Derivatives practice group Forum

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Derivatives practice group

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Nov 23, 2016 4:40 pm

I am a second-year at a New York biglaw firm. I am considering doing a rotation with the derivatives group at my firm, but I want to learn a little bit more about the group first.

Can anyone share what they know about exit opportunities, the day-to-day for a midlevel associate in this type of group, the firms with the best "derivatives groups," and anything else that might be helpful to a clueless junior associate trying to learn more. I was not able to find much information in other TLS threads.

Note: when I say "derivatives" group, I mean something like this: http://www.chambersandpartners.com/1278 ... torial/5/1 . Though, I'm sure it differs depending on the firm. Thanks in advance!

NEdelton1987

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Re: Derivatives practice group

Post by NEdelton1987 » Wed Nov 23, 2016 6:18 pm

Good lifestyle. Few fire drills. Work involves providing regulatory advice to and defusing potential enforcement actions for banks/funds. Exit opps from top groups (S&C/DPW/Cleary/etc.) are AGC positions at banks/funds. Best regulatory practice group in my opinion.

ruski

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Re: Derivatives practice group

Post by ruski » Mon Nov 28, 2016 11:19 am

exit ops are also very easy to obtain from what I imagine (i.e. there are many openings at banks). in my firm it seems derivative guys were always leaving to go inhouse. evening doing a quick search on a career website will show the large amount of in house openings for derivative lawyers (second maybe only to tech trans lawyers).

I can also confirm the view above re few fire drills and no real weekend word, although there are late nights (this based on speaking to people in the group, I have no first hand knowledge).

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Re: Derivatives practice group

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Nov 30, 2016 5:17 pm

Thanks for that, does anyone else have anymore insight? Also, I would be curious to know what are the best firms for a Derivatives practice group. Are the Chambers rankings listed in the OP accurate for this?

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Re: Derivatives practice group

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Dec 01, 2016 2:27 pm

I work in a department that includes "derivatives" as part of its description and I am a bit confused about OP's question. The work I do is entirely regulatory. Most of it is backward looking - the CFTC or another agency that regulates a particular commodity like energy, foreign currency, or securities is investigating, for example, manipulative trading activity, non-compliant trading platforms, or customer communication practices. Some of the posts in this thread appear to refer to that kind of derivatives practice. I can confirm that this practice area is fairly chill - big firm clients tend to at least make a pretense of compliance, and most wrongful activity is of the failure to supervise/detect/control variety. Deadlines tend to be at least somewhat flexible, and clients and regulators have cooperative relationships.

Other posts, and the Chambers page, appears to refer to transactional practice. The two practices are, at least IME, entirely unrelated. The only time I ever see a derivatives contract is when it turns up in doc review.

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nunumaster

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Re: Derivatives practice group

Post by nunumaster » Thu Dec 01, 2016 3:32 pm

What do you do on a day to day basis? Legal research and writing? Or is it transactional?

ruski

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Re: Derivatives practice group

Post by ruski » Thu Dec 01, 2016 4:32 pm

I may be mistaken but I think conventional wisdom is that derivatives is a transactional practice group and deals with negotiating the ISDA master agreement and the related schedules thereto

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