A Guide to Answering TC Questions on Legal Industry Trends

At some point in a law firm’s training contract recruitment process, you’ll likely have to discuss legal industry trends.

Questions take different forms and can ask you to focus on different aspects.

This is a key part of commercial awareness and is essential if you’re to land a training contract offer.

In this post, I’ll give you some tips on the different legal trends to consider and show you how to answer these kinds of questions.

So, let’s dive in…

Which trends should you know about?

There’s not one definitive list the firms want you to know about.

However, they will want you to understand the trends that directly affect their firm.

Trends can be split into the following high-level categories:

• Trends affecting the whole (or a large part) of the legal industry.
• Trends affecting a specific part of the legal market.
• Trends affecting specific practice areas.

Let’s look at each of these in turn.

1. Trends affecting the whole (or a large part) of the legal industry.

There are always trends affecting the whole, or large parts of, the legal industry. Over recent years, these have been things like:

• Brexit
• Hybrid working (since the Covid pandemic)
• Legal technology & AI
• Billing (traditional hourly rates versus fixed fees)

You need to research what the current trends are.

You’re seeking to convince a firm that you want to enter the legal industry, so they will expect you to know the key current issues.

2. Trends affecting a specific part of the legal market.

Some trends are narrower and relate to a more specific part of the legal market.

For example:

• US firms with London offices challenging the large UK headquartered City firms for high-ticket corporate and finance work.
• Geographical expansion to compete for international work resulting from globalisation.
• Consolidation of parts of the market through law firm mergers and acquisitions.
• The challenge of the big 4 accountancy firms.

You’ll need to know the trends affecting the segment of the legal market occupied by the firm you’re applying to.

3. Trends affecting specific practice areas.

There are also trends and developments in different practice areas. You’ll find that some practice areas have more going on than others at any point in time.

For example:

• Employment – reforms seeking to give employees more rights.
• Data Protection – lots of regulation (eg GDPR) and debate around privacy and levels of data protection.
• AI – still in its infancy but developing at pace, all of which makes for lots of developments in the law around it.

You’re not necessarily expected to know the technicalities of the law around it. Instead, you should understand the role the law is currently playing and the challenges and possible developments on the horizon.

Ok, so now that we’ve looked at the different legal trends, let’s look at how to answer questions about them.

How to answer application and interview questions about legal trends

The majority of candidates don’t answer these sorts of questions well.

So, it gives you the opportunity to gain a competitive advantage if you do.

Here are 3 crucial tips on how to construct a strong answer:

1. Get clear on what you’re being asked.

This might seem obvious, but you should spend time analysing the question to get crystal clear on what it’s asking you.

A big mistake many candidates make is not answering the specific question in front of them. This may be because they use a previous answer to a similar question on another application without considering how it needs to be adapted to this new question.

Or they fail to answer every part of the question.

So, before you do anything, critically analyse the question and break it down into its specific component parts.

2. Choose a trend that interests you.

When choosing a trend to base your answer on, it’s best to choose one that genuinely interests you.

That way, it will be easier for you to research, understand and talk about in your applications and interviews.

A mistake many candidates make is to choose a trend they think the recruiter will want them to know about, without having a particular interest in it. A recent example of this is AI. 

What then happens is they make the same high-level obvious points about it that many other candidates do.

The opposite is also true for some candidates – they don’t choose a trend such as AI because they think it’s too obvious or overused by candidates. This is a mistake if they can show they understand it and are interested in it.

You also need to choose a trend that’s relevant to the firm you’re applying to, even if the question doesn’t expressly ask for this. Every trend doesn’t affect every firm in the same way, if at all. 

This will be influenced by specific aspects of each firm, such as its strategy, specialisms and client base.

3. Conduct in-depth research.

Whilst you don’t need to be an expert on the subject, you do need to conduct some deeper research on these trends.

The mistake many candidates make is they go about it like this:

• They search for an article on trends
• They pick one of the trends from the article
• They use that article as the only source of information relating to the trend.

It’s highly likely that a single section of an article will lack all the information you need to demonstrate a deeper understanding and answer the question well.

Instead, you need to research the trend in more detail to find the related points and opinions around it. Then, use your answer to discuss key elements you find interesting.

By conducting more extensive research, you will also avoid a common issue in interviews. This is when a candidate is pressed further about the trend they’ve chosen, and they aren’t able to expand on it.

So, go beyond the headlines and research multiple articles and other materials on legal trends. Add to this what you pick up from law firm presentations and conversations with lawyers and trainees working in specific practice areas and parts of the legal market.

Ideally, you do this research over time rather than as you’re trying to write your answer or prep for an interview. 

That’s what firms would hope you’re doing to develop your commercial awareness.

4. Structure your answers well.

Beyond demonstrating your understanding, the key to answering these questions well is how you structure your answers.

A common mistake candidates make is to cram as many points in as possible to try to score marks. But this isn’t what recruiters are looking for. They want a clear explanation of the legal trend that’s easy to follow and shows good knowledge.

To do this, I recommend you outline your points first. In applications, this is easy as you can write them out as part of your writing process. For interviews, it’s also worth having the key points for each trend noted as final revision notes to review ahead of the interview day.

As mentioned, you may be tempted to add lots of points to show off your understanding. However, taking a less-is-more approach and explaining, say, three main points around the trend is usually better.

I usually aim for three main points, although sometimes two or four points may be necessary and work well. If you find you’re getting to five or more points, review them with a critical eye. You could look to group the points or remove some of the more minor points completely.

You can then keep these additional points in reserve should you end up having a broader discussion around the trend in an interview.

Start now

The best way to understand legal trends is to start the research now.

This doesn’t need to be time-consuming – just get the basics from a few articles.

Then incorporate on-going research into your weekly reading and commercial awareness activities. When you come across further discussion around the main trends, make notes on what this is and what interests you most.

Just like a trend, you’re deeper knowledge and interest will develop gradually over time.