them as a firm rather than just applying to be a lawyer and I'd say um as my final tip make sure that you're really uh putting down everything that that you can do everything you're good at and don't don't worry about if you put down too much then you'll be judged for being you boasting too much or anything like that um you're in a very competitive process with people who are going to also have loads of really good extra CC things and good grades so you need to show why you're really the best and it's not arrogant to be able to put down why you're really you're going to be the best for that job thank you very much so there ends the beginning of our webinar thank you for all of your fantastic advice and top tips and we're now going to go to our Q&A session so I see you've all been busy sending in questions throughout um and please keep sending them in as well so I me go to my tablet and see where we will begin so first of all this from IAT I have no idea what to include in a cover letter how do I make myself stand out M I'm going go to you first is that you're hiring at the moment yeah no absolutely I mean there're only some of the firms I think require a cover letter within the context of the application as well um if I remember rightly um I think that one of the most important things about a cover letter is just the structure of it um we'll come on to the substance in a second but the second I look at a cover letter I'd want to see that it shows some thought in terms of the structure of it that it's been thought out properly that that person's written it looked at it again Rewritten it it uh and gone to gone to the town on it really and made sure that it all flows very logically put yourself in the context of a client because that's what we have to do every day as solicitors I have to draft a letter which a client is going to read and maybe send out to an opposing side or to someone else as part of the deal they want to know that their solicitor has written a letter that flows well and has a logical structure so stting the application process um in terms of substance I think the first thing to say is be guided by what the the law firm has said if they have said write a cover letter which explains your reasons for wanting to join the firm then make sure your cover letter sticks very closely to that remit uh and don't be afraid to say explicitly there are five reasons why I want to join this law firm and get straight to it it's not uh it's not your ability to wow with entertaining language and and write a piece of literature that you're writing a persuasive case as to why you should be allowed to join that firm so make it as persuasive and and to the point as possible so you don't need flowery language everywhere you just need to pack it with evidence in a in a very clear logical order as to why you want to join that firm they might ask you to include other things in the cover letter uh if so make sure you stick very closely to the remit and don't miss out any bits that the law firm wants to see in the cover letter right our next question is from hayat should we consider the top firms if our first year grades are not great um I think she he or she got a 2 two what do you guys think forisha I think this is a tricky one because I was in a similar situation um no I didn't necessarily have a tutu but I personally didn't feel that my grades were good good enough for some law firms that I was thinking of applying to but um I think it it can go both ways but for from my experience um I think my my great did not have that much of an effect that I made itself that that I thought it would have I have a training contract with Alan and overy and I remember with my first year grades I didn't think I I my grades were good enough but well there you go like I think sometimes it's just in your head so just just give it a try there's there's no loss in trying out brilliant and um Sophie actually asked a similar sort of question so what can you do to make up for an improve your application if you got um a high two two in your first year LW degree so Jonathan open up to you what you know what can Sophie do um well I mean I personally got um a two1 all of my years so this isn't sort from personal experience but I do know people who have been in a similar situation and I think if you have any mitigating circumstances it is really important to to put those down um firms would accept anything from mated circumstances but if it's something really important like you had a Hospital appointment you had an illness at the time um and that affected your work that's that's something to consider if that's not sort of um the case really focus on in your um subsequent years of University scoring higher than other words you would you wanted to to Really put the work in there to show um okay I might have not been um not might not have achieved as as much in my first year but in my second year I can achieve um this and have the grades to be able to show it as well that it's not that you're always going to be getting those marks it's and then if you have determination you can then score higher and also if you were to get involved in more extracurricular activities positions of responsibility those kind of things in the long term are going to be more important than what percentage exactly you happen to get on your degree um so if you've got a lot of those um or a few that had a lot of responsibility I think that would would really help it would show you how to Broad skill set brilliant thank you s I hope that answers the question we're still receiving more questions due send them in we've got some more time in our webinar so don't be