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Trying to choose between a few SV offers. Although I came to law school interested in patent lit, I wonder if a tech transactions career will be better suited. 32-year-old mom (EE background). Mentoring support and feedback are my most important criteria. My choices are:

Orrick: Good in IP and NorCal; but seemed a little macho to me (my subjective opinion based on interviews)

Fenwick & West: Smaller, geeky, may be a better fit for me, but little presence outside SV, I think. While I don't necessarily want to practice in Asia, I have seen tech firms and individuals fail because they were not diversified and the market changed. Unsure if this is something to worry about for law firms.

Ropes & Gray was my #1 choice, but they have not gotten back to me yet. Smaller SV satellite office; good in IP; may let me try both patent lit and tech trans; I heard about high associate satisfaction and training rankings.

I will be 34 when I graduate, and would be interested in gov't, small firm, or in house in the future if big-law does not work out. Right now, making partner is the primary goal.

SV patent lit attorney here. Cooley and Fenwick are the biggest names on that list and would give you the best diversity of work. The other firms would have you working in smaller satellite offices and working for giant corporations on giant cases most of the time.

Anonymous User wrote:SV patent lit attorney here. Cooley and Fenwick are the biggest names on that list and would give you the best diversity of work. The other firms would have you working in smaller satellite offices and working for giant corporations on giant cases most of the time.

Thanks! So giant corps. (Apple) and giant cases (Samsung) are not the most cutting-edge work? The quality of my work (interesting and intellectual) is important to me.

My point of comparison is that the EE research at big-name Apple is definitely better than at a small contract manufacturer of integrated circuits. I don't know if this applies to firms as well.

So, I was at Ropes' SV office last summer. One of the patent litigation attorneys I met summered at Ropes and Fenwick doing IP lit and she preferred Ropes. Not sure why, though. But honestly, every person is unique, and so you should go for what is best for you.

If you're a mom, I know Ropes tries to be very supportive of women. There was an attorney I met this summer who went into Ropes part-time from the very start, since she was pregnant. She was pregnant with her second child this summer.

Ropes does a lot of interesting litigation work even though it is a satellite office. In fact, I wouldn't see it as a satellite office per se, since the Silicon Valley office used to be the old Fish and Neeve pre-acquisition. You'll get the opportunity to do substantive work while you're there. For example, many of the attorneys I met did a lot of depos starting their first year. They also do a lot of training (e.g. mock Markman hearings).

P.S. I also forgot to mention that Ropes' best selling point are the people there. The patent litigation folks are great.

Anonymous User wrote:They also do a lot of training (e.g. mock Markman hearings).

Thanks, I loved the folks I interviewed with. Does one have to travel to Boston to attend the mock Markman hearings and other training?
Folks have advised me to work at a HQ firm because one gets noticed more by the people who make the decisions, and because of more contacts.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:SV patent lit attorney here. Cooley and Fenwick are the biggest names on that list and would give you the best diversity of work. The other firms would have you working in smaller satellite offices and working for giant corporations on giant cases most of the time.

Thanks! So giant corps. (Apple) and giant cases (Samsung) are not the most cutting-edge work? The quality of my work (interesting and intellectual) is important to me. Cooley and Fenwick both have low Vault rankings and I wonder if that means lower-quality work? I'm not being stupid/troll; I just don't know how important those rankings are.

My point of comparison is that the EE research at big-name Apple is definitely better than at a small contract manufacturer of integrated circuits. I don't know if this applies to firms as well.

Hell fucking no, Apple v. Samsung is drudgery at its worst. You'd be doing rote discovery bullshit and document review all day every day. You want to get on smaller cases and get substantive experience with depositions, motions, expert reports, MSJ briefs, etc. However, I'm not sure Apple and Samsung are even suing each other anymore, so maybe you won't have to worry about this. I don't really know what you're looking for in terms of "quality" work. You shouldn't worry about the clients you're representing. Just worry about the partners you're working with and whether they're going to give you any experience that will be useful for your career in the long run. Vault rankings don't mean shit, as many others have said in this forum. C'mon man.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:They also do a lot of training (e.g. mock Markman hearings).

Thanks, I loved the folks I interviewed with. Does one have to travel to Boston to attend the mock Markman hearings and other training?
Folks have advised me to work at a HQ firm because one gets noticed more by the people who make the decisions, and because of more contacts.

