How to Research a Law Firm: A Complete Guide for Training Contract and Vacation Scheme Applications

If you are preparing for vacation scheme or training contract applications, our Application Process hub covers every stage of the recruitment process from application forms through to assessment centres and offers.

If you are applying for vacation schemes or training contracts, you are expected to research law firms. Most candidates do. Very few do it well, and the gap between the two is not effort. It is understanding what research actually means in a legal recruitment context.

Reading a firm's website, memorising a few practice areas, and dropping in a deal name you found on a press release is not research. It is repetition. Every candidate applying to that firm has access to the same website. A significant number of them have read the same page and noted the same deal. The answer you produce from that process sounds like every other answer the recruiter reads that day, and that is the problem.

Strong applications are built on insight, not volume. This guide shows you how to research a law firm in a way that gives you material you can actually use, helps you understand what the firm genuinely does, and produces answers that could not have been sent to a different firm with a name change.

For a full guide to the vacation scheme application process including how to use your research in written answers, see our how to get a vacation scheme guide.

The minimum you need for every application

Before going through the full framework, it helps to know what the baseline is. For every firm you apply to, you need three things at minimum.

First, practice area strengths. Not a generic description of the firm as "full-service with a strong international presence," but a specific understanding of where it is genuinely strongest or most distinctive, backed by an independent source rather than the firm's own marketing.

Second, one or two recent deals or cases. Chosen because they genuinely interest you, understood well enough to explain simply, and connected to a reason why that work matters to you specifically.

Third, one broader point about culture, training, or values. Something about how the firm actually works, how trainees develop, or what the firm prioritises beyond commercial performance, drawn from a source more candid than the graduate recruitment brochure.

Once you have these three things for a firm, you have enough to write a credible application. The nine-step framework below is how you find them, and more.

The nine-step research framework

Use this as a checklist, not a script. You do not need everything for every application, and the weight you give to each step will depend on the firm, the question you are answering, and what you genuinely find interesting.

Step 1: Practice area strengths

What you are looking for: Where the firm is genuinely known for exceptional work, not where it claims to be strong.

Every firm's website describes itself as a leader across multiple practice areas. The useful question is not what the firm says about itself but what independent sources say. Chambers and Partners and Legal 500 are the two most authoritative rankings for UK law firms, and they are where you should go to verify a firm's genuine strengths.

Take Macfarlanes as an example. The firm's website describes a focus on private capital, private wealth, M&A, and disputes. Chambers and Partners lists Macfarlanes as Band 1 for corporate M&A in the £100 million to £800 million deal range. That is a specific, externally validated strength that tells you something precise about the type of work trainees are likely to encounter there, and it is a more credible thing to reference in an application than a self-description from the firm's own materials.

The practical implication: when you reference a firm's strengths in an application, use the Chambers or Legal 500 ranking to support the claim. "Ranked Band 1 by Chambers for corporate M&A in the mid-market" is a more convincing statement than "widely regarded as a leading firm for corporate work."

Where to find it: Chambers and Partners, Legal 500, Legal Week, The Lawyer.

Step 2: Recent deals or cases

What you are looking for: One or two matters that genuinely interest you, understood well enough to explain simply and connected to a clear reason why.

This is where the research becomes applicant-specific rather than generic, and it is where most candidates stop too early. Finding a deal and noting it down is not enough. Understanding it well enough to explain it clearly to someone who has not read the article is the standard you should be aiming for.

For any deal or case you choose to include, work through four questions before writing anything:

Who was the client and what happened? Keep this to one or two sentences.

Why does it matter commercially? This is where commercial awareness enters the answer. What was the financial or strategic significance of the deal? Who benefits and how?

What does it show about the firm's strengths? Which practice groups were involved? What does the complexity or scale of the matter tell you about what the firm can do?

Why does it interest you? This is the most important question and the one most candidates answer vaguely or not at all. The connection between the deal and your own interests, experience, or ambitions is what makes the reference personal rather than generic.

To give a concrete example: BCLP advised the Crown Estate on a £24 billion joint venture with Lendlease covering major UK regeneration schemes including Euston Station. Working through the four questions, the answer to why it matters commercially is that the scheme will develop 26,000 homes and 10 million square feet of commercial space across sites where rising demand will generate long-term revenue from sales, rents, and increased land values. What it shows about the firm is real estate strength and the ability to coordinate large multi-disciplinary teams (property, planning, tax, and financing) across a single major transaction. Why it interests you depends on who you are. Someone with genuine interest in real estate development could note that they have passed major redevelopment sites regularly and wanted to understand the legal and commercial structures behind what they were watching change over time.

That level of engagement with a single deal is more valuable in an application than a list of five deals noted superficially.

Where to find it: Firm news pages, press releases, LinkedIn firm updates, The Lawyer, Legal Week.

Step 3: Clients and industries

What you are looking for: Which sectors the firm focuses on and patterns in its client base.

Individual clients matter less than the sectors they come from. A firm that consistently advises technology companies, life sciences businesses, and financial institutions has a different character and a different kind of deal flow from one that focuses on energy, infrastructure, and real estate. Understanding the sector patterns helps you connect your own interests and experience to the firm's work more naturally.

Most firms organise their website by sector or publish a "sectors" or "insights" section that makes this relatively easy to identify. Cross-referencing this with the independent rankings from step one gives you a clearer picture of where the firm is genuinely active versus where it is aspirationally active.

Where to find it: Firm website sectors pages, Chambers and Partners, firm thought leadership publications.

