Life as a unicorn Forum

[DportIA]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgSJUzYCGtc

Buffalo, what are your thoughts on this video.

Robert C. Davis is wearing a wig, right?

My god, everything about this video is horrible.

[MrSebastian]

I came across this New Republic article that gives a good (tho horribly pessimistic) overview of big law and its future (http://www.newrepublic.com/article/1139 ... oney-dries)

Is anyone familiar with this / do you know how accurate of a picture this is? I'm hoping that it's a bit of an exaggeration or that is just applies to a few specific legal practices since it makes big law seem like an incredibly asinine career choice.

I fully expect 80 hour weeks and demanding working conditions, but it's hard to justify this lifestyle if it won't lead to career advancement or upward mobility in the firm. That being said, does anyone know which legal practices typically have the most opportunities for advancement among associates? (I know IP is one of them but I lack a technical background).

[withoutapaddle]

Have you worked 40 hours for more than 6 months straight, let alone over 60.

This guy is right. At my last job I worked at a bank for 45-50 hours a week for a little over a year and a half. It was awful and you feel like you don't have any time for yourself.

Wake up
Go to work
Eat lunch
Go back to work
Get home at 7-7:30
make dinner (or buy it) and eat
Watch an hour of ancient aliens on the history channel or go to the gym
Fall asleep
Repeat

I couldn't imagine working 70-80 hours a week

[dixiecupdrinking]

I came across this New Republic article that gives a good (tho horribly pessimistic) overview of big law and its future (http://www.newrepublic.com/article/1139 ... oney-dries)

Is anyone familiar with this / do you know how accurate of a picture this is? I'm hoping that it's a bit of an exaggeration or that is just applies to a few specific legal practices since it makes big law seem like an incredibly asinine career choice.

I fully expect 80 hour weeks and demanding working conditions, but it's hard to justify this lifestyle if it won't lead to career advancement or upward mobility in the firm. That being said, does anyone know which legal practices typically have the most opportunities for advancement among associates? (I know IP is one of them but I lack a technical background).

That article is a bit too apocalyptic. IMO biglaw will survive in more or less its current form for the length of time that a current or soon-to-be associate cares about. That said, I do think it's true that there is a flight to quality, and that the top 20 to 25 firms, to use the article's figure, will be in a much better position than the "commodity" biglaw firms. It's hard to imagine why someone would hire some of the more meh firms these days unless they are simply competing on price.

[Pragmatic Gun]

I came across this New Republic article that gives a good (tho horribly pessimistic) overview of big law and its future (http://www.newrepublic.com/article/1139 ... oney-dries)

Is anyone familiar with this / do you know how accurate of a picture this is? I'm hoping that it's a bit of an exaggeration or that is just applies to a few specific legal practices since it makes big law seem like an incredibly asinine career choice.

I fully expect 80 hour weeks and demanding working conditions, but it's hard to justify this lifestyle if it won't lead to career advancement or upward mobility in the firm. That being said, does anyone know which legal practices typically have the most opportunities for advancement among associates? (I know IP is one of them but I lack a technical background).

That article is a bit too apocalyptic. IMO biglaw will survive in more or less its current form for the length of time that a current or soon-to-be associate cares about. That said, I do think it's true that there is a flight to quality, and that the top 20 to 25 firms, to use the article's figure, will be in a much better position than the "commodity" biglaw firms. It's hard to imagine why someone would hire some of the more meh firms these days unless they are simply competing on price.

How big of a difference in quality is there between Big Law firms to justify the billing rates?

[dixiecupdrinking]

I came across this New Republic article that gives a good (tho horribly pessimistic) overview of big law and its future (http://www.newrepublic.com/article/1139 ... oney-dries)

Is anyone familiar with this / do you know how accurate of a picture this is? I'm hoping that it's a bit of an exaggeration or that is just applies to a few specific legal practices since it makes big law seem like an incredibly asinine career choice.

