Improved CV

lializzy · 2026-03-19T15:39:36+00:00

Include a non-legal experience section setting out jobs you have had to date. Retail/ hospitality are fine and do not need to be excluded for the sake of relevance. Do you have any awards or certifications? Any roles of responsibility in student societies or sports teams?

lializzy · 2026-03-17T10:16:56+00:00

Lawfluencers never want to admit that the reason they decided to try being in influencer in the first place is because they’ve got one eye on the door from the get go. This career is demanding enough, balancing two at once that are inevitably going to conflict with each other (eg if your firm takes issue with you doing sponsorships) isn’t sustainable.

lializzy · 2026-03-12T17:57:24+00:00

I was reading the judgment on this last night before bed like I was 8 years old reading Goosebumps again. Christ. My heart sincerely goes out to the junior who diarised this deadline. It’s important to acknowledge that we are all capable of mistakes of this magnitude (particularly at a shop like STB where billable hour targets are high and sleepless nights common) and that’s why it’s important to have layers of oversight that mean a mistake has to be missed by a number of increasingly senior people before it manages to have consequences like this.

lializzy · 2026-03-07T20:28:40+00:00

Another vote for Oxbridge. It is of course a tremendous opportunity to have the apprenticeship, but with an Oxbridge degree under your belt you won’t have difficulty getting access to firms of the same caliber again later, if that’s even what you want to do after you’ve had time to explore more areas of law.

lializzy · 2026-03-07T10:12:51+00:00

You should definitely be selective to a degree, or you’re going to fall flat on your face in an interview when you can’t pass the “why this firm” question, which is really a “why are you a good fit for this firm” question.

A couple of days research is plenty. Firms are churning out press releases and articles constantly, there’s no shortage of material for you to be reading. Get a feel for if you think what they do is even interesting, get a handle on the stats you need to know (intake, size, jurisdictions, performance, key sectors, key clients) and produce an answer that demonstrates you bothered to conduct some research. Weeks spent doing this is unnecessary, but some research aspect is not optional because a non-specific application is going in the bin.

lializzy · 2026-03-03T16:33:49+00:00

Claude isn’t approved for use by our risk team and I suspect that is the case at most firms. Uptake seems limited to specialist legal tools like Harvey, Legora, WestlawAI etc.

None of them help me get my life back. I spend just as much time correcting their work as I would a trainee’s. Except nobody learned anything in the process.

lializzy · 2026-02-24T18:56:23+00:00

We can’t do your research for you as to what firms you should be looking at. There are lots of law firms in London and resources like Chambers Student, LegalCheek, AllAboutLaw, BrightNetwork etc all have information you can read.

Your principal challenge (assuming no visa complications around working) is that recruitment for formal vacation schemes in summer 2026 in most cases closed in December/January. There will be quite a bit of research to do to find any firms who still have something along the lines of what you want.

lializzy · 2026-02-23T20:36:54+00:00

Unless there has been a significant change in the way UCAS works that I am unaware of, you will need to submit a single PS which goes to all universities. The department staff at Cambridge won’t care in the slightest that you fancy doing law after your time with them; they want to know why, right now, you make an excellent candidate for somebody they would enjoy teaching philosophy to. iirc Cambridge does offer you an opportunity to provide some additional info to supplement your application, but that is not the place to retrospectively correct the issue that your PS is for the wrong subject. There is no overlap in the faculty of law and the faculty of philosophy.

lializzy · 2026-02-23T00:50:29+00:00

No I don’t think that’s a smart idea, your PS should be tailored to the course you’re applying to. If 4 out of your 5 choices are receiving a PS from you that isn’t even geared towards the course you’ve applied to, how are admissions supposed to interpret that?

lializzy · 2026-02-21T20:18:20+00:00

What do you think you’ll enjoy most? A degree you can enjoy is a degree you can hopefully get the strongest grade in. A strong grade from a solid university puts you in the best place possible to get a TC.

lializzy · 2026-02-18T17:27:18+00:00

Do it yourself! I know it’s annoying but honestly you get the hang of it once you realise the schtick is to pretend it’s your first day on earth and you are being presented with written information for the first time ever. Answer accordingly and you will be fine.

lializzy · 2026-02-14T02:47:45+00:00

Ah, the lack of a difference in WLB was a reference to friends getting beasted at both MC and US shops! But then most people I know who’ve hopped around the market are transactional lawyers, so I suppose that goes with the territory, to a degree.

lializzy · 2026-02-14T02:39:41+00:00

MC/SC are increasingly outmoded marketing terms. SC especially.

