Debevoise & Plimpton Vacation Scheme – February 2025

What was the full recruitment process?         

1. Application

2. Open day/assessment centre

3. Vacation scheme

Which aspect does this report cover?

Vacation scheme open day/assessment centre

Where did the assessment centre take place?            

The firm's London office

What did the assessment centre involve?      

1. Open day portion: a welcome talk by the firm’s training principal, office tour with an allocated trainee mentor, and networking lunch with trainees and associates.

2. Commercial awareness case study interview: based off a recent Harvard Business Review article (30 minutes reading time, 30 mins interview with two senior counsels/associates).

Case study interview         

I was given an article on the impact of the Los Angeles Wildfires on the insurance industry and the rise of an alternate form of insurance policy to cover for unexpected natural disasters. It was five pages long and not too complex to digest. 

I then had the interview where two senior associates asked me some questions in turns on the content of the article, such as:

• Briefly summarise the article.
• What I understood about reinsurance for insurance companies.
• What the newly proposed insurance plan was and whether I was in support of it.
• Did I think Insurance is important for businesses?
• Would I advise the businesses suffering losses from the wildfires to take out the proposed new insurance policy?
• What do I think an insurance broker’s role is?

There were also other questions in between. It is important to understand that the interview was also conversational and was not strictly Q&A.   At the end they asked if I had any questions for them, which I did.

Note: This article was solely for use on my open day date, as participants from the earlier open day date had an article from the Financial Times based on real estate. The articles differ and could be based on the UK, US or general current affairs.

What was the outcome?                                                  

At the time of providing this insight, I have not yet received feedback on the outcome.

Do you have any specific advice on how to prepare?

The firm is straightforward on what to expect during the open day/assessment centre vis information provided on their graduate recruitment website. The only assessed portion is the commercial interview; thus, it is necessary to keep up with current affairs and practice breaking down an article to extract the key points. Try to remain calm and don't be afraid to glance back at the article to answer a question. During the open day, it will be beneficial to stay positive, eager, and social with other participants, trainees and associates. I am not sure if these portions of the open day are assessed, but they could be.

Try to elaborate on your answers during the commercial interview and don't be scared to ask the interviewer to rephrase or repeat a question. While there may be some trick questions, know that they are not meant to throw you off but to assess your thought process, as the answers to these questions will not be explicitly stated in the article.

Finally, it is also advisable to have some "Why Law?" and "Why Debevoise?" answers prepared, as I heard some people were asked those questions.

Debevoise & Plimpton Vacation Scheme – February 2024

What was the full recruitment process?         

1. Application

2. Assessment centre/open day

3. Vacation scheme

Which aspect does this report cover?

Assessment centre/open day

Where did the assessment centre take place?     

In person at the firm’s London office.

What did the assessment centre involve?      

The day starts with an introduction to Debevoise & Plimpton from Graduate Recruitment, before us being given roughly an hour with the Training Principal. They talk more about the firm, its culture, what trainee work looks like, and what the future for Debevoise looks like. There is then about 30 minutes for anyone to ask questions about the firm. 

Next you are assigned a mentor – that could be a trainee, associate or a partner. They will show you around the office, introduce you to practices that you are interested in, and talk more about their time at Debevoise. This is for an hour and it really is up to you to decide how to make the most out of this experience.

Then the entirety of the London office is invited to join you for lunch, where you are able to network with people of various levels of seniority from across the firm. This is a great opportunity to speak to a broad range of lawyers and support staff.

Finally, you are given an article to read (this changes for every assessment centre) for approximately 45 minutes – 1 hour. You are then given an allotted time throughout the afternoon, meaning some people have their interviews straight after reading the article while others had to wait a couple of hours before their interview. If your interview is later on, the firm actively encourages you to take time and go outside to prepare for your interview.

Commercial interview

Each person had a different experience throughout their interviews. Most, however, were only asked questions related to the article they were allocated. 

My article was about censorship and whether the UK government was going too far in limiting acquisitions of press groups that were reliably conservative. In my interview, most of my questions focused more on funding and litigation concerns, while others’ questions were mostly private equity related. Some were asked motivation questions, but these were outliers. 

The interviewers had my whole application to hand. Mine talked a lot about white collar crime, so I was asked by my interviewers why white collar crime was a particular area of interest to me.

Some questions I was asked in my interview included:

• What incentives might governments offer to encourage foreign investment?
• How might companies be structured in a private equity transaction?
• What is the role of the CMA and Ofcom? In particular, what might they be doing in relation to the proposed transaction you read about in the article?
• What is a debt-to-equity swap? 
• What does receivership mean?
• How could the proposed transaction alleviate concerns about the potential impact on diversity of views? 
• Why would (or wouldn’t) creating a separate legal entity matter?
• In your own words, summarise the article?
• What is a PIIN and what is the impact of the Enterprise Act 2002?
• Are there any other foreign companies that you think this article might be related to?

What was the outcome?

The firm emailed me ~10 days after my assessment centre to offer me a place on the vacation scheme. 

Do you have any specific advice on how to prepare?    

Understand what the article is telling you. You are given plenty of time to be able to diagram what is going on in the article – sometimes it can be helpful to focus on the bigger picture but also the smaller picture of the article. The interviewers are partly attempting to understand how well you extract information, communicate your views, and present an argument.

The second part of this process is that interviewers are trying to gauge your commercial knowledge. This involves asking you questions around the article (it is likely to be inherently related to funds as funds is a big practice in Debevoise) – so understanding the basics such as what is debt and equity, why companies enter into transactions, what roles banks play in lending money, and how banks secure loans may be crucial. 

Also, being able to refer to examples that relate to the article/questions seems to resonate well with interviewers. For example, I was able to talk about TikTok and Airbus in my interviewers and they ended my interview highlighting that they were impressed I was able to raise analogous examples.

Finally, you control the interview. Although the interviewers are given a set of questions, they broadly let you dictate the conversation – if you focus on more legal aspects, they will prod there, while if you focus on more commercial aspects, they will prod there. They will challenge your views at time but are really assessing whether you can hold your ground and elaborate on your argument or whether you fall back and surrender your argument. Do not worry if you do not know an answer to a question, as long as you admit it and still give it a go - the lawyers will tell you if you were on the right track or not.