2025
In no more than 500 words, please tell us about your extra-curricular activities, positions of responsibility and an achievement of importance which you are most proud of. How will these experiences help you excel as a Clifford Chance lawyer? Please note your interviewers will have access to this answer only at the interview should you be invited to an assessment day. The rest of the assessment process is entirely CV blind. (500 words)
An achievement of importance that I am most proud of was organising the first social mobility event between [firm] and the 93% Club within my role as the [firm] Brand Ambassador. Coming from a socially mobile background, I understand that networking can often feel daunting and inaccessible for people from such backgrounds. In my role, I coordinated with both [firm] and the 93% Club, acting as a central point of contact to successfully organise an event that represented both institutions’ values and catered to everyone’s needs.
Through my commitment, creativity and coordination, the event exceeded the target of individuals expected to attend and received overwhelmingly positive feedback from both the firm and attendees. This honed my organisation, innovation, collaboration and, leadership skills– core competencies required for excelling as a Clifford Chance lawyer. As Daniel Mutisya explained at the Clifford Chance Black in Law event, clients often approach the Africa Practice Group with complex challenges, such as navigating expansion into emerging markets. My ability to craft innovative, practical solutions based on client needs would enable me to contribute effectively in such scenarios. Furthermore, my experience liaising with multiple stakeholders demonstrates my capacity to work seamlessly with clients and colleagues to achieve shared goals.
My experience organising the social mobility event reflects my passion for creating opportunities for underrepresented groups, a value of Clifford Chance I admire. Dr Tunde’s keynote speech at the Black in Law event highlighted the firm’s commitment to diversity and inclusion through the firm’s genuine willingness to participate in DEI-focused initiatives, such as Urban Lawyers.
Secondly, my role as a [redacted] has allowed me to develop my emotional intelligence and adaptability. In this role, [redacted]. Consequently, this requires quickly processing information, understanding nuanced needs, and asking the right questions to provide sensitive, solution-oriented support. This will assist me in navigating the Clifford Chance training contract, through my ability to problem solve and build strong long-lasting relationships with clients and colleagues. Furthermore, my adaptability aligns with Clifford Chance’s growth strategy, with the firm emphasising adaptability as it expands into diverse markets and integrates artificial intelligence into its services. Adapting to new technologies and perspectives requires the kind of flexibility I’ve consistently demonstrated in my role as a [redacted].
Finally, I have undertaken initiatives that have allowed me to directly develop my commercial awareness and knowledge of the legal industry. Particularly, my internship with [firm] and participation in the [redacted] development programme exposed me to real-world legal challenges. During these experiences, I applied commercial understanding to client queries, interpreting ambiguous legislation in the context of their operations. This reinforced my ability to deliver precise, business-driven solutions—an essential skill for Clifford Chance lawyers. My eagerness to continue developing aligns with Clifford Chance's ethos that prioritises staying ahead of change, providing an environment that would offer invaluable professional and personal development opportunities.
2024
In no more than 500 words, please tell us about your extra-curricular activities, positions of responsibility and an achievement of importance which you are most proud of. How will these experiences help you excel as a Clifford Chance lawyer? Please note your interviewers will have access to this answer only at interview should you be invited to an assessment day. The rest of the assessment process is entirely CV blind. (500 words)
My most significant career achievement was during my role as Senior Strategy Lead at [xxx]. I led and coordinated 20 teams to shape [xxx] strategy, navigating the delicate balance between tense political and macroeconomic considerations. I drew on my strong interpersonal skills, energy and enthusiasm to strengthen relationships with a range of colleagues through periods of high pressure.
Over six intense months, I set clear objectives, developed a robust policy framework, and guided a virtual team to consolidate and iterate this into a series of impactful announcements that were strategically coherent. I challenged misalignments with the [xxx] vision and leveraged my sector insights to shape announcements. I worked flexibly to meet tight deadlines, seeking agile routes through blockers. This required intense hours, including evenings and weekends; I implemented a weekend rota to meet business needs whilst ensuring the wellbeing of colleagues. I led the review of multiple documents, ensuring the final published product was flawless.
My agile focus led to solutions that aligned with the [xxx] vision; I received an exceptional performance award as a result of my commitment, enthusiasm, collaboration and attention to detail. Balancing the [xxx] plan’s delivery with distinctions in the second year of my degree demonstrates my ability to manage demanding workloads without compromising on quality, which is a critical skill for a Clifford Chance lawyer - alongside the core competencies I demonstrated through the housing plan delivery.
During eight years in [xxx], I developed strong leadership and collaboration skills. I was seconded to the [xxx], successfully developing an innovative legal framework supporting the [xxx]. Previously, I developed the [xxx] negotiating position on legal services and state-level trade, overcoming cultural blockers by building relationships with counterparts in [xxx], positioning me well to embrace Clifford Chance's global approach.