I fully expect 80 hour weeks and demanding working conditions, but it's hard to justify this lifestyle if it won't lead to career advancement or upward mobility in the firm. That being said, does anyone know which legal practices typically have the most opportunities for advancement among associates? (I know IP is one of them but I lack a technical background).

That article is a bit too apocalyptic. IMO biglaw will survive in more or less its current form for the length of time that a current or soon-to-be associate cares about. That said, I do think it's true that there is a flight to quality, and that the top 20 to 25 firms, to use the article's figure, will be in a much better position than the "commodity" biglaw firms. It's hard to imagine why someone would hire some of the more meh firms these days unless they are simply competing on price.

How big of a difference in quality is there between Big Law firms to justify the billing rates?

As a practical matter I'm not sure. I suspect there is a noticeable distinction, but I'm not experienced enough to speak to it. But I do think for the so called "bet the company" cases and the biggest deals, clients will still pay for the most reputable firms. Whether that's because there actually is a quality gap, because the client perceives there to be a quality gap, or because the client just wants to cover his or her own ass by saying they got the best counsel money can buy, there will be enough big-deal matters to keep the top firms afloat. For more run of the mill matters, it's not as clear what value one firm might have over another, which leads to a race to the bottom.

[wons]

How big of a difference in quality is there between Big Law firms to justify the billing rates?

Huge difference - for work that tests your ability. Changing dates on a shelf takedown won't test the difference between Cravath and Sidley. A big public company M&A deal absolutely will.

There's also market knowledge, which is hugely important for negotiation. A high yield lawyer at a top firm does 20+ deals a year knows market practice for all the key terms and conditions cold; knows what banks will give on what points, etc. A guy at a lesser firm who gets maybe 10 big deals a year and then fills out his time with other crap is not going to be able to drive as hard a bargain because he can be bluffed.

[rayiner]

How big of a difference in quality is there between Big Law firms to justify the billing rates?

Huge difference - for work that tests your ability. Changing dates on a shelf takedown won't test the difference between Cravath and Sidley. A big public company M&A deal absolutely will.

There's also market knowledge, which is hugely important for negotiation. A high yield lawyer at a top firm does 20+ deals a year knows market practice for all the key terms and conditions cold; knows what banks will give on what points, etc. A guy at a lesser firm who gets maybe 10 big deals a year and then fills out his time with other crap is not going to be able to drive as hard a bargain because he can be bluffed.

LOL.

[Ricky-Bobby]

Have you worked 40 hours for more than 6 months straight, let alone over 60.

This guy is right. At my last job I worked at a bank for 45-50 hours a week for a little over a year and a half. It was awful and you feel like you don't have any time for yourself.

Wake up
Go to work
Eat lunch
Go back to work
Get home at 7-7:30
make dinner (or buy it) and eat
Watch an hour of ancient aliens on the history channel or go to the gym
Fall asleep
Repeat

I couldn't imagine working 70-80 hours a week

Was this sarcasm? This was sarcasm, wasn't it?

[Pulsar]

V5 is a unicorn job now? Do tell me what the regular jobs are.

[twenty]

I don't understand how the already ill-defined term "unicorn job" has so many people zealously insisting that a job that would constitute a fantastic outcome for HSCCN definitely does not fall within said term.

If it makes anyone feel better, mentally replace the word "unicorn job" with "a legal job that represents one of the best possible entry-level outcomes from even the highest-ranked law schools."

[IAFG]

I don't understand how the already ill-defined term "unicorn job" has so many people zealously insisting that a job that would constitute a fantastic outcome for HSCCN definitely does not fall within said term.

If it makes anyone feel better, mentally replace the word "unicorn job" with "a legal job that represents one of the best possible entry-level outcomes from even the highest-ranked law schools."

Except that's not what a V5 is.

[twenty]

Ah-ha, you're one of those people I was talking about.

Out of morbid curiosity, would you care to explain how this:

a large corporate law firm gig that you can land from top 1/3 at t14s.

is not:

"a legal job that represents one of the best possible entry-level outcomes from even the highest-ranked law schools."

