Dechert - Playbook (Winter Vacation Scheme 2026)

Are you applying for a Dechert Vacation Scheme?

Here’s the research you need to stand out!

This Playbook covers:

💰 Why private capital is the strategy
🏦 London office has a new focus
📈 What the partner promotions reveal
🇺🇸 Why the US raid makes London more useful, not less
⚠️ The biggest test facing the firm

Plus how to use this information to stand out in applications and interviews!

⏰ Deadline: 16 October

More US Offices, please

What's going on?

Dechert made some big moves in January by hiring more than 20 partners from McDermott Will & Schulte, led by Mike Poulos, McDermott's former global strategy chief. Poulos became Dechert's vice chair and global head of strategy.

🇺🇸 This was part of Dechert's US growth strategy. The McDermott group brought new or relaunched presences in Chicago and Dallas, while Dechert also moved to set up Houston and hired prominent trial lawyer Randy Mastro in New York. 

This was a big turning point for the firm given in 2024 it had closed Chicago as well as Beijing and Hong Kong following a strategic review. 

What's the signal?

Please don't just say “Dechert opened offices.”

You want to show you know your stuff, and to do that you need to talk about the deeper move: capital reallocation. Dechert reduced its global footprint to make a very large bet on US litigation, corporate and related premium practices.

Plus this is great news for the London office. Dechert's London office already houses a full US corporate capability and describes itself as a resource both for US companies operating internationally and international businesses accessing US capital.

Dechert's growing US platform makes London more, not less, strategically useful as the connector between American capital and European transactions and regulation. 

How to use this in your Application