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for litigation and for regulatory work, which is better? which would lead to better govnt opportunities for the future?

I thought skadden dc either got rid of dc office or laid off a bunch of people from it last year? How many ppl in each office?

op here. i got the impression skadden's dc has been growing and quite busy. skadden dc has something like 330, sidley has 266. skadden's summer program has been slashed in half -- they had 30 or so last year, this year they're targeting for 15.

and how do you guys think these two firms would compare with jones day dc?

no thoughts? anything would be helpful!

Sidley by a mile. It's been long rumored that Skadden DC has been struggling, and the defection of the office's biggest rainmaker (Bob Bennett) only confirms this. It's also been confirmed that Bennett is taking a bunch of partners but almost no associates with him. I'm not sure what's left for the remaining associates to do.

While Sidley as a whole may be struggling, their DC office seems to be ahead of the firm. They've called up deferred associates to come in to work early. They have big and widely-respected practices in areas such as white collar, appellate lit, arbitration, etc. They have strong regulatory practices as well - lots of ppl w/ experience in both GOP and Dem administrations. They also tend to draw in a lot of SCOTUS and DC Cir clerks, certainly more so than Skadden.

as someone who has experience working in the skadden dc office i can say what winniethepoop posted is not true. bennett took carl rauh with him and that's it. no partner is expected to leave let alone confirmed to be leaving. though a couple of associates might leave to join bennett and rauh soon. bennett while a big name is far from the biggest rainmaker. he had a lot of interesting cases and clients but many of them were pro-bono cases that didn't actually bring in any money. andy sandler was a much bigger lost when he left a few months ago but he was replaced by a trio of partners lead by john beisner from OMM.

i'd be interested to know where winnie is getting his/her info from. i find it hard to believe winnie has confirmed info that a "bunch" of partners are leaving skadden for hogan. it's much more likely that skadden will try to bring in a partner or two than lose some.

on the other hand, i know people that work in the sidley dc office and they all had positive things to say about it. obviously i know less about sidley since i've never worked there but it seemed liked a really good place to work.

it'll just have to come down to which firm you think is a better fit for you. let me know if there's anything other questions.

anon@12:17

ATL had reported that an unspecified number of partners aside from bennett and ruah were to go, but again it was unspecified, though it was the "least bad" source of info that was publicly available. i'll take your word for it though, coming from the horses mouth. a friend of mine knows staff atty's who were let go (i understand the staff atty program was eliminated) and they basically say the office is in poor shape (though admittedly they might not be an unbiased source).

I know one (corporate) associate there who left skadden DC about 1-2 yrs ago. He was assigned to work with an unbearable client after the associate previously assigned to that client quit (presumably his work become hell on earth after being assigned to that client). That associate also quit after he couldn't take it anymore either. Aside from that hiccup, he generally had nothing but good things to say about skadden DC.

by all means, pay a second visit to both firms to see where you think you may fit in better. also pay attention to the different mix of practice groups at both firms. if your dream is to be an antitrust lawyer, you may have a harder time at sidley since they don't have a very big group, at least compared to Skadden's top-notch practice. if white collar, I would probably say sidley (esp now that bennett is no longer at skadden). same goes if you want to do appellate (assuming you have the pedigree needed to snag a COA clerkship first). check out the practice group rankings at chambersandpartners.com if you want to know more about where the firms stand in their respective practice areas.

it is true that many staff attorneys and support staff were let go. there are still some staff attorneys here so i don't think they'll end the program. but they're prob not planning on hiring any more anytime soon either, which for incoming associates means they'll be getting more of the grunt work that previously went to staff attorneys. not necessarily a bad thing if you're looking for easy billable hours but not exactly exciting either.

as for whether the office is in poor shape. i don't think that's really the case. there's still plenty of big name partners at skadden even after losing bennett, rauh, sandler, and klubes in the past year.

i agree with winnie on a lot of your decision is gonna have to be based on what area you want to practice. but if you're open to everything skadden might provide you with better options across the board.