We recently caught up with Bobby Cheung, a London trainee who will be joining us in September 2021 to start his two year training contract. Bobby shares why he enrolled in our virtual work experience programme and how this helped him throughout the recruitment process.
Who is featured in the programme from Kennedys?
The programme included videos from some of the current trainees and apprentices at Kennedys in which they provided instructions on the various tasks. This helped to make the programme feel more relevant and real
How long did it take for you to complete the programme?
I chose to complete the programme within one day and spent around five hours carrying out the tasks. However, what I liked about the programme is that you can spread this out and come back to it on another day to suit your schedule, as the programme is self-paced.
Tell us what support you received throughout the programme.
In my view, one of the really useful parts of the programme were the model answers provided after I completed each of the exercises. By being able to compare my work against the model answers, I could see what I did well and also quickly identify areas which I could improve when I work on similar tasks in the future.
What did you learn about Kennedys from this programme?
In addition to experiencing ‘traditional’ legal work with exercises such as drafting a witness statement and a legal research memo, one of the exercises also involved preparing a set of presentation slides for a client pitch. This allowed me to learn more about the business development side of the firm and how Kennedys is able to use its global coverage and expertise to advise clients all around the world.
How will the skills you developed help you when starting with us as a trainee?
When completing the exercises which required me to draft a witness statement and a research memo, not only did it help me to develop my legal drafting skills but it also helped me to be able to review and quickly pick out the key information from a range of documents and supporting evidence.
In a separate exercise, in explaining to a client about a claim which has been brought, I was asked to do this in a voice memo. Being able to verbally communicate information in a clear and succinct manner is also a really important skill for a trainee so this was a great exercise to do
Why should students sign up and complete our programme?
The programme is a great way to experience the sort of or type of legal work that trainee lawyers and apprentices often carry out at a global law firm such as Kennedys.
Despite having had a few years of paralegal experience at another law firm I still found it very helpful/useful as the type of work at different law firms will rarely be the same and using programmes such as this one broadened my experiences and it provided me with a real insight into what it would be like working in insurance law.
When is the best time to undertake the programme?
I’d recommend completing the programme before making your training contract / SQE application to Kennedys. The insight which you can gain from the programme about Kennedys will definitely help with your research and hopefully result in a stronger application.
If you have already submitted your application, I’d still highly recommend completing the programme as the skills developed from the exercises will also be very helpful if you are invited to their assessment centre.
What advice would you give someone looking to get into law?
Keep an open mind about the areas of law you may be interested in and attend as many graduate events as possible (or take part in virtual work experience programmes such as this one) so that you can gain a better understanding into the differences in the work that law firms do.
