When I was in my penultimate year of law school, I applied for numerous legal internships to try to build a more all-rounded CV in order to prepare for future training contract applications. I spent roughly 30 minutes to an hour on a cover letter. I made sure it highlighted every academic achievement, every extracurricular activity, and every ounce of potential I believed I had. I thought I did a pretty good job. I didn't get invited for any interviews at all. Instead, I received the following rejection email from one of those firms…

Every application cycle, I speak to international candidates who are paralysed by the "quality vs quantity" debate. They have read the advice online or asked around. They have been told to focus on fewer, more tailored applications. They have been warned not to "spray and pray." And so they submit five, maybe seven applications — each one carefully researched, each one painstakingly drafted — and then they wait.

When I graduated from my LLM and looked for a job in London as an international student, I had no connections and absolutely no idea how the UK legal market worked. I literally had to navigate the entire law firm application process on my own — and that was brutal…

If you've ever stared at a blank application form trying to answer "Why do you apply for this law firm?", you're not alone. To a lot of aspiring lawyers, most global law firms look the same on paper: they all have international offices, D&I initiatives, AI technology, cross-border deals, to name but a few.

Notably, this is one of the most common questions in law firm applications, and yet it is the one where 90% of candidates make the exact same mistake.

Should you get into a better university to upgrade your CV? Should you keep applying for top firms when you already get rejected for so many times? How to improve your personal brand in this competitive legal market and stand out?

In this newsletter, I will answer all these questions for you and give you insights into your law career.

"I've done everything I can... but I still get rejected by so many law firms I applied to? Why is that?" Let's put yourself into a recruiter's shoes — if you receive over 1,000 training contract applications every year, you will realise that 90% of the candidates look almost the same on paper, as a majority of them likely…

In this newsletter, I will consolidate the key strategies and techniques I used to secure a training contract in London as an International student (and I didn't complete one single vacation scheme!)

Many international law students are under the impression that they need to apply to smaller or less prestigious law firms, because the competition is insane and they stand no chance of competing against many other domestic candidates. Yet, speaking from personal experiences, I think you may be better off applying to bigger law firms.

At the beginning of my second year of law school, many of my classmates already got their first internship at big law firms or banks, but I couldn’t find any. I remember I got my first-ever internship by cold-emailing a local law firm I found on the internet. I was invited for an informal interview. The partner liked my passion, and he decided to hire me as a part-time legal intern.

Getting a training contract in places like London is easier said than done - yet, the good news is whether or not you are an international candidate, law firms are essentially looking for the same skills and competencies. Unfortunately, there is little support out there for foreigners entering the London legal market, and therefore I have seen many bright international students struggling with writing good applications.

My training contract journey was a rocky path of detours. I was hampered by my initial unfamiliarity with the interview, my limited visa conditions and a lack of understanding of the application process. As someone coming from a completely different country and background, I felt like I have to spend twice, if not triple, the effort of others. But what my story shows is that your starting point doesn’t matter, what matters is where you end up.