Exit Options + lifestyle for Banking/Credit? Forum

[Anonymous User]

3L here. Just found out that I didn't get my first choice group (M&A) but got my second (banking/credit). What kind of work is this like for junior associates? Any decent exit options? I'm at a NY V30 that doesn't have a formal rotation system, and I selected practice group preferences mainly on personalities of the mid-level associates I met. It looks like the group mainly represents lending financial institutions, as opposed to borrowers. Any general information would be much appreciated. I looked through the Chambers practice group description, but it didn't seem very helpful. Also, not much in "search." Thank you again.

[Anonymous User]

First year banking/finance associate at a non-NYC V30. Generally speaking, banking/finance involves negotiating and drafting credit agreements (and amendments thereto) along with ancillary documents. More specific practices may include Project Finance (which has components that are more like an m&a deal) or Structured Finance (which resembles Securities/Cap Markets a bit). As far as duties for junior associates, it honestly won't differ too much from a corporate/m&A associate--you won't be running the deal and are there to push papers (e.g., due diligence/managing closing checklists/circulating documents/running blacklines/etc.).

I'm not too sure of the range of exit ops, but someone recently left my office to work in house at one of the banks.

[Anonymous User]

Are banking hours generally more predictable than say Securities or M/A?

[Anonymous User]

Are banking hours generally more predictable than say Securities or M/A?

Curious about this as well.

[Anonymous User]

Are banking hours generally more predictable than say Securities or M/A?

Curious about this as well.

Yes, but not by much. Really depends on the clients. I do mostly lender-side work, but my firm is pretty evenly split between representing borrowers and lenders. I have had some fire drills/all night type situations, but not with the same frequency as the M&A lawyers.

If none of my deals are close to closing, my schedule is very stable. If I'm within 5 or so days of any of my deals closing, schedule is completely unpredictable.

ETA: the above V30 poster is correct about job duties though it varies from firm to firm. At my firm, juniors do everything that poster describes but also draft all of the easier ancillary documents to the credit agreement.

As far as exit options, in house seems to be typical, though I haven't seen anybody leave my practice group since I started.

[Old Gregg]

If you represent lenders, there is no diligence for juniors.

Paper pushing in banking/credit is a lot higher than in M&A. Especially if there's more than one lien. Also, the document you have to master (the credit agreement) is significantly more difficult and technical than you're typical merger agreement (i.e., merger agreement, stock purchase agreement and asset purchase agreement). You can meet 7th and 8th years who aren't capable of negotiating significant portions of the credit agreement.

[banker9]

If you represent lenders, there is no diligence for juniors.

Paper pushing in banking/credit is a lot higher than in M&A. Especially if there's more than one lien. Also, the document you have to master (the credit agreement) is significantly more difficult and technical than you're typical merger agreement (i.e., merger agreement, stock purchase agreement and asset purchase agreement). You can meet 7th and 8th years who aren't capable of negotiating significant portions of the credit agreement.

Forgive my ignorance, but I found these two statements pretty interesting. zweitbester, could you elaborate on the first - why is there no diligence for juniors in banking? is the reason related to the second statement about paper pushing in baking/credit being a lot "higher" (i read this to mean "harder")

[Anonymous User]

Curious about this as well. Does "paper pushing" refer to perfecting security interests, etc.?

[Old Gregg]

Forgive my ignorance, but I found these two statements pretty interesting. zweitbester, could you elaborate on the first - why is there no diligence for juniors in banking? is the reason related to the second statement about paper pushing in baking/credit being a lot "higher" (i read this to mean "harder")

1) If you're borrower side, you're representing the company that the bank has to do diligence on. Lender side representation requires diligence, but borrower side is like representing sell side in an M&A deal. Therefore, if you're in a practice that regularly represents borrowers, you have no diligence.

2) "Paper pushing" means that there are more documents to manage and coordinate for comments and signatures. Security Agreement, Trademark Security Agreement, Patent Security Agreement, Copyright Security Agreement, DACA, Legal Opinion, consents... and I'm sure there's many more. If you're doing a second lien, then multiply that set of documents by exactly 2. It gets bad very quickly.

