Gibson Dunn SF- top 15-20% MVP Fighting Chance? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Title Says it all except that I also have strong ties to SF

If you know anything about there work culture or litigation practice, that would also be helpful. I've heard they are well regarded but mostly do IP stuff.

[Anonymous User]

Easily have a chance from P. No idea about the others.. Why did u combine those 3 random schools? Just say the real school there's hundreds of ppl in the class bc every school is diff

[Anonymous User]

Michigan.

[84651846190]

IP background would help. If no IP background, I wouldn't count on it. There are lots of SF firms with offices similar to GDC's, so why single out GDC?

[JenDarby]

Easily have a chance from P. No idea about the others.. Why did u combine those 3 random schools? Just say the real school there's hundreds of ppl in the class bc every school is diff

MVP is a very common/typical law school grouping.. Why did you ask this question anon? Just say it under your username because there's hundreds of people that might ask such an innocuous question or give such an innocuous answer.

[rpupkin]

Easily have a chance from P. No idea about the others.. Why did u combine those 3 random schools? Just say the real school there's hundreds of ppl in the class bc every school is diff

There's no difference between P and the rest of the mid-to-lower T14 for SF.

OP: With your SF ties and strong grades, you should get bites from at least a couple of SF firms.

As others have pointed out, it's weird to focus on Gibson Dunn. I'll offer some advice for you (and others approaching OCI): If you think you have a "dream firm," change your thinking. All of these big law firms are way more alike than you realize.

[Anonymous User]

Easily have a chance from P. No idea about the others.. Why did u combine those 3 random schools? Just say the real school there's hundreds of ppl in the class bc every school is diff

There's no difference between P and the rest of the mid-to-lower T14 for SF.

OP: With your SF ties and strong grades, you should get bites from at least a couple of SF firms.

As others have pointed out, it's weird to focus on Gibson Dunn. I'll offer some advice for you (and others approaching OCI): If you think you have a "dream firm," change your thinking. All of these big law firms are way more alike than you realize.

Thanks for the advice. I'm not focusing on one firm but I wanted to see where I should direct my networking efforts. I'm targeting strong SF litigation firms, and hoping to find a place with a decent to good culture.

I've heard good things about Dunn, and was wondering whether it was worth my time to even start contacting people there. I've heard bad things about Kirkland & Ellis, and mixed reviews of MoFo, so just wanted to see where I stood with one of the better (of several) prospects.

[potted plant]

Not sure why everyone thinks you need IP - the SF office has a relatively small IP practice. Feel free to pm.

[LaLiLuLeLo]

Easily have a chance from P. No idea about the others.. Why did u combine those 3 random schools? Just say the real school there's hundreds of ppl in the class bc every school is diff

There's no difference between P and the rest of the mid-to-lower T14 for SF.

OP: With your SF ties and strong grades, you should get bites from at least a couple of SF firms.

As others have pointed out, it's weird to focus on Gibson Dunn. I'll offer some advice for you (and others approaching OCI): If you think you have a "dream firm," change your thinking. All of these big law firms are way more alike than you realize.

Thanks for the advice. I'm not focusing on one firm but I wanted to see where I should direct my networking efforts. I'm targeting strong SF litigation firms, and hoping to find a place with a decent to good culture.

I've heard good things about Dunn, and was wondering whether it was worth my time to even start contacting people there. I've heard bad things about Kirkland & Ellis, and mixed reviews of MoFo, so just wanted to see where I stood with one of the better (of several) prospects.

As far as I know Kirkland SF focuses heavily on hedge fund work (I could be a bit off on whether its hedge funds or VC work or something) so I don't think you should pursue them hard FWIW. And they were by far my least favorite interview.

[rpupkin]

Easily have a chance from P. No idea about the others.. Why did u combine those 3 random schools? Just say the real school there's hundreds of ppl in the class bc every school is diff

There's no difference between P and the rest of the mid-to-lower T14 for SF.

OP: With your SF ties and strong grades, you should get bites from at least a couple of SF firms.

As others have pointed out, it's weird to focus on Gibson Dunn. I'll offer some advice for you (and others approaching OCI): If you think you have a "dream firm," change your thinking. All of these big law firms are way more alike than you realize.

Thanks for the advice. I'm not focusing on one firm but I wanted to see where I should direct my networking efforts. I'm targeting strong SF litigation firms, and hoping to find a place with a decent to good culture.

I've heard good things about Dunn, and was wondering whether it was worth my time to even start contacting people there. I've heard bad things about Kirkland & Ellis, and mixed reviews of MoFo, so just wanted to see where I stood with one of the better (of several) prospects.

I'm close to contradicting my earlier post, but GD>MoFo>KE is a defensible hierarchy in terms of cultural reputation. On the other hand, I've known individuals who were/are happy at the SF office of KE, and I've known folks who were quite unhappy at the SF office of GD. So much of an associate's experience is simply luck of the draw: your QOL and career development depends so much on the the cases/matters you get assigned to and the partners you work with. There are great partners and horrible partners at every big law firm.

