NY to 200k?! Forum

[Anonymous User]

Pegging your notion of prestige based off where 25 year olds choose to start their legal career is pretty humorous. PPP, non-partner compensation and actual quality of the work should be what prestige is measured off. By those measures, Skadden, Kirkland, and Latham are all easily peers of the classic white shoe firms. Based off news articles, none of these firms have had any problem bringing equity partners from the eLiTe firms. Also, humorous that people are calling firms with $2M+ PPP shitty. This is some next level prestige whoring and delusion. Ya'll are boomers clinging to the old world order. Davis Polk is the most prestigious non-WLRK firm.

Fixed. Also nothing more boomerish than confusing "fundamentals" and "quality" with "value," the smartest trades of the year have been buying and holding GME, AMC, and Dogecoin. It's 2021, keep up.

accidental anon, this is soft blue

[ExpOriental]

Pegging your notion of prestige based off where 25 year olds choose to start their legal career is pretty humorous. PPP, non-partner compensation, and actual quality of the work should be what prestige is measured off. By those measures Skadden, Kirkland, and Latham are all easily peers of the classic white shoe firms. Based off news articles, none of these firms have had any problem bringing equity partners from the eLiTe firms. Also, humorous that people are calling firms with $2M+ PPP shitty. This is some next level prestige whoring and delusion. Ya'll are boomers clinging to the old world order.

ITT: NYC dweebs shaking in fear over law students perceiving their firm as anything less than the pinnacle of preftige.

Here's a reality check: other than Wachtell, all the prestige is in DC. No one gives a shit about distinguishing between a transactional associate at DPW NY and a transactional associate at Kirkland NY; you are all fungible paper pushers.

[legalpotato]

Edit: The crappy firms moved quickly because they wanted to signal Milbank is and should be market: Cadwalader, McDermott, Mintz, Winston, etc. Everyone knows Davis is the most profitable sub-Wachtell firm, so all of the top Wall Street firms were waiting for them to speak. (Davis’ unquestionable peer firms are Sullivan, Simpson, and Cravath, probably Cleary, maybe Skadden, P, W and Debevoise, and definitely not Latham or Kirkland.) Now that Davis has spoken I don’t see any reason for anyone to raise further.

my dude the fact that you think PW and K&E are not at the same level as DPW and you include Skadden and debevoise (lol) is the ultimate tell that you don't work at any of these firms. if you're in one of the teams that actually matters - finance, m&a, or cap markets - you already know this.

I would actually argue he is spot on.

First guy: My dude, the fact that you think Kirkland is a peer of Davis makes it clear that you did not attend the target schools of the Wall Street firms, which are HLS, CLS, and NYU. Nobody at the top of those schools’ curve cares about Kirkland. Kirkland hires median and below and rarely above top 1/3. The battle for cross-offerees between Kirkland and New York elite would weigh extremely heavily (90%+) in favor of a firm like Davis, Sullivan, Cleary or even Skadden for anyone who had the options. And you can go from Simpson to Kirkland — how often do you see the opposite?

Don’t doubt Kirkland Chicago is a thing though for UChi and NW, the former of whom are elite.

Second guy. Yup.
[/quote]

I generally agree that there is a "super elite" or "secondary super elite" tier of law firms in which K&E is not included. But Simpson is certainly in whatever tier K&E is in.

[Bosque]

Anonymous in-house dude says you all should feel ashamed.

https://abovethelaw.com/2021/06/tone-de ... ary-hikes/

[Anonymous User]

This conversation is super useful! Keep it up guys, I really want to know who is eating the most prestige!

A Cravath associate once told me that there is no interesting legal work done west of the Mississippi, so all of us in Texas are completely unfamiliar with the concept of prestige.

[LBJ's Hair]

Pegging your notion of prestige based off where 25 year olds choose to start their legal career is pretty humorous. PPP, non-partner compensation, and actual quality of the work should be what prestige is measured off. By those measures Skadden, Kirkland, and Latham are all easily peers of the classic white shoe firms. Based off news articles, none of these firms have had any problem bringing equity partners from the eLiTe firms. Also, humorous that people are calling firms with $2M+ PPP shitty. This is some next level prestige whoring and delusion. Ya'll are boomers clinging to the old world order.

ITT: NYC dweebs shaking in fear over law students perceiving their firm as anything less than the pinnacle of preftige.

Here's a reality check: other than Wachtell, all the prestige is in DC. No one gives a shit about distinguishing between a transactional associate at DPW NY and a transactional associate at Kirkland NY; you are all fungible paper pushers.

DC lit/appellate/whatever partner told me this at OCI once, in not-so-many words. Big Corporate Office Park >>> Big Apple

[legalpotato]

Anonymous in-house dude says you all should feel ashamed.

https://abovethelaw.com/2021/06/tone-de ... ary-hikes/

lol greedy associates should feel ashamed about cutting into PPP.

