About our Vacation Placements

Applications for Vacation Placements in 2013 are now closed.

We will be offering 24 one week placements during Easter and the Summer of 2013 as part of our recruitment process for trainees in 2015. If you are committed to applying for a trainee post at Bates Wells & Braithwaite we strongly advise you to consider applying for our vacation placement programme. We also run a separate trainee recruitment process working side by side with the vacation placement programme. However your chances of success are likely to be greater through the placement route. This is because we have the opportunity to see you for a week and you to see us and having invested that time, successful students on our vacation placement programme will be fast-tracked to the final interview stage.

Vacation Placements and the Main Recruitment Process

If you apply for a vacation placement you are not able to apply for the other recruitment track. However the final interviews will consist of a majority of candidates from the vacation placement.

Our Easter Placement Scheme will run for two weeks from week commencing 8 April 2013. Our Summer Placement Scheme will run for 4 weeks from week commencing 3 June 2013 Both Placement schemes will be for 3-4 students per week.

The process for trainee recruitment is set out in the Application Process page under the "Training Contracts" section of this website. We follow an identical route for selecting vacation placements. This involves a screening test, a verbal reasoning test and for those who do sufficiently well in the verbal reasoning a review of your application letter and CV. The deadline for completing the verbal reasoning test is 4 March 2013. There is not an assessment day for vacation placements. A team of partners review the applications from the strongest candidates and offer places on the basis of those written applications.

Your Vacation Placement Week – What happens?

We will do whatever we can to accommodate your date requirements within the 6 week period. We will pay a £300 allowance for the week placement.

Your week will normally consist of being allocated to a partner and/or an assistant within your allocated department. You will be welcomed on your first morning by the Training Principle (or a deputy) and the vacation placement organiser. You will then attend a short induction before meeting your departmental representatives. We ask the departments to ensure that the whole department is involved in offering you interesting opportunities to see the life of the department in that week. During the week you will be taken out to lunches with the Training Principle (or a deputy) and the trainees. There will also be an opportunity for informal drinks out with our current trainees.

The Assessment Process

During your week with us, we will set you a half day exercise which will culminate in you undertaking a presentation. We ensure that the exercise is one which does not rely upon any prior legal knowledge.

Finally, you will have a short interview with a partner and more junior lawyer. You will be notified if you are to proceed to a final interview in July with the Senior Partner. We anticipate that a minimum of 1 and maximum of 2 students from each week are likely to be invited for the final interview. Successful applicants will be invited to a final interview on 5 July 2013. If you are not invited to a final interview, then unfortunately this is the end of the recruitment process for you.