shy get those questions stuck in and we'll put them to the panel so up next we've got Emily's question what qualities are law firms looking for in case study interviews and exercises mes I'm gonna go to you again okay uh I mean they're probably similar qualities that the firm is looking for overall and I think the case study is just one other way to tease out a certain range of those qualities um for me if I was setting a case study and then ask asking questions on it I mean let's say you've got a typical commercial scenario you're given uh half a page of information about a deal or a dispute uh potentially some contractual Clauses and then you'll ask various questions in the context of an interview I think first and foremost um law firms are looking for bright individuals so if you're able to look at those contractual Clauses um and and work out exactly what the question is asking let's say it's Clauses relating to how to calculate a notice period in a contra for example um it'll be the basics getting that right will show that you're bright you're able to look at those Clauses and answer a question on what they mean um Second and I think it's a quality that is often overlooked by people um is just common sense uh and actually a lot of law firms use the phrase um commercial awareness and I know Jonathan spoke about that earlier and it's quite an enigmatic term it's very difficult to know what it means but for me Common Sense is a big part of it if you've got information regarding a deal which is part of a commercial scenario sometimes you're just going to have to take a step back put yourselves in the shoes of one of those parties uh and answer questions to the best of your ability based on your common sense I mean take a typical dispute sometimes you just need to take a step back and advise a party well you're going to lose a lot of money or you're not going to do this you're going to do that sometimes it's just about common sense and don't be afraid just to rely on your instincts like that so I think a lot of these commercial scenarios are also seeing how well you look at the bigger picture and how much commercial awareness SL common sense you're able to put into that situation um and I think thirdly an important part of it is attention to detail as well um that is one of the biggest traits that a lawyer needs really I mean you need to be able to exercise attention to detail in everything you look at and it's actually one of the biggest weaknesses of trainees coming through the system and and the thing that they improve most quickly throughout their training contract so again it's about getting into the Zone when you're faced with a with a commercial case study U making sure you digest all the information given to you and making sure that you don't miss anything when when speaking about it so Rina and jamaa ask a similar question about preparing for case study and assessment day is there anything that you'd like to add to M's answer I think it's really important to use your time well I think most law firms would give you uh 40 to 50 minutes to prepare and I think in that time it's really important to not waste a lot of time going through everything in detail it's quite important to sometimes just skim over and go to the end because you might get a Twist at the end of your case study as well so it's really important to finish reading the document and then I think the most important thing is to structure it because usually it's a 10-minute presentation to a senior associate or a partner and I think in your head you need to understand that you're presenting to somebody and you you want to be concise and you also want to get the main points out so how I would do it is for example if it's um a deal for example I would discuss the solutions I would also discuss which different uh areas of the law or the different practice areas that might be involved and then I would uh go through um go through the solutions quite clearly and I think as minestra was saying sometimes you might get carball questions and I think what they're looking for is really common sense sometimes you'll get a question where there is no way you're going to know the answer because maybe it's a legislation you've never heard of but I think it's important to just think about the legislation even the name and see what it might relate to brilliant uh next one's from Elena so Elena is currently on her year abroad studying law in Lauren French in France how would you suggest selling this in an application Jan um I would say if you're sort of doing a foreign language foreign languages tend to be F very much short after in in in law firms because um they're able to be used in crossborder deals which is something most if all firms are going to be um going to really be focusing on so I definitely sell that and if they're not already really proficient in it of focus on gaining a greater fluency in that language so that they can actually um demonstrate their skills if the opportunity arises because there's nothing worse than I know some people who sort of said that they can speak a language better than they can and then they aren't able to do so so really make sure that um that that that language goes up to scratch and also the fact that you've chosen to take a year abroad shows that you're really willing to immerse yourself in a new culture and then how to speak to people um across National borders and that's something really valued as well because the largest firms now are really International and I have people working there from from all all different countries and again they'll be working on deals across Nations so the ability to speak