Together with

Table of Contents

• EDITOR’S RAMBLE 🗣

• FEATURED REPORT 📰

• TOGETHER WITH CIBYL* 🤝

• IN OTHER NEWS 🗞

• AROUND THE WEB 🌐

• STUFF THAT MIGHT HELP YOU 👌

EDITOR’S RAMBLE 🗣

Last week, I opened Instagram and got a pop up asking if I wanted to pay £3.99 a month to stop receiving personalised ads.

I read more into this, and here’s what's actually going on — there’s also a commercial insight you can take away too.

Meta (the company that owns Facebook and Instagram) has started sending notifications to UK users asking if they want to pay to go ad-free.

You’re paying to remove ads from your feed (stopping Meta using your data to show you personalised ads).

Right now, Meta makes most of its money by selling ad space on its platforms. It uses your data to target those ads precisely. So if you've been watching running videos, it might show you Nike ads in your feed.

For £3.99, the subscription gives you the option to opt out of all that.

But I decided I didn’t want to pay. So, what happens if you choose that?

Nothing. You keep using Facebook and Instagram for free — but you'll see personalised ads, just as you always have.

For me, what’s interesting is why Meta has decided to do this.

In the UK, we have the Information Commissioner's Office (or the ICO) — it’s the UK's data regulator. The ICO published guidance last year encouraging companies to give users a genuine choice about how their data is used, and this is Meta's response. It's called a "consent or pay" model — you either consent to personalised ads, or you pay to avoid them.

It's not just Meta doing this. Lots of news websites do the same thing — you've probably seen the pop-ups asking you to accept cookies or pay to read an article.

People have been unhappy about how big tech uses their data for a long time. So is this the fix? Well, sort of. It gives you a choice — but only if you can afford to make it.

Maybe it’s something you can discuss in your applications. It’s a good example of UK regulators changing how big tech companies operate. For tech companies, the real test is whether this becomes the new normal, or if regulators push for something stronger.

– Idin

P.S. If you want to enter the UK’s biggest student careers survey (and a shot at a £2,000 cash prize), click here.

FEATURED REPORT 📰

💰 Rising gold prices explained (and why law firms care)

What’s going on here?

Gold hit a record high of $5,595 an ounce last week — then it crashed nearly 10% in just a few days, its steepest fall since 1983.

You've probably seen the headlines about gold prices. But you might not understand why it actually happened. So we're going to break it down simply, explaining what caused this wild swing, and why law firms are paying attention.

Why do investors buy gold?

Gold is known as the "safe haven asset". When company stocks are performing badly or currencies look unstable, investors move their money into gold (and other metals like silver).

There are three key reasons for this.

🏛️ Gold not tied to any single government or institution: A stock's value depends on a company's performance. A bond depends on a government repaying its debt. A currency depends on a central bank behaving responsibly. But gold is a physical thing sitting in a vault. No politician can print more of it or change its rules. That makes it attractive when there is lower trust in institutions.

💷 Gold can't be debased: Debasement is when a currency loses its value, so when a certain number of pounds buys fewer goods than it used to. If you could buy a loaf of bread for £1 in 2020 but the same loaf costs £1.50 in 2026, your pounds have been debased. Because gold is a physical asset with a limited supply, it can’t be diluted like paper money. So over a long-term period, it tends to hold its purchasing power better than cash (even if its price changes in the short term). That’s why when inflation is eroding the value of cash, investors move into gold to protect their purchasing power.

📜 Gold has a long track record: Gold predates modern financial systems and has repeatedly held its value when those systems failed or were reset. Investors know this history. So when uncertainty rises, they anticipate that other investors will pile into gold too, but they try to get there first.

What’s caused these recent dramatic shifts in gold prices?

The recent uptick in the price of gold began in early 2024, but the most dramatic movement has happened since the start of this year.

The chart below shows the price of one ounce of gold in dollars over the past month — from the start of January to yesterday.

