Part II: Vacation Placements

Some law students have a clear picture of how they see their legal career unfolding, others while passionate about the law aren’t sure what it is that they want to do and can fall o the trap of doing nothing.

Doing nothing only delays the decisions that you will need to make if you are truly committed to pursuing a career in law.

The longer you delay the harder it becomes ... whatever you do, do something.

Vacation placements are an invaluable way of experiencing first hand different legal environments. With each experience you will get new information that will help you build a picture of the type of legal environment that you would like to train in.


Step 1: Organisations
Making random applications will in some cases yield success but I recommend a more targeted approach, using your basic skills/interests as a starting point.
(Go back to the questions posed in Part I if you get stuck)

Action:
Identify at least three generic types of organisation that interest you or match your basic requirements.

Ideas (non-exhuastive):
City and International law firms
Barristers Chambers - London and the regions
High street law firms;
National and large regional law firms;
In-house organisations;
Court Services and Local Authority;
Government Legal Services

Step 2: Specialisations
While the historic view of legal practice was to have one solicitor who would take care of all of your legal affairs, for many years now the emphasis has been more on specialisation and indeed sub-specialisation, especially in the larger firms.

As such it is worth considering what areas of law interest you to ensure that any firm that you approach can offer you experience in those areas, given your vacation placement could be a precursor to applying for a training contract.

Action:
Identify at least eight areas of law that interest you and why

Ideas (non-exhaustive):
Corporate –M&A; Corporate Finance; Private equity; Venture Capital; Tax
Banking/Finance – Acquisition/Leveraged Finance; Financial Services; Asset Finance; Energy/Project Finance; Structured Finance
Employment – Employment; Pensions; Employee Benefits/Share Schemes
Real Estate – Commercial Property; Residential Property; Environmental; Planning; Construction; PFI/PPP
Commercial: IT; IP; E-Commerce; Media; Commercial
Litigation: Commercial Litigation; Civil Litigation; Criminal Litigation
Private Client: Trusts; Wills & Probate; Personal tax; Family/Matrimonial
Healthcare: Personal injury; Clinical negligence
Insurance: Reinsurance/Insurance

This is not an exhaustive list and many of the above examples have sub-specialisations.
It is also important to consider whether you prefer working for businesses or individuals – different firms will have a different focus.


Step 3: Approaches

Action:
From your findings from steps one and two identify:
i) at least 20 legal organisations that match your requirements and
ii) 5 legal organisations that do not match your interests as closely.

Aim to get experience at a range of law firm/legal organisation, not just those that you think sound good - the practical reality may not fit your mental picture and also your interests may change in time.

By taking a broad approach at this stage you give yourself the opportunity to make an informed choice at a later stage.

NB Take a focused approach to making applications, you have a finite period of time to do vacation work and so applying to 30 firms for placements for the same four week period may leave you having to turn firms down – which may ultimately count against you in future application processes.

Start early and make a limited number of approaches at any one time and for each rejection send out a new application and if you haven’t had any news after the allotted period, follow up with the firm in question.


Word of caution:
Limit your follow up to for example one e-mail and phone call, any more and this could give the wrong impression.

The partners or HR team are busy and generally have systems in place for responding to applications.

If you continue to hear nothing, you can safely assume your application has been unsuccessful and continue to make additional approaches.

Good Luck!
Part III will move on to actually applying for training contracts and interview pointers.

Legal Careers Direct Ltd provides career coaching services to lawyers at all stages of their careers. Stay in touch by signing up to this blog; follow us on Twitter (LegalCareersUK) and you can register on our website to receive our quarterly newsletter (http://www.legalcareersdirect.com/).