Where did the smartest people from your law school go? Forum

[Anonymous User]

CCN

Wachtell, Cravath, S&C, Debevoise, Cleary, PW

DPW is also very over represented

I guess? I feel like everyone here is so smart and got great offers across the V50!

[Anonymous User]

UT

COA clerkship --> Lit boutique in Houston

[Anonymous User]

I'm at Harvard. Honestly, they've either gone to the elite litigation boutiques or out of law altogether and into consulting (MBB) or banking (Goldman, PJT, Evercore, etc).

Yeah this sounds about right. Either they're smart enough to do the whole clerking thing and gun for SC or they're smart enough to get out of law

[Anonymous User]

Investing in dogecoin

[Anonymous User]

Smartest - likely on an LSD trip somewhere while also working for the government.

Best grades - Cravath.

T20.

[Sackboy]

I'm at Harvard. Honestly, they've either gone to the elite litigation boutiques or out of law altogether and into consulting (MBB) or banking (Goldman, PJT, Evercore, etc).

Yeah this sounds about right. Either they're smart enough to do the whole clerking thing and gun for SC or they're smart enough to get out of law

This is surely not a take informed by your own dissatisfaction with the law and is instead certainly an objective representation.

[target_corp]

I'm at Harvard. Honestly, they've either gone to the elite litigation boutiques or out of law altogether and into consulting (MBB) or banking (Goldman, PJT, Evercore, etc).

Yeah this sounds about right. Either they're smart enough to do the whole clerking thing and gun for SC or they're smart enough to get out of law

This is surely not a take informed by your own dissatisfaction with the law and is instead certainly an objective representation.

Yes, imagine missing the objective satisfaction of turning disclosure schedules and ancillaries at 2 am multiple nights in a row.

[Anonymous User]

CCN here...I’ll bite. For biglaw firms, I think it’s the usual suspects: Cravath, S&C, PW, DPW, Debevoise, Cleary

One observation I had is that I was a bit surprised at how much less selective certain V10 firms were than I thought they were, like Kirkland, Latham, Skadden, Gibson

[Anonymous User]

HLS (couple years ago): almost all clerk COA and summer in DC. After the clerkships, some to govt, some to PI, most back to elite firms (most in DC but more diffuse than for the summer).

Within DC firms, the firms are more varied than you would think. Since so many folks are into appellate and Supreme Court, there’s a real concentration of Sears level people at places with great appellate practices: Gibson, Wilmer, Kirkland, Paul Weiss, Latham, Sidley etc. More politically inclined people with excellent grades also end up at Jones Day, Jenner. A lot at boutiques too, especially Kellogg, Susman.

Williams and Connolly and Covington get some good people, but frankly Covington hires a lot of like 6H *fine* but hardly brilliant people because of class size. In my year, one of the like half dozen W&C people had below median grades and the others were like around the magna line but nowhere near Sears/Fay. I think this is really just due to the weakness of the appellate practices; people with those offers also have Gibson/Wilmer/Kirkland and just go there for appellate prestige/work. I know someone who picked Sidley over both Connolly and Covington and that was fairly uniformly celebrated as the right choice because of the appellate practice and scotus clerks at Sidley.

This is also true at YLS. The smartest (and/or most gunnery) students usually do a district and COA clerkship or 2 COA clerkships and then go to a DC firm with a top appellate practice or a lit boutique. New York firms, including CSM and WLRK, are generally seen as a step below in terms of prestige and desirability. Many (most?) Yale gunners will take Wilmer, Gibson, or Sidley DC over any New York firm. W&C and Covington are viewed as equally prestigious but are usually less desirable for the many appellate-focused people here.

(Also note that ~50% of YLS students clerk, with about 30-40% doing so immediately after graduation.)

[Anonymous User]

T1 regional.
Not using just good grades, but thinking of people who seemed genuinely smart to me:
COA clerkship, one state sup court clerkship, White & Case, Kirkland, oil & gas work in some firms in Houston/Dallas I think, govt. One became a graphic art designer. The person who I thought was the smartest, who also had great grades, ended up in consulting.

[Sackboy]

Yeah this sounds about right. Either they're smart enough to do the whole clerking thing and gun for SC or they're smart enough to get out of law

This is surely not a take informed by your own dissatisfaction with the law and is instead certainly an objective representation.

Yes, imagine missing the objective satisfaction of turning disclosure schedules and ancillaries at 2 am multiple nights in a row.

Imagine thinking this is the only option.

[Anonymous User]

One of the smartest people from my undergrad went to YLS, then to Cleary (AFAIK picked them over S&C, CSM, etc.).

Not an original observation but IMO, booksmart people are not always the best lawyers.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

They dropped out.

You think I'm kidding. I'm not.