What are firms really looking for in Case Studies?
One of the most fear-inducing questions in the recruitment process. Let’s break it down.
Many firms choose to use case studies (whether in the form of written or oral presentations) to assess their candidates for vacation schemes/training contracts during Assessment Centres. You can expect anything from 2 page briefs to 20-page bundles which you have to digest within 1 hour (!), which is designed to test your commercial acumen. These commonly involve Mergers & Acquisition, or geographical/market/product line expansions for fictitious clients. From my own experiences, here are 4 things the firms are really looking for.
1. Structure + Clarity
I think this is probably the most important item on this list. I can honestly say that THE ONE thing that got me my Training Contract is my structure. I thought that the content I presented was good but nothing mindblowing. Yet, what really stood out was that my structure was very very tight. If you take nothing else from this blog post, please take away the 4S’s: (1) Structure, (2) Signposting, (3) State Conclusion, and (4) Specifics. Follow this framework and you'll be good to go!
* If you would like a more in-depth explanation of how to apply the 4S’s, click here to check out Season 1 Episode 1 of our Podcast - complete with a downloadable PDF guide!
2. Your ability to not just identify issues, but provide viable solutions
Law students tend to be very good at spotting issues (lots of practice from problem questions at uni!), but not providing solutions. As a commercial lawyer, your clients pay you for your solutions, not for you telling them "you got a problem here, you should go home and have a think about it". Therefore, for example, rather than just saying "the target company is deep in debt", you should say "the target company is deep in debt AND this is how we could overcome it/at least use it to our advantage (e.g. by negotiating down the sale price)". In a similar vein, if you were for example to tell your client "you should think more about this/do more research", that's unhelpful for the client, because it's not specific enough for them to go away and act swiftly on your advice. Rather, you should say something like "you should do more due diligence, specifically on the target's NCA-(non-current asset)-to-CA (current asset) ratio to figure out whether it has enough cash reserves to pay off its liabilities efficiently, which you can find from a more detailed breakdown of their balance sheet."
3. Your ability to be CONSTRUCTIVE - as a commercial lawyer, to facilitate your client's business plans, rather than hinder them
If a client comes to you very enthusiastically and says "we found this target for acquisition, super stoked about it, can't wait for you to give me pointers on how to proceed!" and you say back to them "nope, I don't think acquiring this target is a good idea", the client won't be very happy. Clients don't pay you a lot of money for you to say no to them - if you really have to say no (sometimes that's necessary - if you genuinely think that the decision is really bad for the client, you've got to be honest and thoroughly explain why), then at least be CONSTRUCTIVE about it.
In concrete terms, this means that you are going to say to the client something along the lines of "Well I don't think this specific acquisition is a good investment, BUT I can identify that you actually have three motivations behind this proposal, namely expanding your product line, expanding your geographical reach and increasing long-term revenue. In order to achieve those motivations, I think - rather than acquiring this target, which will give you more problems than benefits - a better strategy would be XYZ." This means that your client can walk away with a lot more to work on and to think about, rather than just a straight "no", which is going to be both frustrating and unconstructive for the client. While this is less encouraging than a “yes” from the client’s perspective, at least the client will appreciate your attempt to facilitate their decisions as much as possible.
That being said, you've always got to be realistic in managing the client's expectations - you can't just say "yup that's a really great plan, go for it!" without addressing the potential challenges, which of course there will be in any case study.
This means that the best conclusion you could reach (unless the case study is written such that the acquisition would clearly be a bad idea) is something like "I do recommend that the client goes ahead with this acquisition, but there are three main challenges with this course of action, but these are not insurmountable and I will provide some suggestions as to how to overcome them."
4. Your ability to be an ambassador for your firm in relation to its full-service nature
The firm wants to see that you are familiar with the different practice areas of the firm, particularly the areas that the firm is good at. Especially if you were writing a letter to a client (as opposed to an internal email/memo to your supervising partner), you'd need to say something along the lines of "I see that there is a potential litigation issue here. We have a very strong practice in dispute resolution, I would be more than happy to refer you to my colleagues in that department in relation to this particular part of the situation".
So there, a short and sweet summary of how to do it! Let us know whether this article helped you on your Assessment Centres, and good luck!