August 2023

Written assessment (pre assessment centre)

This took place at the firm's London office. We were allocated 1 hour, and had the option to write using our own laptop, using one of the firm's laptops, or by hand (I chose to use my own laptop).

The written exercise was based on a commercial case study involving a wind farm construction project. We were provided with excerpts from a commercial contract, then asked to draft a briefing memo (in an email) to a partner on a fictional construction dispute ahead of the partner's meeting with the CEO of the owner of the wind farm construction project. 

To boil it down, the client had contracted one sole company to build the offshore wind project in question, and that contractor had then sub-contracted two companies to construct different parts of the project. Delays had occurred, and some of them due to failings relating to one part of the project built by one of the subcontractors (to the specification of the original contractor). More delays were incurred (this is implied) when the subcontractors stopped work due to lack of payment by the contractor.

We were asked to assess the claims in question, which were (as far as I understood the scenario):

1. The client's potential claim against the contractor (we had to offer advice covering the client's potential liability, and any commercial/practical considerations that came to mind); and

2. The contractor's potential claim against the subcontractors.

To add to what was already a meaty task, within the hour set, the firm threw in a simulated scenario with a regulator, where said regulator had divulged material non-public information about its investigation into the contractor at the heart of the dispute. The firm wanted to know how we'd respond/act.

To level the playing field between the 9 of us taking the test (everyone else had studied law and/or was a paralegal) to some extent, we weren't allowed to research/use the internet, and were expected to only draw on the information provided. Note that my recruiter claimed that the firm focused more on how we write, rather than the content of the writing. 

Note that I included an executive summary.