Columbia EIP 2014 Forum

[Tiago Splitter]

is it possible to get all 30 interviews, especially if you're bidding on a secondary market like LA? seems like LA firms (at least based on last year's data) were vastly underbid.

That's the only way to get all 30. And yeah it's possible to get all of them. That said things can change quite a bit from year to year, especially with secondary markets, so bid somewhat conservatively if you really want those offices. If each LA office has 20 interview slots, 15 people going for LA means you can have everything, 25 means some people are going to miss out.

[Anonymous User]

is it possible to get all 30 interviews, especially if you're bidding on a secondary market like LA? seems like LA firms (at least based on last year's data) were vastly underbid.

That's the only way to get all 30. And yeah it's possible to get all of them. That said things can change quite a bit from year to year, especially with secondary markets, so bid somewhat conservatively if you really want those offices. If each LA office has 20 interview slots, 15 people going for LA means you can have everything, 25 means some people are going to miss out.

How's this look for a bid list? 3.58, corporate, want New York or the Bay Area but with a couple LA firms thrown in.

1. Proskauer Rose (NY)
2. Shearman & Sterling (NY)
3. Sidley Austin (NY)
4. Morrison Foerster (SF)
5. Cooley (PA)
6. Skadden (NY)
7. Paul Weiss (Corporate)
8. WilmerHale (NY)
9. Debevoise & Plimpton (NY)
10. Weil Gotshal (NY)
11. Latham (NY)
12. Milbank Tweed (NY)
13. Sullivan & Cromwell (NY)
14. Cleary Gottlieb (NY)
15. Willkie Farr (NY)
16. Freshfields (NY)
17. Cahill Gordon (NY)
18. Ropes & Gray (NY)
19. Davis Polk (NY)
20. Latham (SF)
21. Skadden (LA)
22. Simpson Thacher (PA)
23. Davis Polk (Menlo Park)
24. Cravath, Swaine & Moore (NY)
25. Sullivan & Cromwell (LA)
26. O’Melveny (LA)
27. Simpson Thacher (NY)
28. Gunderson Dettmer (Bay)
29. Wilson Sonsini (PA)
30. Latham (LA)

[itbdvorm]

It's just so gloriously clueless. It reads like someone who read chambers and made a list of firms that are Band 1 in certain practice areas.

How would you differentiate the corporate work of that "group" of firms, personally?

Are there notably different practice strengths or will it mostly come down to your fit with the firm at that level?

There are some practice areas (and firms) that it is better to be an associate at, and some where the partnership is equally prestigious, but being an transactional associate blows (and more to the point, you don't get the kind of training you need!) (cough cough Cahill)

I think that if you have the grades to meet S&C's cutoff, and you are interested in transactional work, it absolutely, stone-cold needs to be high enough on your list to guarantee an interview. It's arguably the best non-Wachtell transactional firm in the country! Dithering around with Kirkland and Debevoise and whatever else is simply madness. Back in my day, every serious (i.e. mid-Stone or higher) transactional candidate made sure to get their S&C offer.

If you get S&C and Cleary, or S&C and Cravath, etc., than you can start dicking around with fit and midtown v. downtown and all that other crap, but for gods sake, you want to do transactional work, you have to focus on getting an offer at a top transactional firm. And the number of really top transactional firms isn't that large - arguably, it excludes Davis Polk until they rebuild their M&A practice, though Davis Polk is still a marvellous firm - Wachtell, Cravath, Cleary, Simpson, S&C, maybe DPW and that's kind of it. Sure, you can make arguments for a practice group here or there, but that list is the limited number of places where no matter what group ultimately takes a shining to you, you're in a top-notch situation with superb training.

So anyways, that's what's so crazy about hyper-fetishizing Chambers band rankings and what not. For transactional, the game hasn't changed in a decade and is really simple. Get yourself into one of the top places, and your bidding should be designed entirely to accomplish that. If you end up at Cleary and not Davis Polk, or S&C and not Cravath, etc., that is all just a meaningless rounding error - once you have the top-tier offer, you're playing with house money and you can futz around with Chambers rankings till the cows come home.

