The assessment centre is split into four sections. These are a contract review, a group exercise, an interview and a partner review.
From previous applicants we can learn the following:
Contract Review
The contract review is essentially a glorified proof-reading task, in which you need to correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors as appropriate. According to one previous applicant, many of the errors were very obvious – like an incorrect postcode, misspelled names, misformatted numbers, etc. Other errors were subjective – and you are required to correct these too (i.e. you need to correct the ‘form’ or ‘style’ if it is especially poorly written).
Group Exercise
The group exercise is business-orientated, and you will not need to have or display any previous legal knowledge. You will discuss issues within the group, create solutions as a group, and then present these solutions.
Partner Review
This is thought to be the hardest part of the day. You will be provided with a scenario and an extensive set of documents relevant to that scenario. There will likely be too much information to read everything in detail. You are then given 45 minutes to formulate a business proposal based on the information that you have assimilated, and you then present this verbally to two partners from the firm. The partners will then question you on your decision, as well as seeing how you respond to new information (i.e. they will add new elements in and see if you change your answer or reasoning). Another student explains that they were given a list of documents, some of which ‘were deliberately useless’ and provided half an hour to make a note of the key issues. They then had a discussion with partners about how they would approach the problem and next steps. They emphasise that they were allowed to take in only one side of notes, and none of the documents.
Interview
You will face a series of typical questions here. Examples from previous applicants include:
– Why AG?
– Why law?
– What would you do in this [situation]?