Freshfields - official representative thread

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Hey Jess,

I am just finishing up my A-Levels, but have not yet applied to university. The reason for this is because I was unsure on what course I really wanted to take. I am hopeful to become a solicitor after university, taking the GDL route. I had read that your intake on non-law to law graduates is about 50:50, is this the case?

I know it may seem silly, not doing a degree in law, when in actual fact I want to become a lawyer. However I do feel the non-law degree route to law, offers more academic diversity which I hope will play as one of my major strengths in the near future.

What to do at university, I am still unsure. Are there any degrees (or degree types to narrow the list) that you do not really consider as a great basis for the GDL. For instance a degree in Architecture over a degree in Geography? Or a degree in Biology over a degree in Photography?

I look forward to your reply,
Kind Regards
Charlie

When I was at Freshfields on work experience I asked and it was indeed around 50:50. Out of the lawyers I met, one did Economics and Psychology, two did History (well, loads did History I just don't distinctly remember who :tongue:

) and it's really not a disadvantage. I suppose a subject where you use analytical skills, perhaps writing essays etc. might be more useful, so courses like modern languages, politics and geography would be more desirable than biology, chemistry, computing - you certainly notice that most non-law graduating people did artsy degrees.

Reply 121

randomverbosity

Original post by uktrainees@freshfields

Hi there,

At this stage we are only testing those who have declared a fluency in Mandarin, by allocating interviewers who are fluent in the language. However, if it is coincidence and one of your interviewers is also fluent in German, it is not impossible that they might ask you a question or two in German.

Regards

Jess

Hi Jess,

If a candidate did express fluency in Mandarin, would the entire interview be conducted in Mandarin? Is there a written exercise in Mandarin? I ask because I do not remember the application form asking what level of proficiency my foreign language is at and I may not be familiar with technical terms in Mandarin.

Thank you!

Reply 122

uktrainees@freshfields

Original post by Doughnuts!!

If an applicant had a 2:2 in their first year of their law degree, had no extenuating circumstances but then achieved a very strong 2:1 in their second year, would they be hugely disadvantaged if they had an otherwise strong application?

Hi there,

It does depend on the individual module grades across the two years.

My advice to those candidates where the majority of their grades are a 2.2 (or if across the two years the average is a 2.2) then wait until you have your third year results before applying. If the majority of the modules are a 2.1 and they think you have strong evidence of the other qualities a law firm is looking for, then they could be in a good position.

Kind Regards

Jess

Reply 123

uktrainees@freshfields

Original post by randomverbosity

Hi there,

The application form asks for only the languages you are fluent in.

If you have stated Mandarin in this section, we will try to arrange for one of your interviewers to be a Mandarin speaker and for them to test your fluency for around 10-15 minutes of the interview. Candidates do not have to be business fluent, it is just for us to assess the level of fluency a candidate has.

Regards

Jess

Reply 124

uktrainees@freshfields

Original post by midlandsman

I'm not Jess, but the interview definitely WON'T be conducted in Mandarin.

That is incorrect. It is more than likely it will be, if a candidate has stated fluency in Mandarin.

Reply 125

uktrainees@freshfields

Hi everyone,

I have been alerted that a few of you have not heard back from your TC applications and you applied a couple of weeks ago.

If you submitted your online verbal reasoning test more than 2 weeks ago and you have still not heard back, please feel free to contact me on here or the Trainee Recruitment team on [email protected] and we can look into the matter for you.

There can be reasons for the delay, including:

* we have asked you to provide further information via email and we have not heard back from you
* we are seeking references and have not heard back from them (particularly relevant to candidates with mitigating circumstances to their academics)
* technical issues with your online verbal reasoning test which means we have not received your test score

We are trying to read forms and make decisions as quickly as possible but obviously want to ensure we do so properly, so please be patient with us at the same time.

Unfortunately few people took our advice and applied very close to the deadline so we do have a bit of a back log of forms to review (some Sunday reading for me!). Where the cut of for completing online test in the majority of instances will be Tuesday of next week, we hope to have made decisions on nearly all forms by 14 August.

I hope this information is of help.

Hope you are all enjoying watching the Olympics and if there is anything I can help with, just let me know.

Regards

Jess

Reply 126

randomverbosity

Hi Jess,

Another query here, hope you don't mind.

Will there be more interview slots available because I logged into the application to book an interview but there is only one slot left.