In my personal life, I scaled Mount Kilimanjaro in 2022 to fundraise for 'Mind,' where teamwork and personal resilience were key to my success. I am a gym enthusiast and foodie; maintaining a balance between work, rest and play means I will bring my absolute best to work as a successful Clifford Chance trainee. I am a trustee of the Charity [xxx], reflecting my strong interest in supporting a more diverse legal community.
Finally, in preparing for the upcoming British-Intra-University Commercial Awareness Competition I have attended a range of seminars dedicated to building my commercial awareness and sector insight, such as Clifford Chance’s One Firm evening and the Generative AI, Business and Law seminar. I had the pleasure of hearing from Richard Crosby about the purchasing of SVB by HSBC. The parallels between the closing of this deal and the elements of past experiences that I found most energising – the social impact, the client focus and the intensity of the project - reaffirmed that Clifford Chance is the firm I wish to pursue my solicitor career with, given the high-profile and innovative nature of Clifford Chance’s work.
January 2023
In no more than 250 words, what are your motivations for applying to Clifford Chance?
I am motivated to pursue a career at Clifford Chance as I find its Band 1 banking and finance practice appealing. I was intrigued by the firm’s advice to Nielson Holdings on its US $16 billion takeover by Elliot Investment Management, one of the largest deals by value this year. My interest in this practice stems from my work placement at Fieldfisher LLP. Working on a suite of corporate authorisations for financing an M&A deal gave me exposure to the finance sector. In addition, negotiating a sustainable linked loan and learning about green bonds in Clifford Chance’s virtual internship further motivated me to apply to the firm.
Clifford Chance’s corporate strength also interests me. Participating in an M&A case study conducted by partner Adrian Levy at Queen Mary University helped me learn more about each stage of an M&A transaction. It further piqued my interest in this sector. The firm has 33 Tier 1 rankings in Legal 500 UK 2023, more than any other London firm. I find this appealing as it will allow me to have a well-rounded training programme in leading practice areas of my choice.
Lastly, there are 56.3% female lawyers in Clifford Chance’s London Office. This is a testament to the firm’s inclusive environment. It gives me confidence that I would be valued at the firm. As a woman of colour belonging to an ethnic minority, the firm’s commitment towards diversity and inclusion is important to me.
In no more than 250 words, tell us how the skills and attributes you have developed to date will help you excel as a Clifford Chance lawyer.
Keeping up with tight deadlines, working resiliently under pressure, and collaborating are vital skills essential to thrive as a Clifford Chance lawyer. I have developed these skills through my volunteer role at the Queen Mary Legal Advice Centre. As a student advisor, I worked on criminal, employment and company law-related cases. I interviewed clients to corroborate case details and drafted succinct advice letters outlining the client’s legal rights. In addition, I provided suggestions to the clients about the most commercially viable option that the client could undertake. I built good working relationships with my supervisors, who are practising solicitors, to produce high-quality advice letters. I had to send out the letters within 10 days of the interviews, which meant keeping up with tight deadlines and often working under pressure.
Commercial awareness, strong communication skills, and the ability to take ownership of my work will also help me excel as a lawyer at Clifford Chance. As my university’s Clyde & Co brand ambassador, I improved these crucial skills. I proactively organised events to promote the firm’s opportunities. This meant that I had to maintain a working knowledge of the firm’s business and general market trends to competently answer student queries, in turn developing my commercial awareness. Speaking to over 250 students at an event on campus helped me improve my oral communication skills. The firm commended my enthusiasm and commitment to taking ownership of my work. I received a discretionary bonus for my extraordinary efforts in organising in-person events.
In no more than 400 words tell us about your extra-curricular activities, positions of responsibility and an achievement of importance which you are most proud of.
My greatest achievement was in my role as the vice president of a student-led volunteer club called Girl Up Singhania. I was responsible for organising projects and campaigns to promote gender equality. While conducting a demographic survey for another project at a local orphanage in Maharashtra, I came across the poor living conditions of young orphaned children. I was dismayed that the orphanage had a shortage of sanitary supplies due to a lack of funding. To help tackle this issue, I decided to initiate a donation drive and set up collection stalls at 3 locations for 5 days. Through the collections, I provided 100 young children with yearlong sanitary supplies. To provide a permanent solution to the issue, I established a mandate in the club to conduct regular donation drives to support local orphanages. It gave me a great sense of achievement to see that the living conditions of underprivileged children in the area have been uplifted due to my efforts. I brought a real change in children’s lives, which was truly rewarding.