FWIW, I largely agree with this, though I think I'd add Skadden, Latham and Kirkland (maybe) to the above list. To the poster who asked, DPW has had a very weird transactional practice lately - still doing plenty of work in a specific type of cap markets but they've lost substantial market share on the public company M&A side and don't have a PE practice to speak of so....

[Anonymous User]

It's just so gloriously clueless. It reads like someone who read chambers and made a list of firms that are Band 1 in certain practice areas.

How would you differentiate the corporate work of that "group" of firms, personally?

Are there notably different practice strengths or will it mostly come down to your fit with the firm at that level?

There are some practice areas (and firms) that it is better to be an associate at, and some where the partnership is equally prestigious, but being an transactional associate blows (and more to the point, you don't get the kind of training you need!) (cough cough Cahill)

I think that if you have the grades to meet S&C's cutoff, and you are interested in transactional work, it absolutely, stone-cold needs to be high enough on your list to guarantee an interview. It's arguably the best non-Wachtell transactional firm in the country! Dithering around with Kirkland and Debevoise and whatever else is simply madness. Back in my day, every serious (i.e. mid-Stone or higher) transactional candidate made sure to get their S&C offer.

If you get S&C and Cleary, or S&C and Cravath, etc., than you can start dicking around with fit and midtown v. downtown and all that other crap, but for gods sake, you want to do transactional work, you have to focus on getting an offer at a top transactional firm. And the number of really top transactional firms isn't that large - arguably, it excludes Davis Polk until they rebuild their M&A practice, though Davis Polk is still a marvellous firm - Wachtell, Cravath, Cleary, Simpson, S&C, maybe DPW and that's kind of it. Sure, you can make arguments for a practice group here or there, but that list is the limited number of places where no matter what group ultimately takes a shining to you, you're in a top-notch situation with superb training.

So anyways, that's what's so crazy about hyper-fetishizing Chambers band rankings and what not. For transactional, the game hasn't changed in a decade and is really simple. Get yourself into one of the top places, and your bidding should be designed entirely to accomplish that. [emphasis added] If you end up at Cleary and not Davis Polk, or S&C and not Cravath, etc., that is all just a meaningless rounding error - once you have the top-tier offer, you're playing with house money and you can futz around with Chambers rankings till the cows come home.

Where do people think a 3.64 puts me regarding these top transactional firms? I'm pretty set on transactional in NYC. But I'm not sure my grades are good enough to be safe really aggressively targeting S&C, Cravath, Skadden, Cleary, DPW.

Hopefully I'll have a full-fledged bidlist to post here soon.

[Anonymous User]

Ok, looking for help cutting down my bidlist a tad. 3.8 GPA, focused on corporate/financial institutions (NY) or regulatory/investigations (DC), 2 yrs WE in finance industry. Would probably prefer to end up in NYC but I'm giving DC a fighting chance for personal reasons.

1 - Kirkland and Ellis (NY)
2 - Shearman and Sterling (NY)
3 - Sidley Austin (NY)
4 - Skadden (NY)
5 - Debevoise (NY)
6 - Jones Day (NY)
7 - Weil Gotshal (NY)
8 - Latham and Watkins (NY)
9 - Milbank (NY)
10 - Sullivan and Cromwell (NY)
11 - Morrison and Foerster (NY)
12 - Cleary (NY)
13 - Paul Weiss (NY)
14 - Davis Polk (NY)
15 - Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP (NY)
16 - Cadwalader (NY)
17 - Covington & Burling (NY)
18 - Arnold & Porter (DC)
19 - WilmerHale (NY)
20 - Covington & Burling (DC)
21 - Cravath (NY)
22 - Skadden (DC)
23 - Simpson Thatcher (NY)
24 - Wachtell (NY)
25 - Kirkland and Ellis (DC)
26 - Paul Hastings (DC)
27 - Gibson Dunn (DC)
28 - Cleary (DC)
29 - Paul Weiss (DC)
30 - Goodwin Procter (DC)
---
alt 1 - Sidley Austin (DC)
alt 2 - Boies Schiller - Corp (NY)

Who would you kick off the list? Did I leave anyone out?