So, the summer associate mock Markman hearing at Ropes was in NYC this summer, and Ropes flew out all the patent ligation summers for it. However, the Silicon Valley office did its own mock Markman hearing for associates.

Generally, yes, it is better to be at HQ to get noticed more. However, my impression is that a lot of the patent litigation work in the Silicon Valley office comes from local clients, probably because the clients are more long-standing given the Fish & Neeve history. Corporate associates in the Silicon Valley office often get tasked on assignments with other offices, whereas the patent lit work in Silicon Valley is very Silicon Valley centric.

Btw, I also forgot to talk about work with Asia. I don't know what your language skills are, but Ropes definitely likes to hire associates with language skills (i.e. Chinese, Korean) to handle clients from that region. For example, one patent litigation summer spoke fluent Korean, so he was tasked a lot on assignments for Korean clients. One associate even told me that they even flew her out to Asia as a summer given her language skills. So there might be opportunities. As you probably know, Ropes has offices in Japan, Korea, and China.

Anonymous User wrote:Trying to choose between a few SV offers. Although I came to law school interested in patent lit, I wonder if a tech transactions career will be better suited. 32-year-old mom (EE background). Mentoring support and feedback are my most important criteria. My choices are:

Orrick: Good in IP and NorCal; but seemed a little macho to me (my subjective opinion based on interviews)

I will be 34 when I graduate, and would be interested in gov't, small firm, or in house in the future if big-law does not work out. Right now, making partner is the primary goal.

Disclaimer: below is a shameless plug for Orrick. I am a second-year at Orrick.

Orrick SV office has a lot of male attorneys; hence female attorneys are precious assets. The firm is trying its best to balance the male-female ratio, to retain female associates, and to recruit more female associates and partners.

We have a lot of EE patent litigation cases. With your EE background, you will be staffed on a lot of cases. As long as you're doing an above-average job, you don't have to worry about your caseload. People will come to you and feed you work.

Meanwhile, people work across offices. I am in SoCal and I have been staffed on cases originating from NY, LA, DC, and SV. I work with people from different offices all the time.

As for your concern re being staffed on small cases, you can learn a lot in small cases. Small cases tend to be slim staffed. Usually, one partner, one or two associates. Thus, you may have opportunities to work on Markman briefs and tutorials and all the other important aspects of a patent lit. case during your first two years. During my first year, I had done expert reports, claim constructions, infringement/invalidity charting, and discovery motion practices.

The only downside I can think of is the hours. Litigation means long hours. An EE background means longer hours. That's something you should probably consider seriously.

Cooley and Fenwick both have low Vault rankings and I wonder if that means lower-quality work? I'm not being stupid/troll; I just don't know how important those rankings are.

My point of comparison is that the EE research at big-name Apple is definitely better than at a small contract manufacturer of integrated circuits. I don't know if this applies to firms as well.

YES! You should absolutely use the Vault rankings as your guide to decide on firms. In fact, I recommend that you only use the Vault rankings. People will say that it's a New York-biased ranking system or that one should consider other factors, but I suggest that you only consider Vault rankings. After all, all other considerations are irrelevant when compared to the prestige that you will be able to bask in when you walk into a room and proclaim, "I work at a Vault-xx firm."

Please, please, please choose a firm based purely on the Vault rankings! You won't regret it!

)

Anonymous User wrote:

Donkeykongmadness wrote:Please, please, please choose a firm based purely on the Vault rankings! You won't regret it!

Thank you so much for the advice. It is what I heard from other 1Ls as well. Hence I have chosen Cravath because I am interested in patent litigation in Palo Alto. This is also why I went to Yale

Well you fail. Clearly credited to choose WLRK because they're #1. Regardless of what you want to do and where you want to be.

I've considered these firms at one point in my life when I actually had a shot at them. For me, it'd come down to Cooley and Fenwick on paper, with both Ropes and Orrick as second tier choices that might get bumped up if I had a really good feeling about them during CBs (in this case, Ropes for you). Now to actually make a choice if I had them, that might just come down to gut feelings & coin flips.

!

Donkeykongmadness wrote:

Cooley and Fenwick both have low Vault rankings and I wonder if that means lower-quality work? I'm not being stupid/troll; I just don't know how important those rankings are.

My point of comparison is that the EE research at big-name Apple is definitely better than at a small contract manufacturer of integrated circuits. I don't know if this applies to firms as well.

