Will I get a TN to Kirkland & Ellis

I see that makes sense, I wonder what’s the true reason for their merger

Money. Always money. Either excess of money (great offer, too good to decline), or lack of money (target firm is on the rocks and needs a bailout).

Commercial law firms do few things that are not about money.

I mean that’s understandable

That’s what I suspected, I was told by the lawyers there that it was because A&O was looking to expand with a US firm but I also thought that it must be something to do with money

As a law student, I really liked how you worded the last paragraph summarising what the law represents for you.

Cheers! I became interested in the Constitution, and in the ways that law serves a society, whilst studying Modern History at Oxford (looooong ago). Reading "Albion's Fatal Tree" in my final year blew my mind.
I think it regrettable that the study of legal history appears not to be much of a feature in some law degrees. I used to give my pupils in chambers a copy of Maitland's "The Forms Of Action At Common Law", and a copy of "The Plain English Guide to Legal Writing". I think that lawyers should master grammar, and seek to nurture a good written style. I deplore boilerplate legalese. I do not deplore Latin.
For many years, I thought of myself as someone who gave advice and performed advocacy in order to make a living, but not really much of a lawyer. The Oxford history degree was a useful training for the Bar. At a trial, the contending counsel may be like two rival historians, each seeking to persuade the Judge or jury that the interpretation of past events which each puts forward on behalf of his or her client is the correct version. Eventually, I came to realise that I had become a lawyer. Yikes!
Fake it 'til you make it? I found that, after faking it for a while, I ended up making it (sort of).
I say to aspirant lawyers that, in the course of a career, you can be several different types of lawyer. You don't have to pick one thing and do that thing for forty years. See how your interests develop, what opportunities political and economic changes bring, and where in the World you want to be.
Good luck with your studies, Poppy 2022. Do you plan to practise law?
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/233277/albions-fatal-tree-by-douglas-hay/
https://assets.cambridge.org/97805210/91855/toc/9780521091855_toc.pdf

Your replies have been very informative and helpful. What are some sets (both top sets and less competitive ones) in London would you suggest paying attention to regarding public law and anti-kleptocracy work?
i only know of blackstone and doughty street, and perhaps matrix and TGC
TIA!

for The Plain English Guide to Legal Writing, are you referring to the book by Garner?

Cheers! I became interested in the Constitution, and in the ways that law serves a society, whilst studying Modern History at Oxford (looooong ago). Reading "Albion's Fatal Tree" in my final year blew my mind.
I think it regrettable that the study of legal history appears not to be much of a feature in some law degrees. I used to give my pupils in chambers a copy of Maitland's "The Forms Of Action At Common Law", and a copy of "The Plain English Guide to Legal Writing". I think that lawyers should master grammar, and seek to nurture a good written style. I deplore boilerplate legalese. I do not deplore Latin.
For many years, I thought of myself as someone who gave advice and performed advocacy in order to make a living, but not really much of a lawyer. The Oxford history degree was a useful training for the Bar. At a trial, the contending counsel may be like two rival historians, each seeking to persuade the Judge or jury that the interpretation of past events which each puts forward on behalf of his or her client is the correct version.
Eventually, I came to realise that I had become a lawyer. Yikes! Fake it 'til you make it? I found that, after faking it for a while, I ended up making it (sort of).
I say to aspirant lawyers that, in the course of a career, you can be several different types of lawyer. You don't have to pick one thing and do that thing for forty years. See how your interests develop, what opportunities political and economic changes bring, and where in the World you want to be.
Good luck with your studies, Poppy 2022. Do you plan to practise law?
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/233277/albions-fatal-tree-by-douglas-hay/
https://assets.cambridge.org/97805210/91855/toc/9780521091855_toc.pdf

Someone above mentioned ten to fourteen hour days. Those could sometimes be considered shortish days! If you are a litigator engaged in a trial or in injunction work, you can be working flat out, and the same goes for corporate lawyers engaged in a big transaction. In my early years at the commercial bar, I sometimes worked sixteen to eighteen hours each weekday, and for several hours most weekends. I partied the rest of the time. I didn't sleep much. I sometimes slept in my chambers.
These days I take things more slowly, but I am old and self-employed, and I don't have billing targets. I was for a while a partner in a medium sized international law firm, and that was a busy job.
Being a lawyer isn't all work. There are quiet spells, and sometimes working flat out can be fun, if you are engaged in an interesting project. The law is a sociable profession, and you get to work with clever, motivated, and interesting people who often have interests extending beyond the law. You have to look after your physical and mental health, and take regular breaks when you really do try to get away from work. Lawyers used to be (and some still are) big on intoxicants, both legal and otherwise; and mental distress, relationship breakdown, and burnout can be problems for busy practitioners. I am not saying don't try for a legal career, but do it with your eyes open as to the demands it makes.

So, there is not much difference in becoming a Chartered Accountant ACA (ICAEW) and Chartered Tax Adviser CTA (CIOT) and a Barrister or even a Solicitor? The long hours are to be expected I understand during the first few years. But a lot of the Tax specialists are Managers as soon as they've qualified. Also, the clients in the Big 4 are FTSE and Fortune 500. But I think a Law degree is a useful degree to have as a CEO too surely?

There are significant differences between the qualification paths of and the work done by accountants, solicitors, and barristers.
You seem to chop and change a bit. Last year you were determined to go to Cambridge and were rubbishing the Oxford law course. This year you are fixated on St John's, Oxford.
It's not clear if you wish to be a tax lawyer, an accountant, or a CEO of some unspecified type of business. Perhaps you shall be all of those. Perhaps you shall be none of them.
Only hard work, realism, and maybe some luck will get you to such positions. Prayer won't do it, and nor will talking the talk about passing exams which you are years away from taking. I suggest that you focus on obtaining three good A level grades (you need no more than three), and on all of the other things which Oxford considers when assessing a candidate.
Confidence is a good thing, but a know it all attitude is the last thing which Oxford tutors are looking for. I reiterate that the question which the tutors ask themselves when they interview someone for a place at their college is as follows: "Is this candidate teachable?"
Everyone likes Tigger, at least for a few minutes, but being Tigger all of the time may not be the way ahead.