It wasn't great, it was definitive.

W&C's litigation department is better than most, if not all, of the NYC V10 firms' litigation departments. Then again, it depends on what kind of litigation you're talking about. If you're talking about securities litigation, some random, tall-building NYC firm is probably the best. If you're talking about appellate litigation, look at lit departments in DC to find the best ones: GDC, Wilmer, W&C, Kirkland, etc.

V15 only

For shareholder and securities lit: any v15
Toxic torts and products liability: skadden, Kirkland GDC
Financial regulatory lit: Paul Weiss, Dpw, S&C you get the picture
White collar: S&C, deb, Davis polk, Paul Weiss, Kirkland, GDC
Bet the company lit: skadden, Kirkland, GDC, Paul Weiss

Not meant to be definitive or exhaustive. Just firms that come to mind when I think of the various categories

Not V15, but V50: Paul Hastings and Proskauer have fantastic L&E departments. Littler Mendelson (*gasp*, a V100) specializes in L&E (although they dabble in other stuff, too).

Not to sound like a broken record, but shit loads of these questions can be answered via chambers & partners in like 10 seconds. Look up the V10-V15ish firms. Pick the market you're interested in. Open litigation rankings. See which are band 1 and which aren't.

You can go further, but it's at least splitting hairs and (more likely) splitting markets and practice areas. Calling Williams & Connolly "better" than the rest of the V10 for litigation is just... weird. W&C does very different stuff, as a firm, than the big guys in NYC (and in some respects, even than the big guys down the street in DC).

And another thing - it always takes two to tango. Every big deal has at least 2 major firms involved and often more. Every big, nasty litigation fight will have lawyers on each side. And as a young lawyer at a firm the little differences just won't matter that much.

If you want to do M&A there are real reasons to look (a) at New York and (b) at the V5/V10ish firms over any others, if the options are at the table - but you just won't have an earth-shatteringly different career if you do M&A at Cravath vs. M&A at Cleary.

As for lit and corp, corp associates do bitch work but also rise in responsibility much more quickly than litigators. A litigator is going to be waiting a lot longer to run a case than a capital markets lawyer will be waiting to run a deal.

This is exacty right. Also easier to make it rain.

W&C is easily better than any NYC firm. There is a reason its the #1 most desired firm for the top students at HLS and YLS. No one on the law review at HYS wants to toil away marking up documents for bankers. All the big NYC firms are basically shops for the big banks. All their litigation is finance focused. That is the reason practicing law in NYC sucks. Who the hell wants to work on banking related matters every day?

Firms like W&C, Covington DC, GDC DC, and Wilmer DC are the most desirable firms for law review forks because of the diversity of different litigation assignments available.

You're not going to DC just to do Products Liability/Mass Torts or IP. Not every litigator in NYC does securities work. DC is skewed towards Antitrust and regulatory work. If that's your thing, great, but I don't think DC practices are any more diversified. People go there because most of the people that go to law school were political science majors and want FedGov exit options.

. . .

Good stuff, thanks!

+1. Top students at HLS and YLS gun for some NY shops like Wachtell. Also there's a strong correlation between those who gun at HLS and YLS and wanting to clerk which is inconsistent with wanting to work in transactional. So the reason a lot of LR people gun for W&C, Cov, GDC, Wilmer, etc. in D.C. is because it more aligns with their career goals (and personality*) not because they are objectively better.

*Feed well into aspergers anonymous

Just want to say, <3 TSL.



And this

Wachtell is an outlier. I agree that it is the only firm in NYC even remotely of interest to LR folks at HYS. And mostly because of the pay.

Have you ever considered why top students want to clerk and be litigators? Cause thats what real attorney do. Not playing man servants to bankers. Top DC firms are objectively better than bank servicing NYC firms for the same reason that surgery residencies are better than primary care residencies. The harder something is to attain and the more desirable it is for among the top students, the better it is.

You can't just chalk it up to preference that LR students at HYS want to be in DC over NYC.

Wait... "You can't just chalk it up to preference that LR students at HYS want to be in DC over NYC."

I'm chalking it up to the preference that LR students want to do litigation and not corporate - not the fact that they want to be in DC over NYC. Is it actually possible for you to miss the point by that much? I mean really. I wrote like 3 sentences and you basically completely failed to understand each and every sentence... I applaud you.

"Top DC firms are objectively better than bank servicing NYC firms for the same reason that surgery residencies are better than primary care residencies. The harder something is to attain and the more desirable it is for among the top students, the better it is."

This is probably the singlemost retarded analogy I've ever read in my life. Honestly, I give you credit for this. I didn't think it was possible to be this naive. I could just as easily say that becoming a corporate rainmaking partner is objectively better than becoming a top litigation partner because they make more money which would make it more objectively better. Or the exit opportunities of a corporate senior associate/partner is better which makes it "objectively better."

There's just completely different skill sets that make one more suitable for litigation or corporate work. A lot of those skill sets tend to make it more desirable for LR students to go for litigation.

Also, I don't think you have the authority to define what a "real attorney" is. HTH

But...But... !!

Lol guy wants to be Franklin and Bash.

I noticed that thesealocust posted something about the top firms having tax departments anyone know the relative prestige of the V15ish tax divisons?

NYC BigLaw is probably terrible for a lot of reasons. The quality of the work is not one of them.

OP is clearly asking about V15 firms. A huge percentage of V15 lawyers are in NYC. Yes, Vault rankings are about as NYC-centric as they can get. Yes, Vault has a New York bias. But so does $$$.

NB: Cross reference practice area size if you can too. It's more significant (for your prospects of getting hired / being in that group) if a firm is band 1 in tax with 40 tax attorneys than if it's band 1 in tax with 5.

Thanks I appreciate it!

Okay then why do top LR students want to do lit over corp?

You can't just say that people who happen to do well in law school are somehow naturally attracted to lit. Its simple. Litigation involves real lawyering while corp involves doing b*tchwork for bankers.

God I love this feature.

This statement actually makes perfect sense. Law school coursework has far more to do with litigation than corporate work. It's not outrageous to think people whose interests and talents skew toward litigation will tend to do better in law school.

Don't. Bother. Trying.

Anticipated response: BUT REAL ATTORNEYZ DO!

good point. I was torn between responding or also adding him as a foe.