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Accutrainee training contract (scholarship programme route) – January 2024

What was the full recruitment process?      

  1. Application
  2. HR interview: motivation and competency questions (~1 hour with a member of HR)
  3. Attention to detail exercise: review and mark-up of a draft contract (35 minutes)
  4. Assessment centre: presentation, interview and commercial awareness exercise (assessed by 2 partners)
  5. Final interview 
  6. Training contract 

Which aspect does this report cover?

Attention to detail exercise, HR interview, and assessment centre

Attention to detail exercise 

For the attention to detail exercise, I received two documents via email:

  • A draft agreement which needed to be marked up.
  • An "Instruction to Let" form.

Upon receipt of the email, I had a total of 35 minutes to complete the tasks. This includes a few minutes to read the instructions, 30 minutes to mark up the exercise, and 1-2 minutes to attach and send the marked-up document in reply to the email.

I was told I was taking on the previous responsibilities of a paralegal who had been dismissed due to numerous errors in their work, and that the property solicitor to whom I would be submitting my work expects meticulous attention to detail. 

The email attached a draft 2-page agreement prepared by the previous paralegal based on the facts outlined in an "Instruction to Let" form. I had to review the draft agreement thoroughly, highlighting any spelling errors and identifying clauses that are factually incorrect. In particular, I had to look out for:

  • Typographical, spelling, and punctuation errors
  • Formatting and layout errors and inconsistencies (such as page numbers, font size, line spacing etc)
  • Grammar and syntax errors and anomalies
  • Repetitions and omissions

I then had to forward my mark-up to the solicitor for further review (with it then going to the client).

Take your time to carefully scrutinise the document. I identified over 15 errors during my review. Read sentence by sentence to catch every issue.

The firm told me ~1 week after submitting the exercise that I had progressed to the HR interview.

HR interview 

The interview was with a member of HR via Microsoft Teams, and included fairly standard motivation and competency questions such as:  

  • Why did you choose to pursue a career in law, particularly commercial law?
  • What motivated you to apply for the Accutrainee training contract?
  • How does the Accutrainee training contract differ from those offered by other law firms?
  • Can you provide an example of a successful teamwork experience?
  • Share a time when you faced failure and how you dealt with it.
  • How do you manage pressure in a professional setting?
  • Describe a situation where you successfully juggled multiple tasks simultaneously.

The interview lasted approximately an hour, and included an opportunity for me to ask questions at the end. While it's not necessary to come up with unique questions, feel free to inquire about the application procedure, the interviewer’s career journey at Accutrainee, and what sets Accutrainee apart from other firms. Asking thoughtful questions demonstrates your interest and engagement in the firm's culture and operations. 

The firm told me ~1 week after the interview that I had progressed to the assessment centre.

Where did the assessment centre take place?            

Online, via Microsoft Teams.

What did the assessment centre involve?   

  1. Presentation: presentation on a law-related topic, plus Q&A (10 minute presentation, 50 minute Q&A, with 2 partners)
  2. Competency interview: competency questions (1 hour with 2 partners)
  3. Commercial awareness exercise/interview: questions on an article (30 minutes to prepare, then 1 hour interview with 2 partners)

Presentation 

When I was sent my invitation to attend the assessment centre, I was also sent the following presentation topics to choose from (this was ~3 weeks before my assessment centre took place): 

  • If you had the opportunity to change one piece of UK legislation, which would you change and why?
  • Discuss the ways in which advancements in IT will create threats and opportunities for the legal industry.
  • What are the major challenges and opportunities currently facing the legal industry?
  • A legal or commercial topic of your choice.
  • What should a law firm do to stand out from its competitors? 

I had to prepare a presentation on one of these topics – lasting no longer than 10 minutes - and share my presentation slides two working days before the interview. I chose to present on the second topic (IT threats and opportunities). 

The interviewers had these slides on their screens during the presentation (I was not allowed to share my screen during the presentation). I structured my slides as follows: 

  • Driving forces of change: the reasons behind the IT advancement in the legal industry.
  • Challenges, with real-life case studies.
  • Opportunities, with real-life case studies. 