Also, will Freshfields reimburse any travel expenses for the interview? For example, if I am not normally resident in London, will I have to pay for my own transport fares?

Thank you!

Reply 127

uktrainees@freshfields

Original post by Junaid96

Our trainee population tends be around 40% non-law students. It really does not matter what someone studies - that what the GDL is for after all! Once you are at the firm no one really knows or cares about what you studied or where. I hope you enjoyed your work experience with the firm :smile:

Reply 128

uktrainees@freshfields

Original post by randomverbosity

Hi there,

Future interview slots will be available. Apologies if there is only 1 slot left, we did have many on there on a couple of days ago, so they must have been snapped up.

Interviews are running now through to mid September. We are pretty full at the end of the month as most people seemed to want to leave it as late as possible but before the 1 September!

I am still in the office ( :frown:

), so if you want to drop me an email to [email protected] with the dates you would prefer, I can look into
our availability and can manually schedule you in.

Once you have been scheduled in you will get full details of how to sort out travel. In short, you can book travel through our travel desk (contact details are provided) or you can submit expenses electronically before your assessment centre (if you have receipts), on the day itself, or even after the assessment centre.

Kind Regards

Jess

Reply 129

uktrainees@freshfields

Original post by midlandsman

I stand corrected. That's interesting, I've never heard of a firm interviewing in a foreign language before.

It is only in part of the interview. We are fortunate in most cases to be able to schedule one of our Mandarin speaking associates or partners into one of the two interviews. As the other interviewer is a non-Mandarin speaker, the majority of the interview is conducted in English.

Reply 130

uktrainees@freshfields

Original post by midlandsman

Ah I see. Perhaps I should have been clearer in my first post. I didn't mean that Freshfields wouldn't test the candidate's language ability at all. I just meant that the interview would be primarily in English. :smile:

I have a question of my own if you don't mind - why does Freshfields have a separate application deadline for non law graduates?

Most law firms have seperate deadlines for law and non-law but have a much smaller application window.

We didn't in the past as we didn't get the volume of non-law applicants we now see. We now have the deadline in place to make sure we have a balance of law to non-law trainees.

The past three years we have had to implement the deadline part way through our recruitment cycle based on the number of non-law offers we were making and the strong acceptance rate. This has always been at some point in May, so next year we have decided to have an official deadline from the start of the recruitment season. This will be 1 May 2013 (for our 2015 intakes).

In short, if we didn't close applications to non-law students, the penultimate year law students and those on our vacation schemes would find it a far more competitive process, where the majority of places were taken up by the non-lawyers, so we would miss out on great talent.

Reply 131

bramz19

What's the Freshfields' stance on CV length, in terms of one page or two pages? Thanks!

Reply 132

uktrainees@freshfields

Original post by bramz19

What's the Freshfields' stance on CV length, in terms of one page or two pages? Thanks!

Two is fine for us and most other law firms. It only tends to be banks and on occasion US firms that prefer a 1 page CV.

Reply 133

uktrainees@freshfields

Original post by bramz19

Excellent, thanks again!

No worries - more than happy to help!

Reply 134

kikichi

Hello,

I was just wondering if it would be a good idea to send an email to each of the partners that interviewed me, just to thank them again for their time? What would be the policy that law firms take on this in general, if I may ask?

Thank you so much!

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 135

uktrainees@freshfields

Original post by kikichi

This is only my personal opinion, but I do not think it is of much use of your time to do so. Firms won't have a policy on it because, in all honesty, it won't have any impact on any decision made.

I can see why it is a polite and nice thing to do but that is about as far as it goes. Having worked at 4 different law firms during my career, I have known thank you emails to be badly worded/written thank you emails to not leave a great last impression though....

Reply 136

kikichi

Original post by uktrainees@freshfields

Thank you so much for your swift reply!

Perhaps I should have asked this question before sending a thank you email to the recruitment team.... :frown:

I hope it won't have any detrimental effect to my application... :s-smilie:

Reply 137

uktrainees@freshfields

Original post by kikichi

Thank you so much for your swift reply!

Perhaps I should have asked this question before sending a thank you email to the recruitment team.... :frown:

I hope it won't have any detrimental effect to my application... :s-smilie:

It won't have a detremental effect on your application. You should (hopefully) just get a polite reply back letting you know when you will hear the outcome.