Cooley (Northern Cal) vs. Cadwalader/Goodwin (NY) Forum

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SLS_AMG

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Re: Cooley (Northern Cal) vs. Cadwalader/Goodwin (NY)

Post by SLS_AMG » Wed Aug 31, 2016 10:09 am

zot1 wrote:
SLS_AMG wrote:
zot1 wrote:Cooley because SF is awesome.

I apologize in advance for the tiny a** place you'll be living in though.
Did OP say it was SF? Because SV is awful unless you're like 40 with kids. Also, SF is cool, but I feel like it's idealized by people from the East Coast (not saying that's you, but people on this board in general). It has some major drawbacks that people either overlook or are unaware of. Great city, but not necessarily all it's cracked up to be.
He said SF/SV (it's in the original post). I went with SF.

From SoCal, but have been to SF many times. Love it but wouldn't live there because of traffic and the ridiculous cost of living.

You might be the first person from So Cal I've ever heard complain about Nor Cal traffic. :lol: (though I agree; SF traffic is severely underrated. And not in the good way.)

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zot1

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Re: Cooley (Northern Cal) vs. Cadwalader/Goodwin (NY)

Post by zot1 » Wed Aug 31, 2016 10:25 am

SLS_AMG wrote:
zot1 wrote:
SLS_AMG wrote:
zot1 wrote:Cooley because SF is awesome.

I apologize in advance for the tiny a** place you'll be living in though.
Did OP say it was SF? Because SV is awful unless you're like 40 with kids. Also, SF is cool, but I feel like it's idealized by people from the East Coast (not saying that's you, but people on this board in general). It has some major drawbacks that people either overlook or are unaware of. Great city, but not necessarily all it's cracked up to be.
He said SF/SV (it's in the original post). I went with SF.

From SoCal, but have been to SF many times. Love it but wouldn't live there because of traffic and the ridiculous cost of living.

You might be the first person from So Cal I've ever heard complain about Nor Cal traffic. :lol: (though I agree; SF traffic is severely underrated. And not in the good way.)
I've spent several hours just trying to cross bridges. Yeah, I'll complain alright.

anon3030

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Re: Cooley (Northern Cal) vs. Cadwalader/Goodwin (NY)

Post by anon3030 » Wed Aug 31, 2016 11:48 am

zot1 wrote:
SLS_AMG wrote:
zot1 wrote:
SLS_AMG wrote:
zot1 wrote:Cooley because SF is awesome.

I apologize in advance for the tiny a** place you'll be living in though.
Did OP say it was SF? Because SV is awful unless you're like 40 with kids. Also, SF is cool, but I feel like it's idealized by people from the East Coast (not saying that's you, but people on this board in general). It has some major drawbacks that people either overlook or are unaware of. Great city, but not necessarily all it's cracked up to be.
He said SF/SV (it's in the original post). I went with SF.

From SoCal, but have been to SF many times. Love it but wouldn't live there because of traffic and the ridiculous cost of living.

You might be the first person from So Cal I've ever heard complain about Nor Cal traffic. :lol: (though I agree; SF traffic is severely underrated. And not in the good way.)
I've spent several hours just trying to cross bridges. Yeah, I'll complain alright.
I summered with a firm this year, and I split my time between its NYC HQ and its SF satellite office. I was lucky to get an offer from both offices and haven't decided which office yet, but I am strongly leaning towards SF. I agree that SF is a little overrated, but the SF office culture was so much more laid back and friendly. Not just at this satellite office, but working with associates on deals at firms with SF HQ's. Hard to say no to that life.

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Re: Cooley (Northern Cal) vs. Cadwalader/Goodwin (NY)

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Sep 05, 2016 10:44 pm

rpupkin wrote: I am a west-coast litigator who knows nothing about Cadwalader, but I'll say this: be very wary of making career choices based on TLS anecdotes. The culture within a firm can vary. It may be that Cadwalader's reputation is due to a couple of conspicuously horrible practice groups, but that its capital market group has great partners who work well with associates. (I'm certainly not saying that's the case; I'm just suggesting you remain open to the possibility.) The individual partners and senior associates you end up working with are WAY more important the overall "culture" of a big law firm.
I'm at Cadwalader, so I'm clearly biased, but I would reiterate this sentiment. My suspicion is that users who simply post "don't go to Cadwalader" regurgitate what they perceive to be a conventional wisdom passed down from an online game of telephone. TLS is an almost comically scatterbrained source of anecdotes about "culture." I'm happy, and I don't see much evidence for this thread's crankiness and cynicism. I enjoy the workplace, and I think most of my class who actually like the practice of law in the first place are also fine. As with any firm, it depends on who you work with, and I like my superiors. But I don't get the impression that a devil lurks behind every other corner of the building.

With regard to that user who posted Mike Gambro's profile: I don't do cap markets work, but if you're evaluating the practice I suggest that you have to think a bit more broadly. Sure, the firm's most niche expertise is building bonds with an emphasis on mortgage-backed securities and CLOs (hence some, uh, kerfuffles around the financial crisis caused by mortgage-backed securities). So sure, CWT has more partners who specialize in CMBS work than many firms, and they're a wildly profitable gang of lawyers. But Financial Services also has partners who build mutual funds and hedge funds, Cap Markets securitizes a lot of other kinds of instruments, and altogether the firm's Wall Street exposure is pretty broad once you finish looking through its book of business with i-banks.

In the end, as much as you think you have no SF/NY preference, your firm choice is fairly inseparable from the city choice. If you like tech work in the Bay, go to Cooley. If you like Wall Street finance in New York, go to Cad. They're just so so different, with quite divergent long-term trajectories, that I think you'll have to develop a gut preference between them. Good luck and congrats.

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Tiago Splitter

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Re: Cooley (Northern Cal) vs. Cadwalader/Goodwin (NY)

Post by Tiago Splitter » Mon Sep 05, 2016 11:10 pm

Anonymous User wrote: With regard to that user who posted Mike Gambro's profile: I don't do cap markets work, but if you're evaluating the practice I suggest that you have to think a bit more broadly. Sure, the firm's most niche expertise is building bonds with an emphasis on mortgage-backed securities and CLOs (hence some, uh, kerfuffles around the financial crisis caused by mortgage-backed securities). So sure, CWT has more partners who specialize in CMBS work than many firms, and they're a wildly profitable gang of lawyers. But Financial Services also has partners who build mutual funds and hedge funds, Cap Markets securitizes a lot of other kinds of instruments, and altogether the firm's Wall Street exposure is pretty broad once you finish looking through its book of business with i-banks.
I don't think we disagree. Traditional cap markets work consists of representing issuers and underwriters in debt and equity offerings. I've looked at the profiles of all 11 NYC corporate finance partners and not one seems to really do this.

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