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I'm facing a similar decision (replace Willkie with Cleary) and my advisor suggested I go with Shearman for what it's worth.

Anonymous User wrote:I'm facing a similar decision (replace Willkie with Cleary) and my advisor suggested I go with Shearman for what it's worth.

Choosing Shearman over Cleary? I don't understand. What was the rationale? I truly don't understand why someone would take Shearman over Cleary unless there was a particular foreign market/office you were looking at. (e.g. Tokyo)

Shearman has been shedding major clients for decades now. For example, Meryll Lynch was a huge client, but when BoA bought ML, Shearman lost an institutional client. I've also heard that there are a fair number of screamers in the NY office from juniors who work there.

That's not to say it's a bad firm; obviously it's still a great firm, but it's reputation has for awhile been the firm whose best days are behind them.

In response to your query as to why I'm leaning Shearman over Cleary, it's much easier to do the work you want to do at Shearman. I have many 3L friends who warned me about not getting work in the practice areas they wanted (and I want a very specific area...). I know a lot of associates at Shearman and can honestly say not one of them is unhappy (by NYC biglaw standards of course). Not the case at Cleary, even if it is ranked higher.

I have a family member who is a partner at a firm in the V10 and he says Shearman is severely under appreciated by law students and Willkie overrated. Obviously can't go into details at the risk of outing myself.

Anonymous User wrote:I have a family member who is a partner at a firm in the V10 and he says Shearman is severely under appreciated by law students and Willkie overrated. Obviously can't go into details at the risk of outing myself.

You can explain the reasoning without outing yourself at all. This seems really odd to me.

Anonymous User wrote:Shearman has been shedding major clients for decades now. For example, Meryll Lynch was a huge client, but when BoA bought ML, Shearman lost an institutional client. I've also heard that there are a fair number of screamers in the NY office from juniors who work there.

That's not to say it's a bad firm; obviously it's still a great firm, but it's reputation has for awhile been the firm whose best days are behind them.

Who had Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers as institutional clients?

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Shearman has been shedding major clients for decades now. For example, Meryll Lynch was a huge client, but when BoA bought ML, Shearman lost an institutional client. I've also heard that there are a fair number of screamers in the NY office from juniors who work there.

That's not to say it's a bad firm; obviously it's still a great firm, but it's reputation has for awhile been the firm whose best days are behind them.

Who had Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers as institutional clients?

STB had Lehman.

Anonymous User wrote:In response to your query as to why I'm leaning Shearman over Cleary, it's much easier to do the work you want to do at Shearman. I have many 3L friends who warned me about not getting work in the practice areas they wanted (and I want a very specific area...). I know a lot of associates at Shearman and can honestly say not one of them is unhappy (by NYC biglaw standards of course). Not the case at Cleary, even if it is ranked higher.

The fuck are you talking about? Cleary basically gives you whatever assignment you want- the only thing that's hard to get on is sovereign work.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:In response to your query as to why I'm leaning Shearman over Cleary, it's much easier to do the work you want to do at Shearman. I have many 3L friends who warned me about not getting work in the practice areas they wanted (and I want a very specific area...). I know a lot of associates at Shearman and can honestly say not one of them is unhappy (by NYC biglaw standards of course). Not the case at Cleary, even if it is ranked higher.

The fuck are you talking about? Cleary basically gives you whatever assignment you want- the only thing that's hard to get on is sovereign work.

Well, I said I wanted a specific area...