A position of responsibility that I undertook this year is the Head of Marketing for the Queen Mary Student Advancement Society. In this role, I conduct social media campaigns, help increase our memberships and grow our reach on campus. Beyond these responsibilities, I volunteered to design a ‘Careers Guide’ (outlining over 20 careers that law students can take up) and a ‘Law Firms Application Tracker’ (highlighting vacation scheme application processes and deadlines for over 50 law firms). My creative problem-solving skills and resourcefulness has helped the society achieve a 52% increase in memberships and a 41% increase in our follower count on Instagram.
I also have a keen interest in negotiation. Recently, I won the Hogan Lovells Commercial Negotiation Competition. I vastly improved my commercial awareness, as the negotiations were based upon business news stories, and a strong understanding of these was necessary to succeed. I dealt with various topics, from ESG-related greenwashing concerns to human rights violations in the Qatar World Cup. I was commended by the judges for my problem-solving and commercial insights that aided me in getting the best deal for my client. Having never met my partner before the competition, we had to quickly form a working relationship, divide tasks and support each other in the negotiation, demonstrating strong teamwork and adaptability.
April 2022
You have told us about your academic achievements and work experience and now, in no more than 600 words, we are keen to hear more about you. This should include your extra-curricular activities, positions of responsibility and an achievement of importance which you are most proud of.
One of my greatest passions is [sport] and I became a professional athlete after racing from the age of four. Being offered a place on the [National] team is an achievement of importance which I am most proud of due to the skills I built throughout my career. Committing to sport instilled my sense of determination, as I trained for five days per week year-round at the expense of a conventional schooling and social life. I overcame mental and physical setbacks by setting short-term goals and building strong relationships with my team. Managing online schoolwork while travelling alone to attend international competitions sharpened my organisational skills.
I enjoy the intellectual rigour of advocacy, and I was the founder of my Sixth Form's Debating Club. I have continued exploring this interest in my current degree by participating in two [University] mooting competitions in 2020. These pursuits have allowed me to hone my public speaking skills in addition to my ability to think on my feet when challenged. By comparing this advocacy experience to my volunteering roles, I have been able to make a fully informed decision to pursue a career as a solicitor rather than a barrister. The highly collaborative aspect of my pro bono work appealed greatly to the more independent working style I adopted during moots.
I dedicate much of my time outside of academia to volunteering. As an Adviser for Citizens Advice, I build trust with vulnerable clients to resolve issues of varying complexity ranging from divorce to immigration status. Similarly, as an Adviser for the [Pro Bono Clinic], I enjoyed collaborating with peers and supervising solicitors to advise commercial clients. In addition, providing moral and administrative support to litigants-in-person was fundamental to my role as McKenzie Friend. My commitment to pro bono has been recognised on the 2020/21 [University] Roll of Honour.
Driving growth in leadership positions is something that I enjoy, demonstrated throughout my tenure as Co-founder and Vice President of the [University] Law Society. Over the 2020/21 academic year, I increased membership from two to forty despite the challenges of launching this society during the pandemic. My achievements include recruiting an executive committee of six, chairing weekly meetings, drafting a winning budget proposal and organising major events. The commercial awareness workshop that I conceptualised was of such popularity that I was able to run this event as a bi-monthly series chaired by guest speakers, such as [Business owner].
Another one of my passions is writing. As Director and Editor of the [Law-related publication], I have authored and reviewed articles on commercial case law and industry trends. This has built my business acumen, and my most read piece was a comparative analysis of the economic impacts of [current affairs]. As a paid-for blogger for [Law-related business], I have written on commercial topics and enjoyed sharing my advice and tips for studying and career progression with fellow aspiring lawyers.
I have been teaching myself to code in Python over the past year as, in my spare time, I am keenly interested in emerging technology. Although this is purely for leisure, learning to code has allowed me to perceive the value that technology presents to individuals and businesses – in helping them to work more effectively. Building this skill has been an important way for me to gain insight into the technology sector more broadly and how data analytics might be used to solve problems and improve practices in various industries.
2022
2021
You have told us about your academic achievements and work experience and now, in no more than 600 words, we are keen to hear more about you.
This should include your extra-curricular activities, positions of responsibility and an achievement of importance which you are most proud of.
I enjoy voluntary charity work. For instance, I undertook [major accountancy firm’s corporate] challenge, during which I led a sub-team of four to raise money for [redacted] charity, beginning with a seed fund of £1. As the leader, I organised family fundraising days, car washes, and bake sales to raise money and I visited local entrepreneurs asking for donations as the charity aided those in third world countries attempting to set up their own businesses. My team and I raised £3000+ in one month and successfully secured a work placement with [major accountancy firm].
As for positions of responsibility, this includes being a Student Representative for students on my degree, so they have a point of access for any aid they need. I am also currently a Student Ambassador and aid the [non-Law] department with prospective students and parents. With the former role, I regularly attend departmental meetings wherein I represent course students' views. Though the department is small, wider student inclusion is low but with my idea of setting up socials such as a pizza party, this has improved marginally.
