recruitment's blog

The vacation scheme at Bircham Dyson Bell is preceded by a Meet the Departments evening a few weeks before you are due to start. Whilst not compulsory, the evening was a good way to start your experience at the firm. We were given presentations by each of the departments outlining what they did, each with a trainee describing their role within that area as well. This was helpful to illustrate the kind of work you could expect within the departments you had been assigned to.

I have just completed the second year of my law degree at the University of Bristol and will hopefully be starting my LPC in September 2012. During my vacation scheme, I sat in the Business Services (Employment) Department for my first week and in Private Wealth during my second week.

My summer placement is nearly over. I can honestly say it's been a pleasure. My placement was spread across two departments, namely Private Wealth and Litigation. The work was quite varied, challenging and at some points a bit unpredictable!

It’s the first week and I’m in Government and Infrastructure. My desk faces an enormous window which gives me beautiful views of the adjacent buildings and the never ending bouts of summer rain. I have a phone, my own computer, and a security pass giving me the ability to access the many hidden treasures behind locked doors, reserved only for the lucky people at BDB. I’m not sure, but I believe that I may have the best located desk in the entire department, not too bad for a summer placement student! The department is filled with a very friendly group of people.

I have just begun my second week at BDB in Litigation. Last week I sat in Charities, trying my hand at all sorts of different tasks. In fact, I really began to feel quite settled there by the end of the week, so I was somewhat apprehensive about starting afresh in Litigation today. I shouldn’t have worried. The people are just as friendly and the work is just as interesting. But first things first, this is what happened last week…

I graduated last year with a degree in Biology from the University of Bristol and I have just completed my GDL at the College of Law London Bloomsbury.

One of my main reasons for applying to Bircham Dyson Bell was its strength in private client work. Therefore I was thrilled when I received a letter from BDB in May stating that I would be spending the first week of my two week summer placement in the Private Wealth department.

For the graduate recruitment team at Bircham Dyson Bell, the recruitment year begins in October with the beginning of the ‘milk round’.  We attend 9 University Law Fairs every year.  See the ‘Come Meet Us’ page on our Graduate Website to find out where we’ll be next.

Following the success of Give and Gain Day 2009 we promptly signed up to participate again in 2010 and I instantly volunteered to take on the role of Team Leader.

This year we had 9 volunteers from BDB who joined 200 volunteers from other organisations to help coordinate one of the ‘Community Games’ taking place in London; we were assigned to the event taking place in Kensington.

Monday: I have been here less than two hours and have already volunteered to fill an empty berth at BDB’s Annual Rowing Regatta. It’s on Friday and I have never rowed a boat before, let alone competed against people who actually have. I assume this is part of the assessment to determine who is a gullible fool and suspect I may have lead myself to the slaughter.

Well, my first week at BDB is over, and it was great. I applied to BDB for its Private Client and Charities work so I was pretty excited when the news was delivered on nice letterhead that I would be in the Private Wealth Department for a week of my vacation scheme. I was also very nervous. I wondered how I would cope with the work, whether the week would put me off private client work, or put the private client team off me.