- Keyser Söze

[Anonymous User]

So this may be a stupid question, but what does K-JD mean?

[Anonymous User]

So this may be a stupid question, but what does K-JD mean?

Kindergarten to law school with no break for work experience in between.

[Anonymous User]

There are some practice areas (and firms) that it is better to be an associate at, and some where the partnership is equally prestigious, but being an transactional associate blows (and more to the point, you don't get the kind of training you need!) (cough cough Cahill)

I think that if you have the grades to meet S&C's cutoff, and you are interested in transactional work, it absolutely, stone-cold needs to be high enough on your list to guarantee an interview. It's arguably the best non-Wachtell transactional firm in the country! Dithering around with Kirkland and Debevoise and whatever else is simply madness. Back in my day, every serious (i.e. mid-Stone or higher) transactional candidate made sure to get their S&C offer.

If you get S&C and Cleary, or S&C and Cravath, etc., than you can start dicking around with fit and midtown v. downtown and all that other crap, but for gods sake, you want to do transactional work, you have to focus on getting an offer at a top transactional firm. And the number of really top transactional firms isn't that large - arguably, it excludes Davis Polk until they rebuild their M&A practice, though Davis Polk is still a marvellous firm - Wachtell, Cravath, Cleary, Simpson, S&C, maybe DPW and that's kind of it. Sure, you can make arguments for a practice group here or there, but that list is the limited number of places where no matter what group ultimately takes a shining to you, you're in a top-notch situation with superb training.

So anyways, that's what's so crazy about hyper-fetishizing Chambers band rankings and what not. For transactional, the game hasn't changed in a decade and is really simple. Get yourself into one of the top places, and your bidding should be designed entirely to accomplish that. If you end up at Cleary and not Davis Polk, or S&C and not Cravath, etc., that is all just a meaningless rounding error - once you have the top-tier offer, you're playing with house money and you can futz around with Chambers rankings till the cows come home.

As someone considering transactional, this is very helpful. Would you mind expanding on why DPW is a bit behind the rest? They're one of my top choices and I hadn't heard that their M&A practice was in need of rebuilding before. Also, is there a reason Skadden isn't on your list?

Skadden has very high leverage and, by reputation, hires more laterals than the other top transactional shops. It's a great place to be senior at but I wouldn't want to start my career there; and I think that recruiting results reflect that (it dips deeper than the other top transactional firms)

[Anonymous User]

It's just so gloriously clueless. It reads like someone who read chambers and made a list of firms that are Band 1 in certain practice areas.

How would you differentiate the corporate work of that "group" of firms, personally?

Are there notably different practice strengths or will it mostly come down to your fit with the firm at that level?

There are some practice areas (and firms) that it is better to be an associate at, and some where the partnership is equally prestigious, but being an transactional associate blows (and more to the point, you don't get the kind of training you need!) (cough cough Cahill)

I think that if you have the grades to meet S&C's cutoff, and you are interested in transactional work, it absolutely, stone-cold needs to be high enough on your list to guarantee an interview. It's arguably the best non-Wachtell transactional firm in the country! Dithering around with Kirkland and Debevoise and whatever else is simply madness. Back in my day, every serious (i.e. mid-Stone or higher) transactional candidate made sure to get their S&C offer.

If you get S&C and Cleary, or S&C and Cravath, etc., than you can start dicking around with fit and midtown v. downtown and all that other crap, but for gods sake, you want to do transactional work, you have to focus on getting an offer at a top transactional firm. And the number of really top transactional firms isn't that large - arguably, it excludes Davis Polk until they rebuild their M&A practice, though Davis Polk is still a marvellous firm - Wachtell, Cravath, Cleary, Simpson, S&C, maybe DPW and that's kind of it. Sure, you can make arguments for a practice group here or there, but that list is the limited number of places where no matter what group ultimately takes a shining to you, you're in a top-notch situation with superb training.