YES! You should absolutely use the Vault rankings as your guide to decide on firms. In fact, I recommend that you only use the Vault rankings. People will say that it's a New York-biased ranking system or that one should consider other factors, but I suggest that you only consider Vault rankings. After all, all other considerations are irrelevant when compared to the prestige that you will be able to bask in when you walk into a room and proclaim, "I work at a Vault-xx firm."

Please, please, please choose a firm based purely on the Vault rankings! You won't regret it!

I don't really believe this. I'd at least look at the Chambers guide and see what bands your particular office is in the locale that you choose.

http://www.chambersandpartners.com/USA/Editorial/42800

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That person was clearly being sarcastic.

I most definitely was not being sarcastic. OP should follow in the footsteps of many wide eyes and bushy tailed young lawyers to be and seek the wisdom of the vault rankings. After all, prestige of the vault rankings is all that matters in this profession or anything else.

I hope OP chooses based on Vault rankings and reports back to us in a couple years about how wonderful his life and career is.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I don't really believe this. I'd at least look at the Chambers guide and see what bands your particular office is in the locale that you choose.
http://www.chambersandpartners.com/USA/Editorial/42800

Correct. Cooley and WSGR are really bad in CA - band 4 and 3, respectively.

Oh no! People who have gone to WSGR and Cooley are destined to be TTT deadbeats! I need to start sending out my resume! WSGR and Cooley are imploding!!!!! I hope the V10 firms will take me!

Relax.

OP here. I turned down Paul Hastings and got rejected by Cooley today. Did not actually have an offer from Cooley but was 99% sure of one at CB So my choices now are Orrick, Fenwick, and Ropes. Tough choice but I see a lot of older associates at Fenwick, so maybe I'll fit in better.

I would love to PM with any ex-SAs or ex-associates from Fenwick or Ropes, but the PM feature doesn't work with anon posters.

Anonymous User wrote:Hell fucking no, Apple v. Samsung is drudgery at its worst. You'd be doing rote discovery bullshit and document review all day every day. You want to get on smaller cases and get substantive experience with depositions, motions, expert reports, MSJ briefs, etc. However, I'm not sure Apple and Samsung are even suing each other anymore, so maybe you won't have to worry about this. . . . Vault rankings don't mean shit, as many others have said in this forum. C'mon man.

this cannot be stressed enough. im am not an associate but after two summers at patent lit firms, it's clear to me that the holy grail of substantive experience for a junior associate is the smaller cases/teams.

Anonymous User wrote:OP here. I turned down Paul Hastings and got rejected by Cooley today. Did not actually have an offer from Cooley but was 99% sure of one at CB So my choices now are Orrick, Fenwick, and Ropes. Tough choice but I see a lot of older associates at Fenwick, so maybe I'll fit in better.

I would love to PM with any ex-SAs or ex-associates from Fenwick or Ropes, but the PM feature doesn't work with anon posters.

I'm the ex Ropes-SA that posted earlier. Did you get an offer yet from Ropes? I don't know much about Fenwick, but at least at Ropes there is an older crowd for sure. It may be more like a late-20's or early-30's crowd among the associates. One of the patent litigation SA's this past summer in SV was a married 32-year-old with a kid. And another SA was married, and the other SA was on the older side and in a committed relationship. It's certainly not a frat atmosphere or anything. We all got along really well and have kept in touch, even hanging out again on the East Coast once we returned to our respective law schools. But you should go where you feel most comfortable. For me at least, that was Ropes.

If you have offers already can you go back for second visits? Firms are usually cool with doing that. Might help make your decision.

I think now that you've narrowed it down, this is one of those choices that you can't REALLY go wrong either way with.

lolwat wrote:I think now that you've narrowed it down, this is one of those choices that you can't REALLY go wrong either way with.

OP here, thank you everyone! Very helpful. I am scheduling 2nd visits now at all 3 firms.

OP here. Would an EE background be more useful in patent lit or in tech transactions? Where would I work more with technology?

Anonymous User wrote:OP here. Would an EE background be more useful in patent lit or in tech transactions? Where would I work more with technology?

If you're talking about Ropes, we have two separate practices: IP Rights Management and IP Transactions. The former has attorneys with tech backgrounds, and the latter is more corporate folks. I don't know how IP Rights Management compares to Patent Litigation, though (re: where an EE background is more valuable).