Step 4: Culture and training style

What you are looking for: How the firm actually develops trainees and how teams work day to day, from sources more candid than the graduate recruitment brochure.

This is where most candidates remain superficial because the obvious sources (the firm's own website and recruitment materials) present an idealised version of the working environment. The more useful sources are ones where lawyers are speaking relatively candidly: open days and law fairs, trainee and associate podcast appearances, LinkedIn posts from recently qualified lawyers, and trainee diary or Q&A sections on platforms like Legal Cheek and Chambers Student.

Training contract structure is worth understanding specifically. Most firms operate four six-month seats over two years, but some firms deviate deliberately. Freshfields runs an eight-seat programme where trainees rotate every three months. Jones Day runs a non-rotational contract where trainees build experience across departments without being confined to a seat system. These structural differences are worth noting and referencing if they connect to something genuine about how you learn or what you are looking for from a training contract.

Where to find it: Open days, law fairs, Legal Cheek, Chambers Student, LinkedIn posts from junior lawyers and recent trainees, firm podcast appearances.

Step 5: Social media presence

What you are looking for: What the firm actively chooses to highlight publicly, which reveals current priorities in a way that historical materials do not.

A firm's LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok presence tells you something about how it presents itself to the world right now. Firms that regularly post about pro bono work, diversity initiatives, or specific deal types are signalling that those things matter to them at this point in time. Firms that are relatively inactive on social media suggest a different kind of culture.

This step is particularly useful for identifying recent developments that might not yet have filtered into the main website, and for finding individual partners or associates who speak publicly about the firm's work, which feeds into step eight.

Where to find it: LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, firm newsletters and email updates.

Step 6: Strategic direction

What you are looking for: Where the firm is going, not just where it has been.

Applications that demonstrate forward-looking commercial thinking stand out from those that only describe the firm's current position. Significant recent developments, including mergers, lateral hires, new office openings, investment in new practice areas, or strategic repositioning, are worth understanding and referencing where relevant.

The A&O Shearman merger of 2024 is a recent example of the kind of strategic development that affects applications significantly: a candidate applying to A&O Shearman who does not address the merger, its rationale, and its implications for the combined firm is missing one of the most important things a recruiter would expect them to know.

Where to find it: Law.com, The Lawyer, Legal Week, partner interviews, annual reports, merger and expansion announcements.

Step 7: Training contract structure

What you are looking for: How the training contract actually works at this firm, including seat rotations, secondment opportunities, supervision approach, and the qualification process.

Understanding this allows you to explain specifically why you would thrive in this firm's training environment rather than a competitor's, which is a more compelling answer to "why this firm?" than a generic statement about the quality of the work.

Where to find it: Graduate recruitment brochures, trainee Q&A pages, firm websites, open days.

Step 8: Key people and voices

What you are looking for: Individual partners or associates speaking publicly about the firm's work, culture, or strategic direction, whose names you can reference naturally in applications.

Referencing a specific person and something they said or wrote is one of the most effective ways to signal genuine research rather than website-level preparation. It shows that you have engaged with the firm beyond its public materials and that your interest is informed by real people rather than a brand.

Where to find it: Partner interviews on firm websites or podcasts, LinkedIn posts from senior lawyers, Chambers profiles which often include partner quotes and deal descriptions, thought leadership articles.

Step 9: Pro bono and CSR

What you are looking for: The firm's genuine commitments to pro bono work and corporate social responsibility, but only if this connects to something real about your own interests or values.

This is worth including when it is authentic and worth leaving out when it is not. "I was particularly drawn to the firm's commitment to pro bono" is a statement that appears in a significant number of applications and means very little unless it connects to something specific: a cause you have worked on, a type of client you care about, or an experience that shaped your views on access to justice. When it does connect, it is genuinely powerful. When it does not, it reads as padding.

Where to find it: Firm pro bono pages, annual responsibility or ESG reports, news articles about specific pro bono matters.

How to turn research into strong application answers

Research is useless unless you can use it. Before submitting any answer that draws on firm research, apply three tests.

Could this answer be sent to another firm with minimal edits? If yes, it has not used your research effectively enough.

Have you explained why what you found matters to you specifically? The connection between the firm's work and your own interests, experience, or ambitions is what makes an answer personal rather than generic.

Have you linked the firm's work to your skills or experiences somewhere in the answer? An answer that describes the firm accurately but never connects back to you leaves the recruiter without a reason to believe the fit is genuine.

Quick reference research table

A note on using research to decide where not to apply

Research also plays a useful role in helping you decide which firms are not right for you. This is something many candidates avoid because the market is competitive and the instinct is to apply broadly. But applying to a firm whose core focus is an area of law that does not genuinely interest you produces weaker applications, because the answers written in genuine alignment with a firm's strengths are almost always more compelling than those written to tick a box.

Being selective based on research, and being honest about what you found in that process, tends to produce a smaller number of stronger applications rather than a larger number of mediocre ones. Recruiters can tell the difference.

Once you have completed your research, see our why this firm guide for how to structure your answers.

Want a structured approach to developing the commercial awareness your research requires?

Understanding why a deal matters commercially, how a firm's practice area positioning connects to market conditions, and what a recent strategic development means for a firm's clients requires genuine commercial understanding rather than the ability to read a press release. The Commercial Awareness Starter Pack gives you the frameworks to research firms at the depth that produces specific, credible answers. The Future Trainee Academy includes a dedicated section on firm research from a senior research analyst at Chambers and Partners, covering exactly how to use rankings, deal information, and firm data to build application answers. Both are free to access.