to people um across borders and to just instinctively relate to them is something you can build up through more exposure so definitely talk about how you've chosen to take that leap into the unknown and how it's going to pay off I think just to sorry just to add to that I think Jonathan's second point is is absolutely right I think um in terms of the languages side I mean I I speak French and did a year abroad in France but I don't use French in my day-to-day job I mean we have a Paris office uh a lot of the firms you'll be oind to will have Paris offices uh most queries in French will go to the Paris office um but I think what Jonathan said second the point about having jumped in at the deep end and being in an unfamiliar environment and having to survive and probably having some tough times while you're out there as well as some really good times um is definitely life experience that you should sell uh and build upon and also if you're in France at the moment use it as a chance to go meet some law firms in France um it's very difficult to try and get an in with a law firm based in London that has you know a huge office and very formal schemes if you're in Paris where there may be smaller English offices why not just drop them an email and see if you could spend a day with them or a bit of time with them I um as I said earlier I paralal in in Paris with Herbert Smith and that all came out of dropping them an email saying I'm coming to Paris can I come and see you and then the next thing I know I'm working there for a year right we've now got two questions from Aman I love that if you've got more than one question send them in we'll take as many as you send us so Aman's first question which seat are you looking forward to in your training contract and why fisha well it's always really important to have uh sort of keep your mind open about where you want to be sitting in uh I think uh for me personally I'm quite looking to um work with uh the finance practice area because um I chose ano because I have a fantastic reputation with uh Banking and finance so I definitely want to explore that so I'm really excited about that what about you jent them um I again I'd say you could never be sure what seat you're going to get and especially at Reed Smith where um your your preference in the fourth seat is um taken into account a lot more than your first seat so you probably if you really go in with it aiming for one seat you're probably going to be disappointed on your first go but I really want to sit in the media entertainment I spent a week there doing my um vacation scheme at Reed Smith it's one of sort of Reed Smith's um main areas of expertise and I really really loved the work there because you get to work on it can be some um deals around TV shows um with BBC and ITV it could be um dealing with um publishing as well and I really liked creative Industries like that so to be able to work on the legal side of it was just a lot of my interest combined into one and amon's second question could you walk him through a transaction and tell me what you enjoyed about it that the floor well I mean I can guide you through a dispute rather than a transaction if that's if that's of any use because that's what I do that's my bread and butter uh I guess my day-to-day job which might be fairly interesting for you to know I hope um in in a dispute resolution Department you will have anything between two and four or five long running cases the ones that have basically hit legal proceedings formally so either in court or arbitration um so You' be working on those I am just about coming to the end of one of the longest cases I've ever worked on which is three years and still going and we're about to come to a judgment so you'll hit sort of Peaks and troughs uh in the course of a year on a particular long running case there'll be a a big deadline for a big submission due where you're writing arguments uh which you file to the other side um so it'll be very busy then uh and then there'll be troughs where you're waiting for the other side to come back with an argument as well um that's one thing I like about being in in dispute resolutions because you sort of have some foresight over the next few months about where your deadlines lie that's not to say it's not busy um you also have a lot of discreet advice to do on a day-to-day basis um so dispute resolution lawyers will often advise their their non-contentious colleagues so one of my colleagues came in about 3:30 today to ask me about uh a contractual Clause relating to Pure eon economic loss in tght so I was going back to my uh back to my Clark and linil if if any of you use that so I do use law on a daily basis um and I think just to come back to your question about transactions um obviously I don't do that on a day-to-day basis I can't tell you much about the structure of a of a transaction and that will very much depend on on what type of non-c contentious Department you're in a banking or a Securities transaction will be very different to a typical m&a transaction um but they tend to be um well in a lot of cases short and snappy so you'll get a big deal coming in you'll work towards a closing and I'll be very busy towards the closing and then you'll have a lull and then you'll have another deal coming along and they can be done between anything one month and a few months so we've slightly covered this already but Sophie's asked if you can give an example of how you talk about a recent deal that interested you on an application she says I'm not sure what to include and how much the summary of the case is needed okay so um I'll I'll sort of because I've written about