So anyways, that's what's so crazy about hyper-fetishizing Chambers band rankings and what not. For transactional, the game hasn't changed in a decade and is really simple. Get yourself into one of the top places, and your bidding should be designed entirely to accomplish that. If you end up at Cleary and not Davis Polk, or S&C and not Cravath, etc., that is all just a meaningless rounding error - once you have the top-tier offer, you're playing with house money and you can futz around with Chambers rankings till the cows come home.

FWIW, I largely agree with this, though I think I'd add Skadden, Latham and Kirkland (maybe) to the above list. To the poster who asked, DPW has had a very weird transactional practice lately - still doing plenty of work in a specific type of cap markets but they've lost substantial market share on the public company M&A side and don't have a PE practice to speak of so....

Skadden, Latham and Kirkland are great places to be senior at, but bad for juniors. They take laterals from the top places (lots of them) and run higher leverage. You can start at Cravath and drop down to Latham if it doesn't work out - try doing the inverse. That should speak for itself.

Also, Kirkland's eternal partnership track is an abomination.

Finally, while I'm agnostic on the value of lockstep partner compensation for the associate experience (IIRC, Wachtell and S&C are not lockstep for partners, Cleary and Cravath are), life is a million times better with no hours requirement / lockstep associate bonuses. It seems like a great idea to have better bonuses for better performers, but ask the M&A associates how much fun that is when the M&A market dried up for 2+ years, or the high yield guys in 2008, etc. It's bad enough when your practice area goes quiet, having it directly affect your comp just makes it worse.

[Anonymous User]

What's the GPA cut off for places like Debevoise and Paul Weiss? Any guesses?

[itbdvorm]

There are some practice areas (and firms) that it is better to be an associate at, and some where the partnership is equally prestigious, but being an transactional associate blows (and more to the point, you don't get the kind of training you need!) (cough cough Cahill)

I think that if you have the grades to meet S&C's cutoff, and you are interested in transactional work, it absolutely, stone-cold needs to be high enough on your list to guarantee an interview. It's arguably the best non-Wachtell transactional firm in the country! Dithering around with Kirkland and Debevoise and whatever else is simply madness. Back in my day, every serious (i.e. mid-Stone or higher) transactional candidate made sure to get their S&C offer.

If you get S&C and Cleary, or S&C and Cravath, etc., than you can start dicking around with fit and midtown v. downtown and all that other crap, but for gods sake, you want to do transactional work, you have to focus on getting an offer at a top transactional firm. And the number of really top transactional firms isn't that large - arguably, it excludes Davis Polk until they rebuild their M&A practice, though Davis Polk is still a marvellous firm - Wachtell, Cravath, Cleary, Simpson, S&C, maybe DPW and that's kind of it. Sure, you can make arguments for a practice group here or there, but that list is the limited number of places where no matter what group ultimately takes a shining to you, you're in a top-notch situation with superb training.

So anyways, that's what's so crazy about hyper-fetishizing Chambers band rankings and what not. For transactional, the game hasn't changed in a decade and is really simple. Get yourself into one of the top places, and your bidding should be designed entirely to accomplish that. If you end up at Cleary and not Davis Polk, or S&C and not Cravath, etc., that is all just a meaningless rounding error - once you have the top-tier offer, you're playing with house money and you can futz around with Chambers rankings till the cows come home.

FWIW, I largely agree with this, though I think I'd add Skadden, Latham and Kirkland (maybe) to the above list. To the poster who asked, DPW has had a very weird transactional practice lately - still doing plenty of work in a specific type of cap markets but they've lost substantial market share on the public company M&A side and don't have a PE practice to speak of so....

Skadden, Latham and Kirkland are great places to be senior at, but bad for juniors. They take laterals from the top places (lots of them) and run higher leverage. You can start at Cravath and drop down to Latham if it doesn't work out - try doing the inverse. That should speak for itself.