[banker9]

Forgive my ignorance, but I found these two statements pretty interesting. zweitbester, could you elaborate on the first - why is there no diligence for juniors in banking? is the reason related to the second statement about paper pushing in baking/credit being a lot "higher" (i read this to mean "harder")

1) If you're borrower side, you're representing the company that the bank has to do diligence on. Lender side representation requires diligence, but borrower side is like representing sell side in an M&A deal. Therefore, if you're in a practice that regularly represents borrowers, you have no diligence.

2) "Paper pushing" means that there are more documents to manage and coordinate for comments and signatures. Security Agreement, Trademark Security Agreement, Patent Security Agreement, Copyright Security Agreement, DACA, Legal Opinion, consents... and I'm sure there's many more. If you're doing a second lien, then multiply that set of documents by exactly 2. It gets bad very quickly.

Makes sense - I guess in your original post you meant borrowers, rather than lenders? ("If you represent lenders, there is no diligence for juniors").

Thanks for the reply.

[Old Gregg]

Yes.

[Anonymous User]

What are the highest paying in house options that one can get with five years or so of banking experience? 205k all in?

[hopefulapplicant2]

3L here. Just found out that I didn't get my first choice group (M&A) but got my second (banking/credit). What kind of work is this like for junior associates? Any decent exit options? I'm at a NY V30 that doesn't have a formal rotation system, and I selected practice group preferences mainly on personalities of the mid-level associates I met. It looks like the group mainly represents lending financial institutions, as opposed to borrowers. Any general information would be much appreciated. I looked through the Chambers practice group description, but it didn't seem very helpful. Also, not much in "search." Thank you again.

Structured Finance offers opportunities to move over to Investment Banking. Several attorneys for the defunct Thatcher Proffitt & Wood and Calwalader Wickersham & Taft moved over to major investment banks in VP or higher roles. There are also roles for compliance at Wall Street firms.

[Anonymous User]

Curious about this as well. Does "paper pushing" refer to perfecting security interests, etc.?

Earlier anon.

The credit agreement is the master document. The CA contains most of the heavily negotiated provisions, but certain issues are resolved by other documents and are incorporated into the credit facility by reference in the CA. A really simplistic example is that a CA may include guarantors but most of the provisions governing the relationship between the lenders and the guarantors are housed in a separate document.

Depending on the complexity of the deal, the CA will require anywhere from a handful to dozens of ancillary documents.

Ancillary documents can range from relatively straight forward (promissory notes, security agreements, entity documents and joinder agreements) to incredibly complex (subordination and intercreditor agreements); most are not complex. IME, junior associates spend most of their time working with the less complex ancillary documents. Juniors are also responsible for assembling fully executed documents, closing sets, etc... (typical corporate tasks)

[AlanShore]

Anon above ^, can you PM me? have some general qs about the practice area.

[wons]

3L here. Just found out that I didn't get my first choice group (M&A) but got my second (banking/credit). What kind of work is this like for junior associates? Any decent exit options? I'm at a NY V30 that doesn't have a formal rotation system, and I selected practice group preferences mainly on personalities of the mid-level associates I met. It looks like the group mainly represents lending financial institutions, as opposed to borrowers. Any general information would be much appreciated. I looked through the Chambers practice group description, but it didn't seem very helpful. Also, not much in "search." Thank you again.

Structured Finance offers opportunities to move over to Investment Banking. Several attorneys for the defunct Thatcher Proffitt & Wood and Calwalader Wickersham & Taft moved over to major investment banks in VP or higher roles. There are also roles for compliance at Wall Street firms.

There are more former CWT and Thacher Proffitt associates working as baristas than as investment bankers. Worst post ever. A bunch of my friends got decimated. Don't give job advice if you don't work in the industry.

[shock259]

First year finance associate here, and happy to answer questions in PMs. Can't say much about exit options - a lot of the folks that have left my firm have gone in house, to other firms, or quit law altogether. I'd assign the percentages to 40%, 40%, and 20%, respectively in my limited experience.

Lifestyle/hours can be just as bad or worse than M&A, depending on the group and the client. I've had absolutely brutal weeks/months. That said, based on speaking with my M&A friends, I think the work is more substantive. This also depends on firm personalities and how much people let you do, but generally, you get to do more because there's more paper in a finance deal. I'll take drafting 1-2 page documents based on templates over doing diligence (which we never have to do) every day. And maybe this is just biglaw in general, but I find the work to be challenging and engaging.