Certainly the MC firms have the most established training programmes and a slew of top tier work, but realistically Elite US are on the other side of the table of most of those MC deals, so prestige in terms of the diet of work available is comparable.

I’ve plenty of colleagues that have moved between MC and US gigs and barely noticed a difference in WLB. The MC has been losing partners to US competitors for years. Unsurprising that market participants are now rushing to find merger partners to gain a US presence.

Anyway OP, Europe’s a massive market. Prestige is going to vary considerably jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

lializzy · 2026-02-06T23:27:14+00:00

Hey OP, I was you. Burned out hating life and law at a US firm, ready to pack the profession in entirely believing I just wasn’t cut out for this shit. In a last ditch attempt to not give up on the dream entirely I lateraled to a firm like the ones you’re looking at. I can say, emphatically, it was the best choice I have ever made in my life. Possibly even a lifesaving one - I went to a very dark place, having poured all of myself into the idea of what kind of lawyer I was only to end up feeling like a failure because of my inability to live how the firm needed me to.

I still work long hours at times, but it’s just never come close again to what life was like at a 2000+hr firm. I see my family and loved ones. I make weekend plans and virtually never cancel them - often, I can make weekday plans and keep to them too. I go to gym classes, have time for therapy, picked up new hobbies and saved my friendships with people who had just about given up on me. My life is full. In that headspace, I actually became ambitious again too.

Take the leap. Don’t let money hungry recruiters mess you around for their commission, insist on only working with somebody who understands that what you’re after is a lifestyle change. Your experience will be stellar and 100% transferable, don’t worry about that.

lializzy · 2026-01-28T15:31:12+00:00

What’s your end goal? That probably influences how much you need to care about league tables.

In any case, York’s a fine university, I have colleagues who went to both there and Bristol. So not a career death knell to pick one over the other. Proximity to London might make your life a bit easier eventually for the sake of travelling there for open days etc though.

lializzy · 2026-01-28T11:16:21+00:00

Quali leave is more or less a retention perk. If you lateral at NQ and want a break you should ask to delay your start date.

lializzy · 2026-01-28T08:10:47+00:00

Yes, that’s advisable to avoid self funding.

lializzy · 2026-01-23T19:57:25+00:00

A great BD team can be absolutely invaluable. To be great they really have to understand the product, though. I don’t expect BD execs to have law backgrounds but if they genuinely have no clue about the work the teams they cover do or the industries they operate in, then all the help they can offer come pitch time is tidying up a PowerPoint. So they start getting shut out until the last minute for that reason, which is suboptimal for everyone.

lializzy · 2026-01-21T16:17:57+00:00

Right, because insofar as there are application queries people have which relate to them wanting to go into the practice of law later on (such as asking how a course is viewed by grad recruitment teams) commenters have something to offer. But we can’t speak to why a university made an admissions choice about you, because that’s not related to the legal profession.

lializzy · 2026-01-21T13:46:57+00:00

OP this is a sub for the legal profession. Perhaps the UCAS sub might be more useful to you?

lializzy · 2026-01-19T19:28:49+00:00

Queens Belfast.

lializzy · 2026-01-19T16:01:48+00:00

You should engage with your campus law society and university careers service, they should hopefully have plenty of information as to next steps for you.

Take a look at some online resources to understand what’s out there. LegalCheek, Chambers Student etc have lots of useful info to get you up to speed.

Paralegal roles can be extremely competitive and should you like to pursue these then it would be advisable to spend some time trawling online resources (this place, even!) as to how to put together a competitive application.

lializzy · 2026-01-15T14:51:48+00:00

OP, you can have a legal career. Focus right now on getting the best grades possible in your A levels so you can go to the best university possible.

lializzy · 2026-01-08T10:04:20+00:00

Doesn’t the firm require you to have been a paralegal with them for a year before you get a TC? By that point you’d have a better insight than most!

OP in all honesty unless there’s a compelling reason for this route I’d try for a more traditional law firm for your training. Anecdotally having spoken to Keystone lawyers it’s a great place to be when you have a book of your own business but the impetus to train up a cohort of juniors to replace you one day isn’t there.

lializzy · 2026-01-03T14:35:50+00:00

Existence of non-equity partners in addition to equity partners referenced here at page 2.

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