Like, at the point where I'm willing to kick the term "unicorn job" (which was your big contention anyway), you don't get to keep running with NO YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND.

[IAFG]

Because it's not a great outcome. It's just a typical outcome. 4/5 V5s pay market, with market bonuses, with shit benefits, worse-than-typical hours, and work that isn't all that different (or isn't different at all) than what you'd be doing a tier down.

[IAFG]

V5 is not where top 5% + LR kids end up. It's not the firm analogue of HYS.

[Pulsar]

I've always equated "unicorn job" as "reason I so desperately want to go to Yale instead of taking the $$$ elsewhere." Those debates are where the term got started IIRC. If it's a job people at CCN get from median then it's probably not a unicorn job within this definition.

I'm also not sure that any unicorn jobs (short of BIGSCOTUS) actually exist.

[twenty]

Maybe that's what I'm not understanding, then, because it seems like on any number of OCI results threads/spreadsheets/etc. the "best offer" usually posited by <40% at HYSCCN is in the V5-Vwhatever range. I do get that you have an increased chance at a federal clerkship from a better school, and I get that you have a better shot at a super selective boutique out of a better school, but in the end, people take federal clerkships and then take the bonus at the firm when they're done.

(Appreciating that Vault rankings mean basically nothing.)

[quijotesca1011]

Maybe that's what I'm not understanding, then, because it seems like on any number of OCI results threads/spreadsheets/etc. the "best offer" usually posited by <40% at HYSCCN is in the V5-Vwhatever range. I do get that you have an increased chance at a federal clerkship from a better school, and I get that you have a better shot at a super selective boutique out of a better school, but in the end, people take federal clerkships and then take the bonus at the firm when they're done.

(Appreciating that Vault rankings mean basically nothing.)

I never really thought of 'unicorn' jobs in big law… Maybe it's just me but I thought they were more extremely prestigious PI (i.e. working at the UN, high level and hard to get federal gov., maybe like ACLU/HRW) and maybe some (or most?) or academia

[bk1]

Maybe that's what I'm not understanding, then, because it seems like on any number of OCI results threads/spreadsheets/etc. the "best offer" usually posited by <40% at HYSCCN is in the V5-Vwhatever range. I do get that you have an increased chance at a federal clerkship from a better school, and I get that you have a better shot at a super selective boutique out of a better school, but in the end, people take federal clerkships and then take the bonus at the firm when they're done.

(Appreciating that Vault rankings mean basically nothing.)

(as someone who has made 2 of those OCI spreadsheets)

It's because everyone generally accepts the vault rankings as a general measure of "prestige"/selectivity. It's hard to evaluate what your best offer is if nobody can agree on a single standard (though you will notice that some people will put things like "selective boutique" or "Williams & Connolly"). So people with top creds generally state that as their best offer even if they choose to go elsewhere since people can understand it (e.g. even if someone chooses to go to Boies, they may say their "best offer" was a V5). More importantly though, unicorn jobs are generally not the types of jobs you get through OCI (could argue that there are exceptions like super selective boutiques like Susman/Keker/whatever if you consider those unicorn jobs) so of course you're going to see vault rankings as the best offer from OCI.

Clerkships aren't really unicorn jobs either since, while relatively rare/selective, they are not permanent and as you noted most people go back to a biglaw firm afterwards.

[jbagelboy]

Maybe that's what I'm not understanding, then, because it seems like on any number of OCI results threads/spreadsheets/etc. the "best offer" usually posited by <40% at HYSCCN is in the V5-Vwhatever range. I do get that you have an increased chance at a federal clerkship from a better school, and I get that you have a better shot at a super selective boutique out of a better school, but in the end, people take federal clerkships and then take the bonus at the firm when they're done.

(Appreciating that Vault rankings mean basically nothing.)