My greatest achievement to date is having secured an offer to study [non-law course] at the University of [redacted] whilst at Sixth Form. The Sixth Form I attended had only opened five years earlier when I applied in 2016, so courses offered by the Sixth Form were limited. Moreover, due to the majority of students, myself included, coming from a financially deprived, first generation and ethnic minority background, undertaking STEM subjects at an A-Level standard was encouraged. I, myself had little guidance and assumed taking majority STEM subjects at A-Level would be the best idea as it ensured a guaranteed financially stable job, if pursued career wise. However, mid-way through my first year of A-Levels, I realised my mistake and that my actual passion was in the Humanities and Social Sciences. I failed a few STEM related A-Levels due to this, and then retook my A-Levels with subjects I was truly passionate about, and therefore achieved far superior grades. When it came to the university application process, I decided to apply to the University of [redacted], despite having a few U grades, but knowing I had become a strong candidate.
However, I had no connections to the university and my Sixth Form also had no prior history of students applying to Oxbridge, let alone students getting offers. Getting through the process was based on my own hard work, pure ambition and all the research I undertook. The offer to study then, was based on an assessed piece of written work, three interviews and ultimately academic and extra-curricular excellence. In the lead up to my application, I ensured work in all subjects I was studying was consistently at the top of the class, as well as reading outside of the subjects to provide me with a wider perspective. As well as this, I consistently undertook various charitable roles such as raising money for charity and peer support roles such as mentoring students in lower years. These roles were conducted within and outside of the academic setting. It was due to this determination of mine to succeed, that the university was able to note how I improved my grades drastically after having chosen subjects I thoroughly enjoyed and noted I was a well-rounded candidate. As a result of my strong testing throughout the process, [redacted] College offered me an undergraduate place to study, with one of the professors emailing me personally to let me know in one of the interviews, all three interviewers were impressed.
2021
You have told us about your academic achievements and work experience and now, in no more than 600 words, we are keen to hear more about you. This should include your extra-curricular activities, positions of responsibility and an achievement of importance which you are most proud of.
Founding and running an award-winning society focused on social mobility at [university] is a source of achievement for me. Reflecting on my university experience during the first lockdown, I identified a disparity between the proportion of state- and publicly educated students at university. Researching opportunities for state-educated students like myself led me to the [society focused on social mobility], after which I contacted the founder to start one at [university]. I worked through summer 2020, focusing on online networking and raising awareness of the [society] at [university], by the end of which I secured three corporate sponsorships worth over £1300. Drafting and administering the sponsorship agreements, creating and managing a committee of seven, and networking with committee members at other [society name] nationwide gave me a sense of purpose and community during the first part of the pandemic which I shared with my members. During the 2020/21 academic year, I balanced working and studying on my year abroad with leading [society] online, which attracted 750+ social media followers in its founding year. I also organised numerous online events which helped students to explore different career paths and connected students from similar backgrounds. Learning that I brought people together thanks to [society] has been a highlight of my presidency. Having also been involved in socially mobile initiatives linked to Clifford Chance, such as Peppo Tutors and The Tazil Foundation, and learning about firm targets such as the “Helping 100,000 Initiative”, I admire the firm’s initiative in this area and would enjoy continuing to contribute in such an environment.
A key reason why I am proud of [society] today is the obstacles I overcame when setting it up. My first application for [society name’s] Student Union affiliation was rejected on the basis that a student society that emphasised social mobility already existed within the Union. Determined to affiliate [society] and further its purposes, I investigated this position and discovered an inherent difference in the two societies' purposes; [society] caters to state-educated students and implements events focused on a range of career paths, whereas the existing society promoted social mobility as an umbrella term and focused specifically on finance careers. Knowing that affiliation with the Union would be hugely beneficial to [society’s] objectives by attracting a wider network, I advanced my case for [society] by appealing the Union's decision and ultimately succeeded in affiliating [society].
An international element recurs through my extra-curricular activities and positions of responsibility. I am currently an editor for a magazine at [university], for which I lead weekly meetings for members. I believe that my ability to engage and retain members stems from my international background, which allows me to recognise multiple perspectives. This engagement has particularly helped with the magazine’s recent fundraising week for Afghan refugees, which raised over £200.
Before my year abroad, I was elected President of [university departmental society], where I led a committee of eight and acted as the principal intermediary between [university department] students and the faculty. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic just before exam season led to in-person society activity being cut short and, as a result, I actively assisted the new committee in adapting to online society management in parallel with starting the [social mobility society]. This led to both societies winning a Bright Network Society of the Year Award, and I was recently invited back by the department to speak about how to make the most of university.