some deals in my applications what I do is uh usually um I go through the economic or the financial times or whichever um financial newspaper you're using to keep up to date and I'll pick out an interesting deal and then I'll check out other sort of um online media for example lawyer to be or legal week and then you can see which law firms are acting on the deal or sometimes usually you'll also know which law firms are on either sides of the transaction so I'll go through the transaction just a little bit don't give out a lot of facts I think the key point is to analyze why you find the deal interesting so just talk about what the law firm is doing uh is are they helping out in the banking aspect or is it an m&a transaction um and then just uh discuss what why that particular deal is exciting for you what was the challenge in that deal why was it different from other m& deals that have been going on in the market and that's how you just differentiate yourself that's how I do I did it add to that yeah um just most most application forms will have sort of question like this about tell us about recent deal we've been involved in and as we said before I think if you just sort of list facts it's not really helpful because it shows that you're able to pick up a newspaper and read um an article it doesn't really show you're able to get script of it what you should really be thinking about is putting down the basic facts of the case um and then analyzing it as as said and also potentially if you can think of a solution it's probably not going to be sort of the same solution some with all the information that they have at their disposal um would make but the fact that you've sort of taken the initiative to say you could do this as long as it makes sense and holds up I think that that helps as it shows you're willing to look for Solutions which is something lawyers um need to do on a daily basis right so next question is from aat again um I find video interviews really in person on hard to relate to should they be treated differently to interviews that happen in person I haven't ever had a video interview myself um but I do know a lot of my University friends did and I know that they find it very difficult because there's not actually someone there they they get asked a question they have to respond in a in a certain time limit um and it's I don't know it just it doesn't feel like they they should be the same because you're not actually testing how somebody is with with a real person my ADV would be to keep up like prompt cards because they can obviously just see your face but they can't see the nodes that are there so usually these are pretty stock questions you're going to be getting so just have an idea of why the law firm why you or when you've demonstrated a certain quality that the law firm is looking for the key to sort of figuring out what questions you might get asked in the video interview is to just see the grad recruitment website and they'll tell you what key skills they're looking for so just have some stock answers ready and just keep bullet points and if you get stuck or if you're stammering just look down there's one there one word and then you just you know compose yourself and just say it yeah and I would also just say um if you can get over the the strangest I suppose of it that you're not actually whether it's someone on the other end of the line or you're recording it you're not actually speaking to someone in the in who's sitting there if you can just get over that and appear calm that will really look good on on screen because the chance of other people having the same interview will also uh have the same sort of reservations you do and that will help you stand out uh next we go to Rina on applications law firms often ask you to select what grade you expect to achieve upon graduation why is this important and what grade is it good to put first or a 21 um well I think be truthful um if you put a first and then you end up getting a third I'm not sure the law firm is going to be particularly impressed um so be truthful but you know ultimately the law firm just wants to know what what what you're expecting to get as a grade and obviously they're looking for bright individuals and you know if unfortunately you're not on for a 21 or perhaps a 22 then um they might sort of sit you down early on and say well you know you need to actually try to to aim for a higher grade otherwise we might not be able to to interview you further so um I think be truthful but also you're trying to predict something that might be very difficult to predict so try and be realistic about it as well if you if you're doing all right in your degree and you think that you're safely on for a 21 go for that um if you think that you're able to get first and you're able to aim even higher then why not put that down as long as As I say it's not completely unrealistic then you're not doing anything wrong so the next question is from jamaa I she's obviously thinking about applying to Simmons and Simmons EXC she asks um you know what does the future look like for Simmons Simmons what opportunities are coming up you know why should she be joining Simmons and Simmons uh good question um Simmons is going in various amazing directions actually and it's almost that on a daily basis we get emails circulated about the future direction of the firm um and I think a lot of it is based around the sector Focus which I know a lot of firms have but Simmons seems to embrace it quite strongly uh and also the markets which Simmons is targeting so um we're pushing strongly into Africa now um but also into quite a few other Emerging Markets