29th November – 3rd December

This session provided me with an overview of the most important legal news over the month of November. The news stories were presented by category. We started with macroeconomic news, then moved onto the aviation then automotive industries. We then moved onto news about consumer confidence with an in depth look at the UK and US markets. We then moved on to look at financial news, IPO and M&A news, supply chain considerations and the tech industry in less detail than the previous categories.

There was an explanation of why each story was important and possible commercial implications of each story. I really enjoyed this session, especially as I got an insight into important stories from all the key sectors.

An example of a particularly news story was that Rolls Royce is leading a consortium to make SMRs (small modular reactors) as nuclear power is becoming increasingly popular. We also spoke about how EDF was getting ready to build more nuclear reactors. Once we spoke about thus news, we went on to speak about the 3 legal considerations that regulate this and why that is important for firms.

In this event, 3 future trainees from Linklaters came to speak to us.

We covered various topics such as:

• why they chose to apply to Linklaters
• How they found the application and what they believe helped them succeed
• how to best prepare for assessment centres and the vacation scheme
• any tips they would recommend for the pre-vac scheme interview and the partner interview at the end of the vac scheme
• how they decided their seats and how these are structured
• how they avoided being generic and ensured they stood out at all stages of the process

I really enjoyed this event because I was able to hear from people who had very recently gone through the process I am currently going through.

I feel like I gained a lot of knowledge that I would not have been able to gain if I had not gone to the event.

In this event, we went over what a career in governance looks like.

In the keynote, she spoke about the role of a company secretary, what governance actually is, the importance of the role, the skills that are needed to succeed in the industry and what we need to understand for the career.

We then had a panel session with 3 governance professionals. They all entered the profession in different ways; one did the ICSA qualification instead of university, another did the ICSA qualification after university, and the third went through the masters route into the profession).

They all echoed that no day was the same. Working in house compared to working in professional services was very different and provided different challenges but were equally rewarding. Working in professional services provides structured training and access to a broad network of people and companies while in house work provides lots of on the job training. You are much closer to the business so you get a better understanding of how to the business actually works.

We then spoke to a recruiter who walked us through the best ways to prepare our CVs, how to tackle interviews and stand out to recruiters.

He also explained that now is great time to join the industry as it is an expanding part of the business and there are more and more roles becoming available for graduates.

We then finished with a Q&A session where we spoke about how they found work and study, how they they went about finding work experience, how chargeable hours work for professional services careers, and what career progression looks like in the industry.

I thoroughly enjoyed this event as I found the information extremely useful. I found out more about an alternative career to becoming a solicitor that I had not known that much about.

In this workshop, we went over a case study with two trainees from Linklaters.

We spoke about what commercial awareness is, why it is important, and how we can demonstrate this in interviews.

We spoke about the various things we would need to know to properly advise clients

• their size and shape
• the markets they operate in
• their competitors
• risks facing the client and their future direction
• how the client can deal with their issues

We spoke about the reasons we care about this generally then the way that Linklaters demonstrate the care they have for their clients.

We spoke about the ways to develop our commercial understanding

• learning how deals work
• attending workshops with firms
• getting up to speed with business and market trends
• Form your own opinions about the stories

We then went through a “typical” deal that would take place at Linklaters.

We spoke about the actors in the deal that are not lawyers and what their roles are. For example, financial advisors are used to ensure that deals make financial sense, the banks are involved in funding the deals through many avenues such as syndicated loans.

We then spoke about the due diligence tasks that different departments related to the deal would undertake and the other considerations of the deal (such as geography, the competitive situation and the time table of the deal).

We also learned three key terms – the term sheet, share sale, and asset sale.

I thoroughly enjoyed this session as we logically went through all of the factors of a deal and ensured we understood the areas where properly understanding the client would be useful.

I will upload a separate document about this Summit entirely but to briefly summarise what I did and what I took away from the event.

• I attended several talks from various people in the industry and at various stages of their careers
• I networked with individuals from different firms
• I made connections with attendees at the same stage in their career as me

Overall, I had a great time and gained so much from every session. I gained confidence in my applications and my achievements.