Seizing the Summer: Getting Ready for Commercial Law Firm Applications

Article written by Nemr Chaer, Future Trainee Solicitor at Clifford Chance and finalist Law student at the University of Warwick.

Summer provides students with a much-needed break after facing various academic obstacles throughout the year. Apart from offering a chance to rest, summer also enables students to rejuvenate and prepare themselves for the upcoming academic year. While taking a break is important, it is equally crucial to make productive use of your free time by getting ready for law firm applications, typically available towards the end of the summer season.

In view of the above, this article explores a few ways that you can utilise your summer break to best prepare you for law firm applications.

Build your Knowledge of Law Firms

Summer gives you enough time to research the legal profession.

Topics that you can research:

• The different types of law firms.
• The cultures of each law firm.
• How law firms are categorised.
• The unique selling point of each law firm.

How to research?

• Law firm websites.
• Summer law firm open days.
• Messaging fee-earners at law firms via LinkedIn.
• Reliable websites such as Chambers Student, The Student Lawyer, Legal Cheek, Corporate Law Academy etc .

Consolidating Research:

• Make sure that you document your research so that you can use it later in the year when you begin applying to law firms!

Build your Commercial Awareness

Use your summer to build your commercial awareness. Below are various ways you can do this:

• Watch ‘Allen & Overy – The anatomy of deal’: This will deconstruct what a commercial M&A transaction looks like.
• Read Chris Stoakes ‘All You Need to Know About Commercial Awareness’: This simplifies commercial concepts into digestible form.
• Listen to the Financial Times Daily News Briefing on Spotify: Routine daily commercial updates that will build your commercial awareness over time
• Read daily business articles.
• Forage: A platform that allows you complete trainee activities.

Build your Skills

Demonstrating a wide range of transferable skills is crucial when applying to law firms. To enhance your skill set, I highly recommend seeking out part-time employment or any relevant work experience during the summer. It is important to note that the experience you gain can be in a legal or non-legal field. In my experience, I have never attended a law firm event where the graduate recruitment team expressed a preference for one type of experience over another. The truth is that the legal profession demands a diverse set of skills that can be acquired from various non-legal experiences, alongside legal ones.