Let's walk through what happened at each stage.

Stage 1: A steady rise (early January)

Gold prices were already climbing. Investors expected continued growing demand, like we saw in 2025, partly because of anticipated “monetary easing” in the US.

The problem with monetary easing is that, when you print more money, each dollar becomes worth a little less — and that's debasement.

When investors worry that the dollar is going to lose value, they look for somewhere safer to move their money, like gold.

So even though monetary easing hadn't actually happened yet, the expectation that it would happen was enough to push investors toward gold, and prices rose steadily.

Stage 2: The first spike (around 5 January)

On 3 January, the US carried out a large-scale military strike on Venezuela and captured President Nicolás Maduro. It’s no coincidence that gold spiked two days later.

The reason for the two-day delay was because the strike happened on a Saturday (less trading takes place over the weekend). Plus, since it was a covert operation, investors waited for more information before deciding how to react.

There were two factors following the invasion of Venezuela that contributed to the rise in the price of gold.

🌍 Short term — Geopolitical uncertainty: Gold is safe haven for money. So when the world feels less stable, investors move their money into gold. It's a "wait and see" strategy until the dust settles.

⛽ Longer term — Inflation fears: Since Venezuela is a major oil producer, uncertainty about its oil supply meant global oil prices could rise. And when oil gets more expensive, it increases the cost of producing and transporting pretty much everything. Those costs usually get passed on to consumers as higher prices (that’s inflation). And when investors worry about inflation eroding the value of their money, again they turn to gold.

Stage 3: The climb (mid-January)

Gold kept rising through mid-January as there were more geopolitical tensions — this time in the Middle East.

Widespread protests intensified in Iran, raising fears of broader regional instability. Investors worried about the risk of escalation, or even American intervention. That uncertainty drove more demand for gold (again, as a “wait and see” safe haven).

Iran is also a major oil producer. So the unrest increased concerns about potential disruptions to oil supply. More oil uncertainty meant more inflation fears, which pushed investors further toward gold.

Stage 4: Breakout (19-29 January)

From 19-29 January, gold surged dramatically.

This was driven by two factors.

🏦 A new potential Fed chair: Donald Trump appeared to back Kevin Hassett as the new head of the Federal Reserve (the US central bank). Hassett was expected to take a "loose" approach to monetary policy — meaning he'd likely cut interest rates further and possibly print more dollars to boost economic growth. That fuelled more fears of inflation and currency debasement, making gold even more attractive as a store of value.

🇬🇱 Tensions in Greenland: From 20-22 January, Trump publicly renewed talk of acquiring Greenland, even suggesting military operations, adding to market anxiety. There was also talk of tariffs tied to the Greenland negotiations — and tariffs tend to push up prices for consumers, which means more inflationary pressure. All of this made gold look more appealing.

Stage 5: The crash (after 30 January)

On 30 January, Donald Trump announced that Kevin Warsh — not Kevin Hassett — would be the next chair of the Federal Reserve.

Warsh has been a critic of loose, inflationary monetary policy. He's the opposite of Hassett — so markets expected him to prioritise controlling inflation over boosting short-term growth. That meant less money printing, a stronger dollar, and less reason to hold gold.

The reason the drop was so sharp was because a lot of investors had piled into gold during the rise, hoping to ride the wave up. That meant there were very few buyers waiting on the sidelines. So when people started selling, there wasn't enough demand to absorb the supply. Prices had to fall fast to tempt reluctant new buyers back in, which made the decline steep.

Why should law firms care?

Commercial law firms don’t necessarily care whether gold is $4,400 or $5,600 an ounce.

But they might care about the price volatility in itself. That's because the factors driving gold prices (uncertainty around interest rates, inflation, currencies, and geopolitics) are the same factors that affect their clients' commercial decisions.

When gold is volatile, it often means trouble elsewhere too.