The partners at the firm liked how I structured out the presentation. After the presentation, they asked questions for almost 50 minutes, really trying to challenge my arguments. For example: 

  • Could you provide examples of some of the most pressing challenges faced by law firms in adapting to new IT trends?
  • How do these challenges vary for large corporate law firms versus small boutique firms? (note that I had experience working in both settings)
  • Beyond the legal industry, how do you see the intersection of IT and law influencing other sectors or society as a whole?
  • What ethical considerations should law firms keep in mind when adopting new technologies? 

Competency interview 

I usually find competency interviews the easiest as it’s just sharing my own experiences with the partners. However, as it lasted for an hour, I started running out of examples at the end, which made this part the most challenging.  

The questions were really detailed and challenging, such as: 

  • What critical feedback do you most often receive? 
  • What is your biggest weakness?
  • What is your biggest failure?
  • Tell me about a time you worked with a high achieving team.
  • Tell me about a time you overcame an obstacle in a professional setting.
  • How do you handle stress?
  • Tell me about a time when you reached a goal at work. 
  • Tell me about a time you had a disagreement with your team. 
  • Tell me about a time you had to juggle different tasks that happened very recently. 

There were a lot of questions, and as some were quite similar, I struggled to come up with examples. However, if I couldn’t think of an example, I asked whether I could take some time to think about it and during the feedback call, they said they liked how I was being thoughtful about my answers instead of rushing to answer questions.  

Commercial awareness exercise/interview

30 minutes prior to the commercial awareness interview, the firm sent me an email containing a commercial awareness exercise. The task centred on a 2-3 page ESG-related article from the Financial Times; it was pretty straightforward, with no heavy commercial or legal jargon involved.  

I had to read through this and prepare answers to pre-set questions to discuss with my interviewers during the video call. As I prepared, I focused on digesting the key facts of the article and considering the implications for law firms. 

I was then taken to a virtual room where the interviewers were waiting. The interview started with some generic questions such as: 

  1. Why law?
  2. Why commercial law?
  3. Why did you switch your degree subject to law?
  4. Why apply for the Accutrainee training contract?
  5. What other firms have you applied to?

This lasted about 15 minutes. The rest of the time was focused on the article. I was asked to summarise the article, then asked questions such as: 

  1. Based on the article, what are the current market trends in ESG investing and how do they impact businesses?
  2. What role does consumer demand play in driving businesses to adopt ESG practices? 
  3. How can companies leverage ESG initiatives to gain a competitive advantage in their respective industries?
  4. How can lawyers assist companies in implementing effective corporate governance practices to address ESG concerns? 

The interviews did not seem to have a set of questions to ask me. Questions mostly seemed to be based on my responses. I think they were assessing the breadth of my commercial knowledge and my ability to approach issues from a commercial perspective. The final question was asked because I was an LPC graduate, so had studied corporate governance to some extent. 

What was the outcome?               

The firm emailed me a week after the assessment centre to tell me I had been successful. 

Do you have any specific advice on how to prepare?

  • Presentation: be loud and clear and don’t worry if they cut you off in the middle. It may be because they want to clarify something you mentioned due to a weak internet signal etc. They will ask you A LOT of questions at the end, almost going through slide by slide, so do not include everything you know on the slides (leave out some of the content intentionally, in the hope that you’ll then be asked about it via a follow-up question).  
  • Competency based interview: prepare as many examples as possible. Try to think of at least 10 examples to draw on, but don’t script your answers. You will end up reading them and the interviewers will know. 
  • Commercial interview: use the 30 minutes well to understand the material. Sign up for the Financial Times and read the news daily to prepare yourself. When reading it, always think about how this would impact law firms. It can be on any commercial topic, so the best you can do is be attentive and understand what the partner is asking. Ask questions if you do not understand and think of the most basic or logical steps/answers. Sometimes, they only want to see if you know your basics.