Also, Kirkland's eternal partnership track is an abomination.

Finally, while I'm agnostic on the value of lockstep partner compensation for the associate experience (IIRC, Wachtell and S&C are not lockstep for partners, Cleary and Cravath are), life is a million times better with no hours requirement / lockstep associate bonuses. It seems like a great idea to have better bonuses for better performers, but ask the M&A associates how much fun that is when the M&A market dried up for 2+ years, or the high yield guys in 2008, etc. It's bad enough when your practice area goes quiet, having it directly affect your comp just makes it worse.

Only thing I'll quibble with is the lateral point - other than Cravath (which prides itself on generally hiring no lateral associates and way over-hires at the junior levels as a result) I've seen folks lateral to/from every other firm mentioned here.

And I guess I'll also point out that ALL of these firms are pretty rough places to be juniors at....

[Anonymous User]

I'm a 3L and I just wanted to pop in to plug pre-EIP interviews. Especially for the Kents in this thread, but really for anyone above median, many firms will do resume/gpa-based "callbacks" over the summer. I know a lot of students locked down good offers last year that way and reduced the stress from EIP.

(Last year, it seemed like not everyone knew it was an option and some of the more connected people got an (extra) leg up because they knew about it—but it doesn't require any connections, just sending in a resume. The worst that can happen is they say to wait for EIP.)

[Anonymous User]

What is median? Do we have a good idea of that yet?

[Anonymous User]

I'm a 3L and I just wanted to pop in to plug pre-EIP interviews. Especially for the Kents in this thread, but really for anyone above median, many firms will do resume/gpa-based "callbacks" over the summer. I know a lot of students locked down good offers last year that way and reduced the stress from EIP.

(Last year, it seemed like not everyone knew it was an option and some of the more connected people got an (extra) leg up because they knew about it—but it doesn't require any connections, just sending in a resume. The worst that can happen is they say to wait for EIP.)

When would be a good time to do this? Should we wait for honors confirmation and journals first?

[Anonymous User]

Does anyone have any advice for how to explain no LR with high grades, or will this mostly be dependent on each person's individual circumstances and personal reasons? Is explaining that you only want corporate going to cut it?

[Anonymous User]

Since LR hasn't come out yet, I assume you mean that you didn't try? Did you apply for any journal?

If you're on some other journal (even one with very little work or no editing) I don't think you'll need to do much explaining—LR is write-on dependant enough that high grades aren't a guarantee and I don't think most interviewers draw a huge distinction between the non-LR journals. At worst, it would be like one lower grade with an otherwise high gpa.

If you don't have a journal at all, it still probably won't be an issue, especially if you reply that you're focused on transactional. But I'd keep in mind that the danger of not having a journal is it might make you look like you didn't want to do the work, so I'd look for other opportunities in your interview to present as hard working.

[Anonymous User]

Since LR hasn't come out yet, I assume you mean that you didn't try? Did you apply for any journal?

If you're on some other journal (even one with very little work or no editing) I don't think you'll need to do much explaining—LR is write-on dependant enough that high grades aren't a guarantee and I don't think most interviewers draw a huge distinction between the non-LR journals. At worst, it would be like one lower grade with an otherwise high gpa.

If you don't have a journal at all, it still probably won't be an issue, especially if you reply that you're focused on transactional. But I'd keep in mind that the danger of not having a journal is it might make you look like you didn't want to do the work, so I'd look for other opportunities in your interview to present as hard working.

I'm doing a secondary, just not the main journal, so hopefully I'll be alright. Thanks for the advice!

[Anonymous User]

Did anyone else here not write on for LR? Do you care to explain why? I'm just curious.

[Anonymous User]

Did anyone else here not write on for LR? Do you care to explain why? I'm just curious.

Same guy as before. But I simply have no interest in litigation, clerking, academia, or spending a significant portion of my life next year cite checking. I'm kind of over the whole "do it because of the prestige" thing.

