Anonymous User wrote:All accurate. Would add that the senior associate that convinced the younger associate to lateral decided to join the new project finance group in DC so moved to our DC office in February. Don’t think the younger associate felt it was the same deal after that. More broadly, reading this string for the first time is pretty amusing. Would be surprised if many of the STB comments apparently attributed to KE are actually from anyone at KE. There are a few folks (9 or 10) that have moved from STB to KE in the office, mainly because our managing partner came from there, but otherwise we don’t see them much and certainly not aware of bad blood on the KE side. My sense has always been that some of the more senior folks at STB have a chip on their shoulder about KE and how successful it has become, but have never heard anything to make me think the feeling is mutual. STB is just too small to really register on the KE radar screen. We see VE and Latham most on the M&A side, and increasingly GDC and Sidley. STB doesn’t have a Capital Markets or litigation partner so we rarely come across them.
I don’t think there is really any bad blood toward KE among the mid/junior people at STB either. I also don’t think it’s a jealousy thing regarding how successful KE has become (it did so largely on its bankruptcy practice which we don’t have). I think it’s more just the circumstance of how KE opened set STB back and STB had to redo its growth model (since a bunch of people went to KE when it opened).
I’ll also note that while STB is very involved in the energy/infra space, we are normally finding ourselves across from other V10 firms given the clients and types of deals. For instance, I’ve worked across from Skadden, SullCrom and DPW a bunch but have never worked across from BB. We recently started to do oil and gas “A&D” with the hire of a guy from Marathon March 2017, we have a private funds practice as of July 2017 and a capital markets practice as of June 2018 (the senior associate who came down from NY heading up the practice is all but a shoe-in to make partner this year or next year).
As to what may make people prefer STB over another firm? I think part of it is the start-up vibe. We’re definitely still in the growth/ramp up stage size wise (as compared to KE which likely is entering a maintenance or slower growth phase and VE/BB which are more maintaining size now). We actually have outgrown our one floor in the Chase Tower and are expanding to the floor beneath us (expansion to be built out and ready in 2019)
The people in the office get along really well and actually care about each other and look out for one other (for example, everyone generally knows the names of the attorneys’ spouses and kids and have also likely met them at firm events). Most people in the office are married/have long-term SOs so most go home around dinner and log back in from home (e.g., low amounts of face time outside of business hours so long as you are available). The clients we work for are also pretty great. That along with fringe perks (like coverage on vacations which is rare in biglaw, endless supplies of lacroix and snacks and weekly in-office happy hours) add to the great work environment.
Obviously there’s a risk in that the office has been small and only now starting to grow a bit more quickly, but that also has rewards (getting in earlier can be a good thing in such a scenario). STB firmwide is very picky about who gets promoted to partner (mostly because of the stellar pension plans, the high PPP and the job security), and as I mentioned earlier in this thread, the result is a longer partnership track of 9-12 years (check recent partner notices and you can see how long people were with the firm before getting promoted and which were counsel/sr counsel first). The attorney numbers (if attrition remains similar to past years) should be around 40-45 by the end of the year and 50-55 by the end of 2019 (if not more). By the end of 2019, I’d also anticipate there to be around 7-8 partners total.