Antitrust/Regulatory Law Forum

[MoS]

This seems like an interesting area of law to study. Does anyone know what type of work you do in this sector? Where you work? What schools have good placement?

[ScaredWorkedBored]

Since you're mentioning them together, I assume you mean federal government as opposed to working antitrust plaintiff-side.

If you want a federal agency job right out of law school, you need to get into that agency's Honors Program for 3L's. This is very metric based and extremely competitive (Antitrust, which is at the DoJ, is one of the all-time bloodsports). It certainly doesn't hurt to go to the best school you can get into, but it is *much* more important to do very well wherever you did go.

The feds also interview brutally compared to what you may hear about "lollawfirminterview." There are multiple rounds of substantive, lengthy interviews. They care about interest in the area and a commitment to public service. This may be easy or hard depending on what you've done before law school; in any case your 1L & 2L summer employment should be tailored towards this if at all possible.

[MoS]

Thanks. Do you know anything about the plaintiff side? I didn't mean to exclude it with my phrasing.

[oneforship]

I don't know anything about the plaintiff side of things, but I do work as a paralegal right now (going on 2 years) in the antitrust department of a large global antitrust practice. PM me if you have any questions about that.

[Onion]

I currently work for a firm that examines complex antitrust suits and litigates for the plaintiff class (class action suits, typically against pharmaceutical companies). I have only been here for about 6 months, but I have found the area of law very interesting. I work in the tri-state area, but our firm litigates all over the country depending on the appropriate venue for each case. Most of what our firm does is oversee class action lawsuits that our class has derived due to pharmaceutical companies committing some antitrust act, and we seek relief for our clients. It is all paid based on a contingency so it is high risk vs reward situations. The job is mostly desk work and research, but we often do get to travel to take depositions or to visit other firms we are working with.

As far as what schools would be a good choice for someone interested in this area of law, you would have to do a bit more research, I know attorneys in this office that attended Chicago, Northwestern, Brooklyn, American, UT and a few others.

Hope this was helpful!

[cigrainger]

I currently work for a firm that examines complex antitrust suits and litigates for the plaintiff class (class action suits, typically against pharmaceutical companies). I have only been here for about 6 months, but I have found the area of law very interesting. I work in the tri-state area, but our firm litigates all over the country depending on the appropriate venue for each case. Most of what our firm does is oversee class action lawsuits that our class has derived due to pharmaceutical companies committing some antitrust act, and we seek relief for our clients. It is all paid based on a contingency so it is high risk vs reward situations. The job is mostly desk work and research, but we often do get to travel to take depositions or to visit other firms we are working with.

As far as what schools would be a good choice for someone interested in this area of law, you would have to do a bit more research, I know attorneys in this office that attended Chicago, Northwestern, Brooklyn, American, UT and a few others.

Hope this was helpful!

With plaintiff's firms like this, do you work by billable hour or no? Can I ask if your firm pays market salary?

[Onion]

I currently work for a firm that examines complex antitrust suits and litigates for the plaintiff class (class action suits, typically against pharmaceutical companies). I have only been here for about 6 months, but I have found the area of law very interesting. I work in the tri-state area, but our firm litigates all over the country depending on the appropriate venue for each case. Most of what our firm does is oversee class action lawsuits that our class has derived due to pharmaceutical companies committing some antitrust act, and we seek relief for our clients. It is all paid based on a contingency so it is high risk vs reward situations. The job is mostly desk work and research, but we often do get to travel to take depositions or to visit other firms we are working with.

As far as what schools would be a good choice for someone interested in this area of law, you would have to do a bit more research, I know attorneys in this office that attended Chicago, Northwestern, Brooklyn, American, UT and a few others.

Hope this was helpful!

With plaintiff's firms like this, do you work by billable hour or no? Can I ask if your firm pays market salary?

An interesting question and a somewhat complicated answer. Attorneys are responsible for billing hours but the firm does not typically collect on all hours billed. The majority of these cases settle out of court and firms are entitled to between 20-33% of the total settlement. From that point, the partners decide how much each attorney who worked on the case should be entitled to. Attorneys at this firm are paid a salary until they make partner. If a case does go to court and reaches a favorable decision for our firm, we are entitled to Treble Damages, or three times the amount that was originally sued for.

As far as market salary, I am in the dark as to how much the attorneys make at this firm. I am merely an intern here doing legal assistant work. Sorry I could not be more helpful in that department (everyone seems like the do well here though).

[cigrainger]

I currently work for a firm that examines complex antitrust suits and litigates for the plaintiff class (class action suits, typically against pharmaceutical companies). I have only been here for about 6 months, but I have found the area of law very interesting. I work in the tri-state area, but our firm litigates all over the country depending on the appropriate venue for each case. Most of what our firm does is oversee class action lawsuits that our class has derived due to pharmaceutical companies committing some antitrust act, and we seek relief for our clients. It is all paid based on a contingency so it is high risk vs reward situations. The job is mostly desk work and research, but we often do get to travel to take depositions or to visit other firms we are working with.