Also, love the use of the anon source. I interpret "general counsel of a financial services company" as someone at ATL trying to balance his/her checkbook being salty.

[Anonymous User]

Anonymous in-house dude says you all should feel ashamed.

https://abovethelaw.com/2021/06/tone-de ... ary-hikes/

anonymous in-house dude can gtf over it, these raises aren't even that big if you compare to the past & adjust for inflation https://www.biglawinvestor.com/biglaw-salary-scale.

[Anonymous User]

Here on "top law schools" it should not be surprising to anyone that "prestige" means "where top law students want to go" rather than "what firm makes the most money."

[Anonymous User]

Need Kirkland to get involved in this thing to light a fire under the collective ass of the Texas firms.

V&E hiring partner unofficially stated in a summer event yesterday that the firm anticipates matching the market scale.

[Res Ipsa Loquitter]

Pegging your notion of prestige based off where 25 year olds choose to start their legal career is pretty humorous. PPP, non-partner compensation, and actual quality of the work should be what prestige is measured off. By those measures Skadden, Kirkland, and Latham are all easily peers of the classic white shoe firms. Based off news articles, none of these firms have had any problem bringing equity partners from the eLiTe firms. Also, humorous that people are calling firms with $2M+ PPP shitty. This is some next level prestige whoring and delusion. Ya'll are boomers clinging to the old world order.

ITT: NYC dweebs shaking in fear over law students perceiving their firm as anything less than the pinnacle of preftige.

Here's a reality check: other than Wachtell, all the prestige is in DC. No one gives a shit about distinguishing between a transactional associate at DPW NY and a transactional associate at Kirkland NY; you are all fungible paper pushers.

had DC lit/appellate/whatever partners at two different firms tell me this, in not-so-many words.Big Corporate Office Park >>> Big Apple

Agreed, DC biglaw is the definition of "law student prestige." Because law students are gunning for whatever job requires the highest grades. By the reasoning of the gunners at my school, fashion IP at Crowell & Moring = Skadden NY M&A because the grade cutoffs are similar.

[Anonymous User]

In the past, when Winston matched early, Winston then waited for the war to finish and matched the highest market rates.

https://abovethelaw.com/2018/06/early-s ... er-bonuses

[ExpOriental]

Cleary matched

[Bosque]

Anonymous in-house dude says you all should feel ashamed.

https://abovethelaw.com/2021/06/tone-de ... ary-hikes/

lol greedy associates should feel ashamed about cutting into PPP.

Also, love the use of the anon source. I interpret "general counsel of a financial services company" as someone at ATL trying to balance his/her checkbook being salty.

Lol, ATL doesn't actually have GC sources, anonymous or otherwise. They are just quoting a Law.com article.

But yes, you should feel ashamed. If your firm matches, the only right thing to do is send a check for the difference to your clients.

[Untitleddestiny]

Pegging your notion of prestige based off where 25 year olds choose to start their legal career is pretty humorous. PPP, non-partner compensation, and actual quality of the work should be what prestige is measured off. By those measures Skadden, Kirkland, and Latham are all easily peers of the classic white shoe firms. Based off news articles, none of these firms have had any problem bringing equity partners from the eLiTe firms. Also, humorous that people are calling firms with $2M+ PPP shitty. This is some next level prestige whoring and delusion. Ya'll are boomers clinging to the old world order.

MWE and Mintz have gigantic nonequity partner classes that help support their $2M PPP. They’re not shitty, by any means, but I don’t think they could realistically raise much above this without seniors making more than nonequity partners.

The statement was geared towards Fenwick and Winston & Strawn, not MWE and Mintz since they were all grouped together as "crappy" firms for quickly matching Milbank. Since real good/prestigious firms apparently know it is their duty to wait for DPW which apparently has the absolute right to set the market.

[Anonymous User]

I realize it's gone off the rails since then, but the post that started this whole prestige discussion was using it as a proxy for who's likely to make salary moves. I think we can all agree "where do rising 2Ls at NYU want to practice" is not a useful metric for answering that question.

[Anonymous User]

Kirkland can become DPW's peer by raising to $250K. Would urge them to consider. (K&E lurkers, pls screencap and forward to Andy Calder, thanks.)

Done & done. Hopefully my loyalty is rewarded and the floggings decrease ever so slightly moving forward

[tlsguy2020]

Nobody cares about stub-year associates and whether they go to 205 or not. I think 205 for a first-year associate is fine. I don’t see the pressure to raise to 210 unless a firm has a big ego. Given Davis was the most likely candidate due to their insane 2020 PPP figures, I think this is likely over. But who knows when egos are involved?

