The Clifford Chance SPARK Scheme Part 2
This section focuses on the SPARK Scheme and Training Contract Interview itself, as affected by Covid-19.
The SPARK Scheme
For Bill, the SPARK scheme began on the 1st of July 2020 to the 3rd of July 2020. This meant it was subjected to COVID-19 disruption and moved online, running for three days instead of the usual five days. Over the course of the three days, Bill received a detailed overview of all six main practice areas, was tasked with group exercises and workshops and interacted with the rest of the attendees, associate solicitors, the Graduate Recruitment team and leading partners.
Activities undertaken:
Received an overview of the six main practice areas and seat choices separately. These areas are corporate, finance, capital markets, litigation & dispute resolution, tax/pensions/employment and real estate. Each session lasted 1-2 hours and were followed by a Q&A with leading lawyers in their speciality.
Virtual Case Studies
M&A due diligence exercise
Advising mock clients on Private Equity Shares Purchase Agreement (SPA) negotiation case study
Drafting a client email regarding compliance to an ICO Dawn Raid
Advising on a confidentiality clause for a mock employment dispute
An interactive workshop following on from the case study interview on the assessment day.
A 3-minute video pitch to be part of a deal of your interest on a final note.
Throughout the three days, there were also video reflections and take-home tasks each day and continual access to the Graduate Recruitment Team for support. Everyone also had access to a ‘trainee buddy’ who would arrange for virtual coffee sessions replacing the typical formal networking sessions.
Bill’s most memorable part of the SPARK scheme
Being one the many law students with no full-on legal experience who can only predict what corporate/finance legal work actually entails, the SPARK scheme was an exciting and fulfilling opportunity for Bill. No longer were the required practical skills needed for budding lawyers to excel in practice “hidden in a veil”. He believed that the SPARK scheme helped tackle such issues, preparing law students for the international City practice.
Bill thoroughly enjoyed participating in the tasks, learning M&A and SPA terminology such as indemnity, warranties, and tipping basket among others in the SPA task and assessing its role in insuring parties against a certain unforeseeable problem that may arise in the Target company. Furthermore, learning as a team was truly meaningful.
Being placed all the time into ‘breakout rooms’ with different attendees from diverse walks of life meant synergy could be created, achieving maximum output beyond what just one attendee with one view could achieve, allowing Bill to identify the easily-distinguishable collaborative spirit that Clifford Chance emphasises. He says he was given access to one of the most valuable lessons to be learnt as a lawyer with this experience. With this diverse collaboration that leads to creativity and innovation, he says that his group was able to reach conclusions which would potentially surprise a client, exceeding their client’s expectations who would say, “Wow, I really didn’t see this as a potential issue, thank you for advising me for a problem I didn’t even enquire!”. Bill believes, when you hear this, you have truly become a commercial lawyer who is coveted by clients and truly understands client’s needs. This is what lawyers should aim for, and this memorable lesson is what Clifford Chance taught him.
What Bill learnt about Clifford Chance after the SPARK scheme
At the beginning of his law career, Bill was confused as to how to choose a law firm he wanted to work at. With his experience in the Scheme, he has truly understood what makes Clifford Chance different to other law firms. Through the SPARK scheme, Bill learnt to be collaborative, creative, to take initiative, and to exceed clients’ needs; these values of the firm set it beyond being just a leading international Magic Circle law firm.
Bill was able to overcome the first difficult step- discerning the value of the firm itself but he was also able to experience first-hand just how this value was moulded through the SPARK scheme and it is through diversity. His trainee buddy was a career-changer from being a commercial airline pilot, his colleague was already paralegalling as a first-year student and being involved in a deal with Volvo and he was able to work within a truly diverse group which had an equal gender split and people from BAME backgrounds. After all, Bill, himself, had thought he would strive on to become a K-Pop idol.
“A valuable internship is one that teaches you about what the company is genuinely like, not the generic front to corporate marketing. The SPARK Scheme taught me that the people at Clifford Chance do not generically care, but actually put in the effort to build a collaborative atmosphere made up of diverse individuals, not because they want to market their firm but, because the firm really understands that this diverse collaborative effort is what the best clients desire in their firm.”- Bill Lee
The Training Contract Interview
After the SPARK Scheme ended, Bill was invited for the Training Contract Interview in December with a Clifford Chance partner. It lasted 30-40 minutes with interviewees noting that they all had varied experience. For some, it was more competency based but William was surprised to find that his was predominantly based on commercial awareness. This is because he had expressed an interest in real estate financing thus, he was asked questions regarding COVID-19 implications on the changing expectations of real estate financing clients to Clifford Chance. This shows that it is crucial that applicants are prepared to discuss commercial related news in the perspective of a law firm or of the firm itself.
Important values at Clifford Chance
On the Clifford Chance website, the values laid out are:
Excellence
Ambition
Achievement
Progress
Collaboration
Learning
Equality and Fairness
These values have certainly grown in meaning to Bill during the SPARK scheme. Nonetheless, Bill also emphasises that though these values are very important to the firm, there is no one “mould” that is the right fit for Clifford Chance. The central value Clifford Chance exhibits is that it is a law firm that is truly inclusive, diverse, collaborative, and therefore that naturally the firm desires talent who can be themselves and strike up a conversation with another, learning to truly collaborate.
“It is not to say you need to have an out-of-the-ordinary experience. It is to say that you must recognize what makes you the individual you are, and how your experiences shaped that.”- Bill Lee.
Reflections
First and foremost, he would like to thank the Graduate Recruitment Team for such an amazing journey and the tremendous investment into making the programme such a success.
At the age of 18, Clifford Chance for Bill seemed to have been an unachievable dream. Fast-forward three years later, Bill has achieved his highest goal and feels extremely honoured to be given a chance to experience training contract life at the firm. His perception of Clifford Chance has always been that it is a ‘mammoth international commercial law firm’ and of course this has not changed. What has changed is the depth of his insight of the law firm. He was able to learn first-hand how a group of the most talented lawyers in the world could be friendly, inclusive, and teamwork-oriented and that this was what gave them access to the most complex headline-making deals with the most demanding of international clients.
Future Aspirations
Bill, beyond working to excel in his law degree and his society commitments, plans to develop his practical entrepreneurial outlook that will help him put the commercial needs of corporate clients before others.
He is in the beginning stages of setting up a tech platform start-up for the legal industry and one for the K-Pop industry, and though he expects it to take much time and resources, he plans to actively invest in his entrepreneurial/commercial outlook to prepare him for a career in corporate/finance law.
He also has set the goal to actively reach out to get to know the diverse individuals at Clifford Chance, to begin building worthy relationships and to adapt to his new home in London.
By Bill Lee and Ke Thie Kiew