What is an in-tray exercise?

What does an in-tray exercise involve?

Imagine you are going into work as a trainee solicitor. You open your laptop and you find emails filling your inbox tray. This is what an in-tray exercise simulates. It will be a variety of inbox emails that will formulate your to do list. You have to work through them and utilise the attached documents in order to draft your response.

This may be you advising a client, or helping a partner research a certain element of the law that they’re unsure of. The documents can be anything from letters, telephone messages, reports or memos.

So, how do you succeed in them?

Part of this is testing your ability to work under pressure. There will be a timed element to this, so you have to write and send your response with a certain time frame. So, make sure you do send it back in time. Sending in what you have done within the timeframe is better than a slightly more fluent answer that is sent in late.

Due to the time pressure, you’ll need to keep calm and work through the documents logically. Make sure you allow yourself to read all of the documents and understand them before you begin. Then, think about how you want to structure your answer. Don’t just jump straight in; first formulate how you will lay out your response.

Sometimes, they might throw a new piece of information to you halfway through exercise. There might be an update from the client, or a new piece of information that the partner has found out. Digest this information and adjust your answer accordingly. Certainly don’t ignore it. However, do not let it startle you!

Prioritisation is key. If they have set you five tasks, figure out which is the highest priority. Sometimes organising the tasks into 4 categories can be helpful: urgent and important, important but not urgent, not important but urgent and not urgent and not important. Use this to inform what tasks you do first and what you leave until the end.

If you have done some research into the law firm before you have attended the assessment centre, you will know their core values. So, try and make your work reflect these: if they are big on teamwork then emailing someone for their opinion or advice might be a good step forward!