📉 Stock prices become volatile: When investors keep changing their view on how valuable or risky companies are, share prices swing. That creates "execution risk" for deals — particularly IPOs, which become more likely to be repriced at the last minute, delayed, or abandoned altogether.

Even if an IPO does go ahead, the company's share price can be volatile afterwards, attracting complaints from investors and attention from regulators. So corporate lawyers have to make sure disclosure documents shared with investors properly reflect these pricing risks, and establish who's responsible if investors later claim they were misled.

💷 Financing terms get tighter: The same uncertainties that make gold volatile also make lenders nervous. They become less confident about a borrower's future cash flows, and they worry about what the money they're repaid will actually be worth.

When lenders are nervous, they protect themselves. They demand higher interest rates, impose stricter rules on what borrowers can do with the money, and ask for stronger protections if things go wrong. For lawyers, that means loan agreements are harder to negotiate and take longer to finalise (with a greater risk of funding being withdrawn if a deal can't be reached).

🤝 Deal certainty drops: An uncertain financing environment has a knock-on effect more generally in M&A. When lenders are nervous, buyers find it harder to secure funding, so fewer deals happen (which means fewer transactions for law firms to work on).

Even when deals do go ahead, there's a greater risk they fall through before completion because the buyer’s financing might not come through. Both sides could incur significant costs along the way, like legal fees, due diligence, advisory work. If the buyer can't secure financing at the last minute, that's all wasted. So lawyers acting for sellers would focus more heavily on whether the buyer can actually access the funds — and who pays if the deal collapses.

How can you use this in your applications?

You probably won't discuss gold prices directly in an interview.

But it’s worth knowing about the volatility, and what it means. It’s indicative of the kind of market uncertainty that affects deal flow, financing conditions, and client appetite for risk. And when clients do fewer deals, law firms make less money.

Being able to connect the dots between macroeconomic signals and the work law firms do shows you really understand the firm as a business.

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IN OTHER NEWS 🗞

• 🇺🇸 The US law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett is launching a formal training contract in its London office. Until now, the firm would support paralegals through the SQE and let them qualify that way. There aren’t a lot of details yet (for example, trainee numbers aren’t confirmed). But pay is expected to be right at the top of the market, with only a small intake at first. The change comes as the London office grows past 250 lawyers, driven mostly by private equity, M&A and funds work.

• 🤝 Partners at Winston & Strawn and Taylor Wessing have approved their £1.2 billion merger, with the new firm launching in May 2026. The combined business, called Winston Taylor (which already has a website), will have over 1,400 lawyers across 20 offices. Taylor Wessing’s Netherlands and Belgium teams will join the new brand, while its German firm stays separate but linked through a referral deal.

• 🧠 Lawyers are using AI “vibe coding” to turn side projects into real tools at work. Instead of waiting for legal tech platforms to solve their problems, individual lawyers are building their own fixes for problems like document review and time recording. Some of these tools are already live in firms like Clifford Chance and Linklaters. The trend stems from easy AI coding tools and a focus on small, practical pain points (rather than big startup ideas). There’s even a new open platform, vibecode.law, showing how fast this is growing.

AROUND THE WEB 🌐

• 🔓 Game: Spin rings to spell five words and crack the safe

• 🏡 Eyesore: A professional groundskeeper in Australia just won the world's ugliest lawn competition

• 🧘 Enlightened: A parody guided meditation site for finding calm while the planet suffers from climate change

STUFF THAT MIGHT HELP YOU 👌

• 💻️ Free application advice: Check out my YouTube channel for actionable tips and an insight into the lifestyle of a commercial lawyer in London.

• 📁 Law firm application bank: A growing library of real, verified successful applications for training contracts and vacation schemes. Helpful if you want to learn from others who answered the same questions you’re stuck on.

• 📝 Write winning law firm applications: A practical course to help you write clearer applications, faster. Avoid common mistakes, learn how to structure answers properly, and get lifetime access to future updates. Try it for 14 days, risk free.