Appalling attitude. Junior’s should be encouraged and assisted. As a senior legal professional it’s part of your job to mentor younger practitioners. How do they treat their secretaries????

You know for being a random troll Kirkland NQ sure knows a lot about what rich people do with their money

Name or didn’t happen.

There, there. There, there. There, there.

My vac scheme was a warm experience then when I got to my first seat it was like working behind enemy lines. Your experience is so dependent on team culture. Not all teams are made equal and all firms will have shite departments with no culture and filled to the brim with sociopaths.

I have to agree despite your downvotes.

Treating a clearly nervous guest like shit just because they have no value to you is not a sign of a good employer.

I’ve always found this dream firm concept so weird – you’re getting paid to work for someone doing legal (or “legal” if youre a trainee) work.

You may have had a lucky escape.

With a handful of exceptions which usually came as the result of new joiners from superior firms, all I witnessed was complete apathy and disinterest. It wasn’t exactly that people were massive d***heads shouting at me or making unreasonable demands, more so a general lack of anything resembling a team, culture, goal or form of belonging. That goes without mentioning the fact that training in any meaningful sense of the word simply didn’t exist, to the extent that if you hadn’t paralegalled in some teams prior to your TC then it was a case of google and good luck. But then it would have been foolish to expect training from associates who in any given seat were gone about three months after your first week.

Needless to say that two years later I joined the ~50% of every trainee intake that leaves on qualification (not that you’d find this on the legalcheek front page) and have been much happier and much better skilled as a practitioner ever since.

I was nervous about moving in case every firm was the same, but I can now say from my own experience that you deserve better, and can find better, than what you were subject to on your VS.

Obligatory note that of course I was grateful for the TC and getting paid, this was all a few years ago and things could have changed etc etc.

Ha, Lambo branded, very cute. You’re just a young pup with a lot to learn. Maybe one day I’ll introduce you to Mansory and you can have a real G lambo.

And when you do land your TC/job don’t be naive in the workplace. Your colleagues are NOT your friend until one of you has left the firm/dept. Do not share personal stories about your mistakes or your insecurities or money problems or your love life as this will get around the office (worse some may use them against you), nor should you gossip with the PA’s or talk trash about team members because this will get back to the partners.

Sure this comment will get loads of thumbs down in this day and age of safe spaces from real life, but really…

Toughen up buttercup.

I did a vac scheme at slaughters a few years ago and the partners were generally friendly. It obviously varies but the partners in the department I sat in proactively organised chats and seemed interested. My experience may not have been the norm but it’s worth remembering that there are good people everywhere.

Many moons ago I did vac schemes at a MC firm and an elite US firm, and though I could tell everyone was busy, everyone still made time for me. In both cases, this included partners approaching me to ask how I was getting on and to arrange (and follow up on) coffee chats with me. This applied to both transactional teams and advisory teams.

Maybe I just got lucky. But both firms I went to had reputations for being harsh (the US firm in particular). I would take this as a very significant indicator of what the general atmosphere at the firm is like.

It’s Lambo renewal time and the other day my model girlfriend mentioned getting a Urus, talking about how good they are, in particular the size of the boot and back seat, that they can hold more than two people. I refused – Lambos are two seats or nothing.

Then the other day she started leaving brochures for mansions in Surrey around the Chelsea townhouse. She even started talking about waiting lists for Harrow and Eton, and how long they are.

Is she hinting something?

Consequently many partners have no natural inclination, time or other incentive to pretend to be friendly (and tbh this is often even more excruciating than them being cold and aloof).

It’s no reflection on you or the particular firm*, it’s just City law.

*if the firm is Slaughters there are less extreme versions out there.