(as someone who has made 2 of those OCI spreadsheets)

It's because everyone generally accepts the vault rankings as a general measure of "prestige"/selectivity. It's hard to evaluate what your best offer is if nobody can agree on a single standard (though you will notice that some people will put things like "selective boutique" or "Williams & Connolly"). So people with top creds generally state that as their best offer even if they choose to go elsewhere since people can understand it (e.g. even if someone chooses to go to Boies, they may say their "best offer" was a V5). More importantly though, unicorn jobs are generally not the types of jobs you get through OCI (could argue that there are exceptions like super selective boutiques like Susman/Keker/whatever if you consider those unicorn jobs) so of course you're going to see vault rankings as the best offer from OCI.

Clerkships aren't really unicorn jobs either since, while relatively rare/selective, they are not permanent and as you noted most people go back to a biglaw firm afterwards.

the bolded

if you are top quarter after 1L year at a T6 (HYSCCN) you should have access to a "V5", but it doesn't necessarily mean you are headed there. A lot of people at my school will take Paul Weiss or Cleary over S&C, not to mention the people going to Williams & Connolly or Boies Schiller or w.e. S&C, as one particularly heinous example, will give an offer to nearly everyone who meets a certain grade/class rank (it's like a 90%+ cb to offer ratio), so a lot of people can say they got "a V5 offer."

I mean, obviously these are still tough jobs to get and it's fucking hard to land above median at these schools and even get the CB at these firms. but I don't really think of these firms as "competitive" in the same way as other jobs - again, not because on a global level they don't have high standards and don't squeeze out 98% of law students, but because once you scale it down they aren't really looking for you to stand out within your sub-tier of students above median at feeder schools

[Pulsar]

Unicorn jobs are the ones nobody on this board knows about because they are so rare, if they exist at all. That's the point of the term "unicorn."

Ex:

"LGBT Civil Rights Impact Litigation for the ACLU in Rwanda"

"Assistant Counsel to the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs"

etc.

Everybody knows about Biglaw and pretty much how to get there. It doesn't count. V5 in particular doesn't count, since those are all NYC firms with the largest class sizes, ie, with the exception of Wachtell, some of the lowest hanging fruit available. (Biggest classes in the easiest market).

[bizzike]

I associate 'unicorn' jobs with 'unicorn' posters: someone who thinks an international law clinic at a TTT will fast track them to a ICC position at the Hague. An often hunted creature, the unicorn's habitat also covers IB and consulting. The number of finance grads (or better yet, Ivy League Econ majors) who think they'll hit principal and director at age 30 because they've read Blink and Liar's Poker is staggering and makes for tremendous entertainment when reality happens.

[withoutapaddle]

Was this sarcasm? This was sarcasm, wasn't it?

No it wasn't sarcasm. I pulled 50 hour weeks for two month straight and while that doesn't sound like much- the cubicle will crush your soul (Especially when you have pissed off clients)

I had a picture of a Steve Jobs quote on my desktop."If today was the last day of your life would you want to be doing what you're about to do today" The answer was no 99% of the time.

[rayiner]

V5 is not where top 5% + LR kids end up. It's not the firm analogue of HYS.

Eh. For corporate/tax, plenty do.

I agree about "unicorn job" though. I think that should be reserved for jobs that aren't subject to the usual law-industry bullshit. I think SCOTUS -> OSG qualifies.

[wons]

V5 is not where top 5% + LR kids end up. It's not the firm analogue of HYS.

Yeah this isn't right. I was at or around 5% at my CCN (there's no way to know for sure) and went to a V5 because I wanted to do corporate and thats where you go to do corporate. Wachtell only takes a couple of kids a year from each of CCN, so you have plenty of corporate folks with top 5% grades going to Cravath, S&C, DPW, etc.

In fact, the folks with the really good LS grades tend to last longer at those firms (2 of the partners in my group, for example, were 3-year Kent Scholars at CLS, and another was magna at HLS), so if you were to look at, say, 5th year and up at the V5, there's a big chunk of folks who had what you guys might think of as unicorn type LS grades (i.e., the type of grades you have to assume you wont get when you pick your school).