We’ve reached the time of year again when many law students are in the midst of training contract applications. As daunting as this process may be, here are a few tricks that may help you stand out from the crowd. 

1) Networking 

As a law student, I thought that networking was mostly conducted on LinkedIn. For example, I thought that the more connections I had, the more well known I’d become. Although networking on LinkedIn will help you, meeting people from law firms in person is extremely beneficial. 

Find out how you can make the most of LinkedIn as a law student via this LCN Says.

Getting to know current employees of law firms and asking them how they secured their training contract could support your application massively. You’ll be able to take their experiences and apply them to your own applications. You might also find that you get to know someone who might interview you in the future, and they might remember when they met you previously. 

Are there any law firm open days and insight schemes coming up at firms you want to apply to? Check out our Feature and the Events page for more details.

2) Gaining experience and drawing from this

Gaining experience from different avenues such as pro bono work, vacation schemes and any non-legal work experience will show your eagerness and excitement to join the legal profession. If you have a legal or administrative job, this will also help to boost your application. Draw from these experiences and showcase the skills you’ve learnt and think about what you can bring to your role as a trainee solicitor.

Find out what sort of work experience could benefit your applications via LCN’s work experience page.

3) Stand out

Your aim for any job interview is to be memorable for all the right reasons. Think about the person you’d like to hire and identify what traits they have. Are they punctual? Are they eager to learn? Do they have a plan of progression? Once you have this list, think about how you can portray these traits during your interviews. For example, if you want to demonstrate your eagerness to learn, do you have any experiences that can showcase this? For example,  shadowing a lawyer within your work placement or doing pro bono work while studying. Show that you want to progress and become an asset to the firm. 

Looking for more advice? Read LCN’s 26-step guide to training contract applications and interviews.

4) Revise 

When thinking about gaining a training contract, revision is something you’d think might be left at university. Unfortunately, this isn’t quite the case. In your training contract applications and at interview, you must show that you’ve researched the firm and understood:

• its overriding message is;
• its plans are for progression;
• who its partners are; and
• the areas of law the firm covers.

Being able to demonstrate this knowledge, will help you to stand out from the crowd and ensure that the firm knows you’re genuinely interested in joining them.

Finding this information out will be mutually beneficial as it’ll enable you to ensure that you’re picking a firm that suits you and your interests. 

Good luck

These are just a few things that you can do to prepare for your training contract interviews and make your training contract application a success.  I hope this helps you put the best applications forward.