Anyway, if you're set on SF, you should apply broadly to a bunch of lit firms, even firms (like QE and KE) that have bad reputations.

[rpupkin]

As far as I know Kirkland SF focuses heavily on hedge fund work (I could be a bit off on whether its hedge funds or VC work or something) so I don't think you should pursue them hard FWIW.

The SF office of Kirkland has decent-sized general lit and IP lit groups, at least by SF standards. The corporate side may focus heavily on hedge fund work, but I'm not sure why an aspiring litigator would care about that.

[84651846190]

Not sure why everyone thinks you need IP - the SF office has a relatively small IP practice. Feel free to pm.

IP helps, or at least it used to. I can speak from personal experience. It's kind of absurd to suggest IP doesn't help at any bay-area GP firm's office.

[rpupkin]

Not sure why everyone thinks you need IP - the SF office has a relatively small IP practice. Feel free to pm.

IP helps, or at least it used to. I can speak from personal experience.

It still helps, of course. I can't think of a decent-sized lit practice in the Bay Area that doesn't do a fair amount of patent lit.

[LaLiLuLeLo]

As far as I know Kirkland SF focuses heavily on hedge fund work (I could be a bit off on whether its hedge funds or VC work or something) so I don't think you should pursue them hard FWIW.

The SF office of Kirkland has decent-sized general lit and IP lit groups, at least by SF standards. The corporate side may focus heavily on hedge fund work, but I'm not sure why an aspiring litigator would care about that.

The impression I got at the time was that it wasn't particularly lit focused. I was interested in lit but they focused more on the hedge fund work which I thought was odd. But of course it was just a CB.

[potted plant]

Not sure why everyone thinks you need IP - the SF office has a relatively small IP practice. Feel free to pm.

IP helps, or at least it used to. I can speak from personal experience. It's kind of absurd to suggest IP doesn't help at any bay-area GP firm's office.

Certainly IP helps in the bay. But Gibson's SF office is not particularly IP focused so I think the "don't count on it" without IP advice is perhaps, less applicable than it would be for some other SF firms.

[Anonymous User]

Not sure why everyone thinks you need IP - the SF office has a relatively small IP practice. Feel free to pm.

IP helps, or at least it used to. I can speak from personal experience. It's kind of absurd to suggest IP doesn't help at any bay-area GP firm's office.

Certainly IP helps in the bay. But Gibson's SF office is not particularly IP focused so I think the "don't count on it" without IP advice is perhaps, less applicable than it would be for some other SF firms.

OP here. Since you mention it, to which firms would the "don't count on it without IP background" advice apply?

I've got zero background in IP

[rpupkin]

Not sure why everyone thinks you need IP - the SF office has a relatively small IP practice. Feel free to pm.

IP helps, or at least it used to. I can speak from personal experience. It's kind of absurd to suggest IP doesn't help at any bay-area GP firm's office.

Certainly IP helps in the bay. But Gibson's SF office is not particularly IP focused so I think the "don't count on it" without IP advice is perhaps, less applicable than it would be for some other SF firms.

OP here. Since you mention it, to which firms would the "don't count on it without IP background" advice apply?

I've got zero background in IP

Firms where an IP background (or at least an IP interest) is practically required for lit: WSGR, Cooley, Fenwick, Weil

Firms where an IP background would be a significant boost for lit: Quinn, Latham, MoFo, Orrick, Kirkland, Paul Hastings

Firms where an IP background would be a mild boost for lit: Gibson, Covington, Jones Day, Pillsbury

I'm sure I've left some firms out, and you could quibble with some of the choices I made, but the above gives you at least a rough idea.

[potted plant]

Not sure why everyone thinks you need IP - the SF office has a relatively small IP practice. Feel free to pm.

IP helps, or at least it used to. I can speak from personal experience. It's kind of absurd to suggest IP doesn't help at any bay-area GP firm's office.

Certainly IP helps in the bay. But Gibson's SF office is not particularly IP focused so I think the "don't count on it" without IP advice is perhaps, less applicable than it would be for some other SF firms.

OP here. Since you mention it, to which firms would the "don't count on it without IP background" advice apply?

I've got zero background in IP

Firms where an IP background (or at least an IP interest) is practically required for lit: WSGR, Cooley, Fenwick, Weil

Firms where an IP background would be a significant boost for lit: Quinn, Latham, MoFo, Orrick, Kirkland, Paul Hastings

Firms where an IP background would be a mild boost for lit: Gibson, Covington, Jones Day, Pillsbury

I'm sure I've left some firms out, and you could quibble with some of the choices I made, but the above gives you at least a rough idea.

Generally agree with these assessments - though I'm not in IP so others may know better.

You're a strong applicant so in general I wouldn't count any of these firms out but as rpupkin notes, you should make sure to appear enthusiastic about/open to IP work.

[Anonymous User]

OP here. Just wanted to say thanks to all who gave advice. =)