[Anonymous User]

Did anyone else here not write on for LR? Do you care to explain why? I'm just curious.

I didn't finish the writing component in time. I started late on Sunday, read the whole packet, wrote for about six hours, and decided I didn't have enough time to do a half-decent job. I plan to tell employers that I'm just bad at completing important written work product on a strict deadline.

[Anonymous User]

I'm a 3L and I just wanted to pop in to plug pre-EIP interviews. Especially for the Kents in this thread, but really for anyone above median, many firms will do resume/gpa-based "callbacks" over the summer. I know a lot of students locked down good offers last year that way and reduced the stress from EIP.

(Last year, it seemed like not everyone knew it was an option and some of the more connected people got an (extra) leg up because they knew about it—but it doesn't require any connections, just sending in a resume. The worst that can happen is they say to wait for EIP.)

When would be a good time to do this? Should we wait for honors confirmation and journals first?

Bumping this. I'm planning on emailing some of the partners that I clicked with at events/previous interviews, but that's only like 3-4 firms. Do we mass mail the recruiting contact at the rest of the firms we're planning to bid on?

[Anonymous User]

FWIW, I largely agree with this, though I think I'd add Skadden, Latham and Kirkland (maybe) to the above list. To the poster who asked, DPW has had a very weird transactional practice lately - still doing plenty of work in a specific type of cap markets but they've lost substantial market share on the public company M&A side and don't have a PE practice to speak of so....

I would strongly suggest 2Ls do their own research or talk to more people than on an anonymous internet board. Regarding DPW's allegedly poor M&A practice, see here http://www.bloomberg.com/professional/c ... adv-h1.pdf and here --LinkRemoved--. Keep in mind this is despite having a smaller M&A practice than S&C, STB, and obviously Skadden. This is not intended to turn this into a discussion about one firm in particular, but just take the "information" you get with a grain of salt. I would strongly suggest going to a firm's website and seeing their news / announcements if you want to get an idea of the type of work they are doing.

More generally, I suggest trying to talk to attorneys and figure out what the work of a particular group is actually like before choosing a firm based on one practice group.

[itbdvorm]

FWIW, I largely agree with this, though I think I'd add Skadden, Latham and Kirkland (maybe) to the above list. To the poster who asked, DPW has had a very weird transactional practice lately - still doing plenty of work in a specific type of cap markets but they've lost substantial market share on the public company M&A side and don't have a PE practice to speak of so....

I would strongly suggest 2Ls do their own research or talk to more people than on an anonymous internet board. Regarding DPW's allegedly poor M&A practice, see here http://www.bloomberg.com/professional/c ... adv-h1.pdf and here --LinkRemoved--. Keep in mind this is despite having a smaller M&A practice than S&C, STB, and obviously Skadden. This is not intended to turn this into a discussion about one firm in particular, but just take the "information" you get with a grain of salt. I would strongly suggest going to a firm's website and seeing their news / announcements if you want to get an idea of the type of work they are doing.

More generally, I suggest trying to talk to attorneys and figure out what the work of a particular group is actually like before choosing a firm based on one practice group.

I of course agree with that, though would think that my presence here has been sufficiently well-established enough so that no one's questioning my statements, but hey.

DPW's presence on that list is dramatically skewed by advising the financial advisor to Verizon in connection with its $124bn acquisition of Verizon Wireless. While cool, and useful for league table purposes, it's not particularly meaningful in a broad sense.

I'm not saying they have a bad transactional/M&A practice by any means. I just don't think it's on the level of the other firms listed right now. Take my word with whatever grains of salt you like.

[Anonymous User]

FYI, OCS has a list of firms that have decreased their interview schedules from last year, which definitely affects the utility of the first failed bid report. Make sure to ask them about that when you meet...you can be assured that they will not be the ones to bring it up.

[Anonymous User]

Thoughts on adding Gibson Dunn as a reach for a slightly-below-median bid list? OCS encouraged me to add it given my interests, as I don't have many reaches already, but it seems like a wasted bid.