It's official - lawyers should never try to be trendy. That was the overriding message from a panel of four students letting off steam about the law firm recruitment process to a shifty-looking audience of graduate recruitment heads at a BPP conference last week. Thumbs up: group assessment exercises and drinks with trainees who cave in and tell the truth late on in the evening. Thumbs down: insincere rejection letters, on-line application forms that crash and - worst of all - lawyers masquerading as people with lives. One student snarled: 'I went to one open day with a media firm, and they were trying so hard to be "edgy" and cool. It was awful. They're not cool - they're lawyers!'