As far as what schools would be a good choice for someone interested in this area of law, you would have to do a bit more research, I know attorneys in this office that attended Chicago, Northwestern, Brooklyn, American, UT and a few others.

Hope this was helpful!

With plaintiff's firms like this, do you work by billable hour or no? Can I ask if your firm pays market salary?

An interesting question and a somewhat complicated answer. Attorneys are responsible for billing hours but the firm does not typically collect on all hours billed. The majority of these cases settle out of court and firms are entitled to between 20-33% of the total settlement. From that point, the partners decide how much each attorney who worked on the case should be entitled to. Attorneys at this firm are paid a salary until they make partner. If a case does go to court and reaches a favorable decision for our firm, we are entitled to Treble Damages, or three times the amount that was originally sued for.

As far as market salary, I am in the dark as to how much the attorneys make at this firm. I am merely an intern here doing legal assistant work. Sorry I could not be more helpful in that department (everyone seems like the do well here though).

Thanks for this. I didn't realize how interesting a lot of plaintiff's firm work was until recently, and I also didn't realize there were firms that did antitrust, environmental litigation, mass torts, etc strictly from the side of the plaintiffs (I don't know why, I just thought big firms represented both sides). I wasn't excited about the prospect of defending say, an oil company when they spill oil, or a company that has been negligent with its chemicals/dumping and caused health risks.

Do lawyers at the firm seem to enjoy what they're doing? Do they seem to be convinced they're 'doing the right thing', or is there perhaps a culture of drumming up complaints to get a payout? While I have no interest in defending companies when they are at fault, I also am not a fan of bringing suits for overblown or petty issues.

As I said, I didn't know about these firms until recently, so please enlighten me! Anything else you think is worth mentioning?

[Onion]

I currently work for a firm that examines complex antitrust suits and litigates for the plaintiff class (class action suits, typically against pharmaceutical companies). I have only been here for about 6 months, but I have found the area of law very interesting. I work in the tri-state area, but our firm litigates all over the country depending on the appropriate venue for each case. Most of what our firm does is oversee class action lawsuits that our class has derived due to pharmaceutical companies committing some antitrust act, and we seek relief for our clients. It is all paid based on a contingency so it is high risk vs reward situations. The job is mostly desk work and research, but we often do get to travel to take depositions or to visit other firms we are working with.

As far as what schools would be a good choice for someone interested in this area of law, you would have to do a bit more research, I know attorneys in this office that attended Chicago, Northwestern, Brooklyn, American, UT and a few others.

Hope this was helpful!

With plaintiff's firms like this, do you work by billable hour or no? Can I ask if your firm pays market salary?

An interesting question and a somewhat complicated answer. Attorneys are responsible for billing hours but the firm does not typically collect on all hours billed. The majority of these cases settle out of court and firms are entitled to between 20-33% of the total settlement. From that point, the partners decide how much each attorney who worked on the case should be entitled to. Attorneys at this firm are paid a salary until they make partner. If a case does go to court and reaches a favorable decision for our firm, we are entitled to Treble Damages, or three times the amount that was originally sued for.

As far as market salary, I am in the dark as to how much the attorneys make at this firm. I am merely an intern here doing legal assistant work. Sorry I could not be more helpful in that department (everyone seems like the do well here though).

Thanks for this. I didn't realize how interesting a lot of plaintiff's firm work was until recently, and I also didn't realize there were firms that did antitrust, environmental litigation, mass torts, etc strictly from the side of the plaintiffs (I don't know why, I just thought big firms represented both sides). I wasn't excited about the prospect of defending say, an oil company when they spill oil, or a company that has been negligent with its chemicals/dumping and caused health risks.

Do lawyers at the firm seem to enjoy what they're doing? Do they seem to be convinced they're 'doing the right thing', or is there perhaps a culture of drumming up complaints to get a payout? While I have no interest in defending companies when they are at fault, I also am not a fan of bringing suits for overblown or petty issues.

As I said, I didn't know about these firms until recently, so please enlighten me! Anything else you think is worth mentioning?

I think part of the reason we are so specialized (only Antitrust and only for the plaintiff is because we are a small-mid sized firm. I am not sure if at "big law" a firm would rep both sides. I can only speak for where I am. As far as the lawyers enjoying their job... I think they are all passionate about what they do and believe they are doing the right thing and helping people at the same time. So far, it seems as though you could make a solid argument for all of the law suits we have brought upon companies (at least in my opinion), as they have all clearly broken antitrust regulations. I know that if I worked here as a lawyer eventually, I would sleep well at night and be able to look at my self in the mirror just fine (well maybe i could lose a pound or 20) .

Feel free to ask if you have any more questions, I will do my very best to provide as honest and informed answers as someone with my very limited experience can.

[MoS]

Sent a PM

[Onion]

Sent a PM

Responded, sorry it was not the same day.