[$$$$$$]

V10 B&F first year associate - I think banking and credit is a really interesting group if you are someone that understands/enjoys finance to a degree. The practice area is very technical and some of the most important things you won't understand without a finance background or a few years at the firm, so its challenging but interesting, and can be frustrating when you sit through calls and have absolutely no idea what is happening.

Hours seem better than M&A on a whole, but you are never truly dead because you always have post closing obligations that need to get finished with 1-3 month deadlines. That being said, hours are still brutal since your clients are a majority of the time the same guys/girls that are being represented by the M&A side. I pretty much have only done borrower-side work (thank god, lender work seems horrible), but I can say that there is definitely some diligence that you do to make sure schedules are in order, and when drafting opinions you need to do your diligence on all reps and opinions given. Definitely way more drafting of documents though, which is cool, but also can be a pain in the ass and it gives others an opportunity to see how shitty you are at writing (at least for me). Sometimes I wish I could sit down and bill for 10 hours of diligence, but I don't know what i'd do if that was my only job.

Exit Options - I know two people that have left in the 8 months i started, one left NYC to go work in law in Cali and one left to go in house at a BB investment bank. A lot of people in my group though weathered hard times and are cashing in on the high bonuses this year and wil probably start leaving sooner rather than later.

Overall I think its a good group to be in, especially on the acquisition finance side because you learn about the M&A process, work with specialists and do a little diligence. Also, because of regulations affecting traditional lenders, a wider and more diverse array of lending parties are coming out (BDCs, Credit Funds, etc) which is going to help change the landscape of secured lending over the next 10-20 years. The fact that is happening is pretty cool I think and means that your exit options are going to grow a lot as more of these businesses pop up.

Feel free to PM if you have questions.

[Anonymous User]

V10 B&F first year associate - I think banking and credit is a really interesting group if you are someone that understands/enjoys finance to a degree. The practice area is very technical and some of the most important things you won't understand without a finance background or a few years at the firm, so its challenging but interesting, and can be frustrating when you sit through calls and have absolutely no idea what is happening.

Hours seem better than M&A on a whole, but you are never truly dead because you always have post closing obligations that need to get finished with 1-3 month deadlines. That being said, hours are still brutal since your clients are a majority of the time the same guys/girls that are being represented by the M&A side. I pretty much have only done borrower-side work (thank god, lender work seems horrible), but I can say that there is definitely some diligence that you do to make sure schedules are in order, and when drafting opinions you need to do your diligence on all reps and opinions given. Definitely way more drafting of documents though, which is cool, but also can be a pain in the ass and it gives others an opportunity to see how shitty you are at writing (at least for me). Sometimes I wish I could sit down and bill for 10 hours of diligence, but I don't know what i'd do if that was my only job.

Exit Options - I know two people that have left in the 8 months i started, one left NYC to go work in law in Cali and one left to go in house at a BB investment bank. A lot of people in my group though weathered hard times and are cashing in on the high bonuses this year and wil probably start leaving sooner rather than later.

Overall I think its a good group to be in, especially on the acquisition finance side because you learn about the M&A process, work with specialists and do a little diligence. Also, because of regulations affecting traditional lenders, a wider and more diverse array of lending parties are coming out (BDCs, Credit Funds, etc) which is going to help change the landscape of secured lending over the next 10-20 years. The fact that is happening is pretty cool I think and means that your exit options are going to grow a lot as more of these businesses pop up.

Feel free to PM if you have questions.

Reviving an old thread: what is the substance of in-house jobs? Are you advising on whether to make big loans? Or is it the same paper-ing type job?

[JenDarby]

You typically aren't in an advisory position when you move in-house. It's more paper pushing.

[Anonymous User]

V10 B&F first year associate - I think banking and credit is a really interesting group if you are someone that understands/enjoys finance to a degree. The practice area is very technical and some of the most important things you won't understand without a finance background or a few years at the firm, so its challenging but interesting, and can be frustrating when you sit through calls and have absolutely no idea what is happening.