Edit: The crappy firms moved quickly because they wanted to signal Milbank is and should be market: Cadwalader, McDermott, Mintz, Winston, etc. Everyone knows Davis is the most profitable sub-Wachtell firm, so all of the top Wall Street firms were waiting for them to speak. (Davis’ unquestionable peer firms are Sullivan, Simpson, and Cravath, probably Cleary, maybe Skadden, P, W and Debevoise, and definitely not Latham or Kirkland.) Now that Davis has spoken I don’t see any reason for anyone to raise further.

Davis

[Anonymous User]

I realize it's gone off the rails since then, but the post that started this whole prestige discussion was using it as a proxy for who's likely to make salary moves. I think we can all agree "where do rising 2Ls at NYU want to practice" is not a useful metric for answering that question.

You’d be surprised by how much that is true. At Cleary Gottlieb, the number of law grads from schools below HLS, CLS and NYU has gone up a lot and it has caused enormous concern amongst the partnership. Cleary is an incredibly school snobby firm, and traditionally cared more about which school you went to than your grades at UVA. The tippy top schools are what the clients paying $1,100/hour for an associate — who themselves are Ivy grads — want to see.

[Anonymous User]

I realize it's gone off the rails since then, but the post that started this whole prestige discussion was using it as a proxy for who's likely to make salary moves. I think we can all agree "where do rising 2Ls at NYU want to practice" is not a useful metric for answering that question.

You’d be surprised by how much that is true. At Cleary Gottlieb, the number of law grads from schools below HLS, CLS and NYU has gone up a lot and it has caused enormous concern amongst the partnership.

If that's what the partnership cares about so much, no wonder they're hemorrhaging clients.

[flowersandsunshine]

2 + 0 + 2 + 5 (dont forget the .5) = 9. Composed of three trinities (3 times 3), nine represents the principles of the sacred Triad taken to their utmost expression. Any number that was initially increased by a factor of 9 loses its own identity and instead takes on the characteristics of the 9. Example: 3 x 9= 27; 2+7= 9. 6 x 9 = 54; 5+4 = 9. No other number has this quality.
Thoughts?

Name checks out.

[Anonymous User]

Pegging your notion of prestige based off where 25 year olds choose to start their legal career is pretty humorous. PPP, non-partner compensation and actual quality of the work should be what prestige is measured off. By those measures, Skadden, Kirkland, and Latham are all easily peers of the classic white shoe firms. Based off news articles, none of these firms have had any problem bringing equity partners from the eLiTe firms. Also, humorous that people are calling firms with $2M+ PPP shitty. This is some next level prestige whoring and delusion. Ya'll are boomers clinging to the old world order. Davis Polk is the most prestigious non-WLRK firm.

Fixed. Also nothing more boomerish than confusing "fundamentals" and "quality" with "value," the smartest trades of the year have been buying and holding GME, AMC, and Dogecoin. It's 2021, keep up.

accidental anon, this is soft blue

Correct measure, but no NY firms can seriously be considered prestigious because of state/local taxes.

[Anonymous User]

I realize it's gone off the rails since then, but the post that started this whole prestige discussion was using it as a proxy for who's likely to make salary moves. I think we can all agree "where do rising 2Ls at NYU want to practice" is not a useful metric for answering that question.

You’d be surprised by how much that is true. At Cleary Gottlieb, the number of law grads from schools below HLS, CLS and NYU has gone up a lot and it has caused enormous concern amongst the partnership. Cleary is an incredibly school snobby firm, and traditionally cared more about which school you went to than your grades at UVA. The tippy top schools are what the clients paying $1,100/hour for an associate — who themselves are Ivy grads — want to see.

I still don't see what this has to do with who has the capacity/incentive to make salary moves. That's going to be PPP, history of early associate compensation moves, firms looking to grow their offices, firms that feel they're undervalued by Vault, etc. The "top choices of the best student at the best NY school" metric is going to have a hard time explaining how/why Willkie was a leader on special bonuses, for example.

[Bosque]

I realize it's gone off the rails since then, but the post that started this whole prestige discussion was using it as a proxy for who's likely to make salary moves. I think we can all agree "where do rising 2Ls at NYU want to practice" is not a useful metric for answering that question.

You’d be surprised by how much that is true. At Cleary Gottlieb, the number of law grads from schools below HLS, CLS and NYU has gone up a lot and it has caused enormous concern amongst the partnership. Cleary is an incredibly school snobby firm, and traditionally cared more about which school you went to than your grades at UVA. The tippy top schools are what the clients paying $1,100/hour for an associate — who themselves are Ivy grads — want to see.

If you know where anyone you work with went to school outside of the context of sports, we probably wouldn't get along. (Exceptions allowed if they went to the same school as you or are in your hiring class).

[Anonymous User]

A Cravath associate once told me that there is no interesting legal work done west of the Mississippi, so all of us in Texas are completely unfamiliar with the concept of prestige.

This mentality is why Cravath has really stagnated these past 10 years and their rainmakers have been leaving.