Allens Confidential podcast
Commerciality and clerkships
Law firms often say they look for candidates who demonstrate commerciality, but what does that mean? Cat and Sam catch up with Partner and Head of M&A Vijay Cugati and Senior Associate Sassica Hoolahan to explore the concept of commerciality. What are law firms looking for? How do you develop it? What do you do if it comes up in an interview?
Some of the questions we discussed
- What is commerciality?
- How can you draw on your life experiences to demonstrate commerciality?
- What can you do to develop commerciality?
- How do you talk about commerciality in an interview?
This episode is part of our 2024 series.
Listen to the episode
About the presenters: Sam Guzman and Cat Thomas
Sam joined Allens as a clerk in 2020/21 and is now (surprisingly to some) a 'qualified' lawyer rotating through the Banking & Finance team. Sam enjoys acoustic jams to 90s/2000s RnB and watching Survivor (US and AU) to wind down. If he's not watching Survivor, he's probably listening to podcasts dissecting the latest Survivor episode or chewing someone's ear off about it (…so beware).
Cat describes herself as being a victim of the height of 2012 Tumblr emo aesthetic epidemic. Having bravely freed herself from the clutches of the flannel shirt (mostly), she switched out her Vans for pumps having joined Allens as a clerk in 2020/21. Cat is now, against all odds, happily rotating through the Banking & Finance team, despite mentioning that it was her last preference during her clerkship interview. As you can tell, she has a bit of a reputation for saying the quiet part out loud, mostly because she says everything really loudly.