Hours seem better than M&A on a whole, but you are never truly dead because you always have post closing obligations that need to get finished with 1-3 month deadlines. That being said, hours are still brutal since your clients are a majority of the time the same guys/girls that are being represented by the M&A side. I pretty much have only done borrower-side work (thank god, lender work seems horrible), but I can say that there is definitely some diligence that you do to make sure schedules are in order, and when drafting opinions you need to do your diligence on all reps and opinions given. Definitely way more drafting of documents though, which is cool, but also can be a pain in the ass and it gives others an opportunity to see how shitty you are at writing (at least for me). Sometimes I wish I could sit down and bill for 10 hours of diligence, but I don't know what i'd do if that was my only job.

Exit Options - I know two people that have left in the 8 months i started, one left NYC to go work in law in Cali and one left to go in house at a BB investment bank. A lot of people in my group though weathered hard times and are cashing in on the high bonuses this year and wil probably start leaving sooner rather than later.

Overall I think its a good group to be in, especially on the acquisition finance side because you learn about the M&A process, work with specialists and do a little diligence. Also, because of regulations affecting traditional lenders, a wider and more diverse array of lending parties are coming out (BDCs, Credit Funds, etc) which is going to help change the landscape of secured lending over the next 10-20 years. The fact that is happening is pretty cool I think and means that your exit options are going to grow a lot as more of these businesses pop up.

Feel free to PM if you have questions.

Bumping this thread. What's wrong with lender side bank work? I'm in a group that primarily does lender side bank and bond deals and it seems these finance lawyers all have great exits into banking. It also seems like junior associates get a lot more substantive experience earlier on. I'd like to hear from un-biased people who are familiar with the work though.

[BizBro]

Tag

[Anonymous User]

So I've seen the following two contrasting view points on lender-side finance work. Which is right?

"Stay as far away from finance and PE as you possibly can. Not my specialty, but it's an open secret that bank finance and (especially) private MA (i.e. private equity transactional M&A) are the worst major corporate specialties. Stay away from firms where it's likely you'll get swept up into either, even if you don't listen to my advice to avoid all corporate legal work. Clients are terrible. In the first, your clients are banks or private equity sponsors, as they represent most of the finance legal work. In the second your clients are private equity sponsors. Both are the type of repeat-player clients that will call you at 3 in the morning on Sunday at home out of the blue. Both are the type of repeat-player clients that treat lawyers worse than their floor cleaning woman. Exit options are not great out of either. On bank side debt, you can go into DCM or LEVFIN legal in a ibank (with luck), but that's it. 95% of those guys end up in shit firms making second year associate incomes with terrible hours for life. On debt on the issuer side, there are no exit options. On MA side, PE firms really don't hire lawyers even for legal roles (and don't pay the unicorns they do hire well), and the M&A lawyers on the private side don't get the public company experience they need to get the "good" in-house jobs at f500 companies, as all private M&A these days is private to private. Exits from PE MA are better than above, but not great compared to broadly experienced MA. What that means in terms of firms is: go to CSM, WLRK, SA, CGSH or the well-known lower ranked places with public M&A. Avoid places like STB, K&E, PW, LW, RG, FF and other PE-first places as if they have herpes."

Poster above has it right; DPW and Cravath are not good examples because they are not doing a ton of high yield work (especially lender-side) and they force you to do lots of stuff in addition to it. The kind of specialization you're thinking of is a problem at the firms with big, highly profitable lender-side practices, the kinds of places who will run multiple trees on the same deal: Cahill, W&C, Latham, Paul Hastings and many others. Simpson is an interesting case because they generally encourage more specialization early in (not limited to their high yield practice) but they do a mix of borrower-side and lender-side.

The market for high yield has been so hot for so long that there hasn't been a ton of concern about exit opportunities - generally, folks who do high yield in a good group have had tons of firms ready to scoop them up if they need a change of scenery, and firms aren't really eager to push out the handful of senior associates who can run these (very lucrative) deals.

That being said, at the highly specialized places, the Cahills and the like, the non-firm exit opportunities would concern me. I'd be interested in hearing from another associate on the board (if any) who can report from that context, particularly for folks who are more senior and have done nothing else for four or five years.

