“It’s absolutely a stressful time for everyone," former Gilbert + Tobin clerk and now graduate lawyer Madeline Connolly said. "There’s a limited amount of spots and you’re up against your friends.”

Law firms, too, feel the pressure at this time of year, as they compete for the best candidates.

“Law is the only industry I know of where we all get together and compete for the same applicants,” Ms Dean said. “So the process is high-touch, because we’re super competitive with everyone else.”

Ms Connolly said that she was aware in the process that “as much as the firms are interviewing me, I’m interviewing them”.

The cocktail nights, for example, are partly about the firm selling itself to the students as they are about students impressing their potential employer, Ms Dean said.

'Genuine conversations'

“By the cocktail party at the end, we know who we’re chasing and who’s going to get an offer from every firm.”


Ms Connolly proves the truth of this; fielding offers from several firms, she said that the cocktail night was what sold her on Gilbert + Tobin.

“I really clicked with people at the firm, and had really genuine conversations with the junior lawyers there,” she said, adding that she made some great friends through her clerkship program.

There’s a benefit to firms and candidates alike in maintaining calm throughout the process, as both agree that it is ultimately personality that determines what offers the HR department makes.

“Once you get to an interview stage, it’s about a cultural fit, and that’s not a reflection on students’ achievements,” UNSW law school careers adviser Siobhan Ryan said.

“The innate personality, you can’t change that,” Ms Dean added, explaining why determining how a candidate will fit in at the firm is a focus of the application process. “You come across as fake and that’s not successful.”

While demand for clerkships is not slowing, Ms Ryan believes that law students need more exposure to other pathways into legal careers.

“They’re an over-emphasised pathway and students don’t realise what else they can do,” she said. “From the outset, that is the goal, that is the medal for high-achieving law students. But there’s so many other options that may be better for that particular student.”