um we haven't gone and and developed so strongly in some jurisdictions we were fairly late to the party in Singapore um after a lot of firms had set up there but for example we are first into places like Iran we've already set up a working group which looks at Iran uh we've got various webinars that lots of clients attend and we were involved in reviewing their first petroleum contract so Simmons is going places in a few of the emerging markets that we're focusing on uh and also in the sectors that we're looking at which if you check out our website there there five sectors that we're focusing on uh and it really enables you as a lawyer irrespective of which department you're working in to start focusing on an area so I'm a dispute resolution lawyer but I focus on energy and infrastructure which is one of the sectors uh and that enables me to have contact with colleagues all around the world who are also interested in energy and infrastructure even though they're not dispute resolution lawyers so Simmons has a really tight Network all around the world uh and we're building that in in various places uh cautiously but really strongly and actually it's quite an exciting time for Simmons I hope that answers your question Jamara uh next one from Aman I'm hoping to transition into a legal career from a finance career but have no legal experience what advice would you have for me well uh don't be afraid to do it I mean I think it's about 50% of all training contract uh candidates now are from a non-law background um so it's certainly not going to preclude you from doing that and actually um we can come on to talk about the law society's recent proposal about the s's proposal about a uh a new qualifying exam um that's a a whole can of worms which we can go into but one of the points of that is probably to focus more on your ability as a potential solicitor rather than say your grades in your law degree because what we're starting to find now is that your irrespec of your academic background you have to be able to have the skills to succeed as a solicitor and if you have a first class degree from a brilliant University that may not necessarily mean you're going to be a good solicitor equally uh you may not have gone to one of the top 10 universities but it turns out that you're a brilliant solicitor uh so the background and and what you've specialized in previously does doesn't really matter because being a sister is all about the day-to-day skills so I wouldn't worry at all about the fact that you have a non-law background uh and in fact you've got a background which is probably something that you need to sell a bit more uh and say look I've got these skills in this area um and really hone in on where those transferable skills are what does that mean in terms of what you can bring to the table in a typical Law Firm environment so I'd have sit down and say you know what are your strengths in terms of the the financial world and what you can bring uh to the legal world just before we knew move on to the next question I just want to slip in one of my questions in our commercial awareness update which you can find on the bright Network blog we were talking about the new super exam that's being put forward for fac elicitors what do you think about that is it good is it bad what does it mean uh am I allowed to say the jury still out yeah you can tell the offense it's it's diff it's too early to tell but it's interesting why it's all come about and actually it could all happen very quickly uh I mean law firms will tell you that one of the reasons is because It's Tricky recruiting so many years in advance so you know we we take people on in their second year of University and sometimes it's not three or four five years later until they start working the firm uh and so actually that time lag makes it very difficult to know what that person has become and sometimes you know you may have missed out on a good candidate that didn't quite fit the bill in their second year of University but actually has developed into someone who could be a fantastic solister so that's one of the issues I think it's trying to address the other is as I said actually now I think solicitors are starting to realize it's all about the day-to-day skills of being a good solicitor in terms of your practical abilities and it's gone of the days when just because you've got a first class degree from Rockbridge means you're going to be a good solicitor that's just not the case anymore so I think there's definitely going to be an emphasis on um practical skills and actually that's why law firms recruit from their vac scheme more and more often now is because they get a chance to see how you work on a day-to-day basis for two or three weeks and that's very much more important than some numbers on a page in a lot of cases don't get me wrong your academic backgrounds are still very important to tell us how bright you are but I think the shift is going to be more and more on how well you can cope with what we do on a daily basis Jonathan you have anything you want to add to that um I mean I haven't actually taken the LPC yet so I don't know what the LPC is like whether this exam is going to be better in sort of teaching those schools or not um I do think it depend because one of the arguments raised in favor of it at the moment is that uh the LPC tends to cost a lot for people who haven't already got a training contract in that way it might be able to help um increase social Mobility the people will be able to take that exam it won't cost them as much or be able to prove they're a good solicitor at the same time it might be that they still integrated