If you're doing high yield as part of a balanced finance training - a little high yield here, a little IG debt there, etc. - then you'd have the same exit options as any well trained transactional lawyer.

[Anonymous User]

Couple of thoughts on this thread:

1) My brother is a counsel who works in banking/finance, and he routinely is one of the highest billers in the firm. Not because he's a masochist, but because he gets put on a lot of deals and the hours are really bad. But, that said, he likes his work. He is a specialist, he makes a ton of money and he's good at his job. He can stay forever and make 300-400K, and that's not a bad gig. He spends a ton of time on conference calls and negotiating documents, but...he likes that. And, as mentioned above, when there's a closing, he's up at 4am (East Coast) to make sure everything goes well before market open and then is up all day while the wires go out.

2) One of the things about banking/finance is that it really limits your exit opps geographically and in terms of what companies need this skillset. It is focused on money centers or places that have a lot of PE or historical banking. Think NY, Charlotte, SF, a little in Chicago, Boston, Philly. This is true of many corporate legal jobs--you can't just move to Wichita...but it's especially true of banking because there really is a limited set of clients. That is, as others have mentioned, what limits your opportunities to move in-house.

3) Cosign the advice re High Yield. I worked in HY as a paralegal (and also in M&A and in venture), and HY was a very specialized skillset. And yes, there's a ton of paper-pushing. Those were my least favorite closings and closing sets to do because they were massive--sometimes four volumes of three inches each. That's a lot of paper pushing!

4) Re whether clients are especially awful in PE or in banking or in M&A...it really all depends. Generally, bankers or ex-bankers expect lawyers to work just as hard as they do (or did). But, on the other hand, they tend to be pretty sophisticated clients, so you don't spend a lot of time hand-holding like you do with venture or tech clients that have no clue. So there's plusses and minuses.

5) If you have a choice, when looking at firms, try to find a firm that allows you to be a generalist or to rotate early on. This will help you to get more exposure to many areas so that you can make a semi-informed choice as to what you might want to specialize in. A lot of firms make you choose (or choose for you, a la OP) and that's what makes people feel trapped and unhappy. So, even if you have to go further down the rankings, consider somewhere that you do a little bit of this, a little bit of that. I personally have preferred this during my career. Thus, if you hate a deal or certain type of deal, depending on market conditions, it'll be over soon enough, and you can move on to something else. This also helps you move in-house later, because you can say, "Yes, I do have experience with that!" instead of, "I haven't done that, but I'm smart and from [XYZ good firm], so I hope you'll understand I am a quick learner." In a similar vein, attend as many trainings outside your practice group as you can. Watch video trainings from other groups. This will really, really help you find out if you find other areas interesting and will help round out your skill set which will come in handy when you are trying to go in-house.

6) If you want to learn more about banking/finance, the Hillman Treatise in Bloomberg law is a really good resource. Highly recommend.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for the replies, folks. This thread is helpful.

Can we talk more about exit options? I am a third year who has done banking/finance work exclusively at my V30 firm. Started in NYC and moved to a secondary market (city of ~1MM), but the secondary market does not have a strong finance industry. Almost all of my clients are based in NY and I do very little local work.

I really enjoy what I do but I know I'm not going to stay at this firm forever. Definitely not going to go for partner. I think I could do this for another 3-4 years max. That said, I really want to stay in this secondary market.

There's almost no firms in the secondary market that have finance lawyers, and I don't think I would want to switch to a different firm anyway. There seem to be plenty of in house startup types of jobs here, but I can't tell how stable these are over the long run. The other in house jobs seem rarer. And I'm also not certain that I have the skillset that they are looking for. There are no banks or other big financial institutions with headquarters here, so that option is sort of out. Some PE shops, but generally speaking, I know the in house people there work terrible hours also.

I wouldn't mind taking a large paycut when I move. A more lifestyle friendly place is strongly preferred but I don't really need to leave at 5pm every day. And I would like something somewhat engaging and challenging, although I don't expect it to match the chaos/rigor of big firm life.

Any tips for developing a plan? I feel pretty directionless other than just focusing on my work at the firm. I guess I should try to get out more into the local legal scene and network more. My contacts are very limited here.