providers to learn those skills before taking the exam which might end up charging the same so you don't actually know what's what's going to happen there um I I do think um as has been said about sort of day-to-day skills and um things like interpersonal skills and time management and that that kind of thing are probably more important than the academic side of things um so in principle I don't have any issue with the new exam but again I haven't done the OPC so I'm not sure what I'd compare it to fisha what you saying I wouldn't know much I'm still studying so something to find out about the fut fa and our next question from mfo if an application asks about any further information you'd like to add do you have to give an extensive answer good question um I think my instinct would be don't feel the need to fill out that box unless you think there's something that you need to include so I think as Jonathan said earlier there any extenuating circumstances which explain some of your grades for example then that might be the place to put it in um but I wouldn't feel the need to fill that out unless there's something that you think they need to see I mean just think about it practically graduate recruitment people read hundreds of applications they don't need to read more unnecessary waffle at the end of your application and then the final question is from Jeremy so what is the one thing on your application that will make you help you stand out if there's anything that you can pick out that will really help you get noticed by the recruiters I think in terms of the application form specifically um I mean I still think actually it comes back to what I said about knowing the firm um I'm just so impressed when we get candidates who know our firm sometimes better than we do which is absolutely amazing and I wonder where they get the information from but they obviously do and it just really goes to show that you care about the application you're making and you've you've gone into you spent the time to learn about the firm and what it's about and what the culture is about and that just adds credibility to your application in so many ways you know one it shows that you you actually care and you you spent a bit of time looking into it um and two it shows that you've carefully thought about probably the information that that you've seen and you've digested it and thought well actually I do want to apply to this firm knowing all I know about it and three it's probably going to make you better once you join the firm in that you've known a bit more about the culture you're not just sort of jumping in at the deep end uh and I think bringing that out in your application form and in the rest of the application process is is something that is probably quite crucial really I mean as I say I'm interviewing quite a bit now and it's very very clear when candidates haven't learned the firm at all I mean there you know some howlers there really are when people you know say things that are applicable to the wrong firm and you know it can really let you down fisha what's your final bit of advice for everyone watching today I think my final bit of uh advice with applications is uh as mesh said um do your homework but I think it's really important to proof read sometimes we we are under so much pressure that your application might just be chucked to the bin just because you know for a simple grammatical error so check your spellings make sure there the spelling is consistent if it's English or British spelling just make sure it's just consistent um make it personal in terms of motivational questions um you know really show and like give a situation and talk about your experiences and um mention the law firm you know why you particularly would be a good fit for the law firm and jonan you've got the final word today yeah what would you say again make sure your spelling and grammar is great make sure that you put the name of the right Law Firm on the application form um I've heard loads of recruiters who said that someone's put I'd like to put Cliff a chance and it's link lers or or something like that and it's something people do without realizing so don't be that person because that's the first thing they read that sort of it will color how they read the rest of the application for even if it's brilliant and also I'd say coming from University uh you're probably used to talk about your academic skills but really emphasize the transferable skills you have as well so interpersonal skills attention to detail time management working in groups with people um and any sort of practical experience you've had because it's although you need good grades obviously it's those skills that assessors are going to be looking at um more keenly to really see how You' be you'd work as a solicitor day-to-day brilliant well unfortunately that's all we've got time for today for all those questions that we didn't get round answering we'll be putting together um a Blog article on the website so do check that out and equally keep sending in your questions and we'll include those on the blog as well so send it to hello bright network.co um we'd also love to hear your feedbacks what did you think of the webinar what did you think of what we were all saying um you know how could we improve the format any sort of feedback that you've got we'd love to receive it so that we can keep improving and deliver the best content to you that's the most relevant and tailored um so that leaves me just to say thank you very much to our panel to fisha mesh and Jonathan and thank you to you for watching and I hope you'll join us again for another webinar soon bye e