Let's talk about Atlanta! Forum

[BruceWayne]

quote]

This goes against everything my school's career services office said....and I'm inclined to believe it. I'm at a T14 (7-10ish range) outside the south, born and raised in Atlanta, but have a 3.3. The career services lady told me my best shot at a job during OCI was with Atlanta firms, so bid all of them first. WTF[/quote]

Ehh.. that puts you around median right? If so, I'll second with BruceWayne said and let you know it is going to be tough. I was around median (slightly below) at HYS and Atlanta was definitely my most difficult market, even harder than DC. I ended up getting something like 2 offered from 8 interviews.

As another datapoint, the last few years at my HYS King & Spalding has been giving 12-15 screening interviews, extending 2-4 callbacks and only making 0-2 offers. This is one of the top 2 big firms in Atlanta.[/quote]


Yeah hearing this about HYS just really confirms to me how bad this market is. Question though, do you have strong ATL/Southern ties? I could see that being a problem for someone from HYS.

trust me I am probably more qualified to answer this question than anyone on here.

Oh yes, this definitely convinces me of your qualifications and endengers everyone's trust in BruceWayne. Even if I agree with a good bit of what you suggest, your statement creates more lolz than anything.

1. Why is this anonymous lol?
2. I'm not trying to win an appellate argument lol. I'm just trying to provide advice to someone who went to the same school as I did and is targeting the market I have the most experience with. Sorry if I don't want to give out my life story on an internet forum before trying to help him/her out.

[Anonymous User]

quote]

This goes against everything my school's career services office said....and I'm inclined to believe it. I'm at a T14 (7-10ish range) outside the south, born and raised in Atlanta, but have a 3.3. The career services lady told me my best shot at a job during OCI was with Atlanta firms, so bid all of them first. WTF

Ehh.. that puts you around median right? If so, I'll second with BruceWayne said and let you know it is going to be tough. I was around median (slightly below) at HYS and Atlanta was definitely my most difficult market, even harder than DC. I ended up getting something like 2 offered from 8 interviews.

As another datapoint, the last few years at my HYS King & Spalding has been giving 12-15 screening interviews, extending 2-4 callbacks and only making 0-2 offers. This is one of the top 2 big firms in Atlanta.[/quote]


Yeah hearing this about HYS just really confirms to me how bad this market is. Question though, do you have strong ATL/Southern ties? I could see that being a problem for someone from HYS.

trust me I am probably more qualified to answer this question than anyone on here.

Oh yes, this definitely convinces me of your qualifications and endengers everyone's trust in BruceWayne. Even if I agree with a good bit of what you suggest, your statement creates more lolz than anything.

1. Why is this anonymous lol?
2. I'm not trying to win an appellate argument lol. I'm just trying to provide advice to someone who went to the same school as I did and is targeting the market I have the most experience with. Sorry if I don't want to give out my life story on an internet forum before trying to help him/her out.[/quote]

I thinik BruceWayne paints a different picture than what many, many alums from my school who are working in Atlanta tell me. I don't necessarily put much stock in his claims.

[BruceWayne]

Admins please delete that last anon repeat accidental post.

[Anonymous User]

Yeah hearing this about HYS just really confirms to me how bad this market is. Question though, do you have strong ATL/Southern ties? I could see that being a problem for someone from HYS.

trust me I am probably more qualified to answer this question than anyone on here.

Oh yes, this definitely convinces me of your qualifications and endengers everyone's trust in BruceWayne. Even if I agree with a good bit of what you suggest, your statement creates more lolz than anything.

1. Why is this anonymous lol?
2. I'm not trying to win an appellate argument lol. I'm just trying to provide advice to someone who went to the same school as I did and is targeting the market I have the most experience with. Sorry if I don't want to give out my life story on an internet forum before trying to help him/her out.

Yep. Strong ties (born in the Southeast and undergrad in the Southeast). I was, however, very open about the fact that I was applying to multiple markets and wasn't ready to commit to one at that moment.

I thinik BruceWayne paints a different picture than what many, many alums from my school who are working in Atlanta tell me. I don't necessarily put much stock in his claims.

Alums aren't always the best source since often times have changed since they went through OCI. I know several people from multiple of the HYS schools who have struck out in Atlanta in recent years.

In addition, simple math tells you how difficult the Atlanta market is right now. There are less than 100 biglaw SA positions in the Atlanta market. Don't believe m? Check these nalp recruiting numbers for 2014:

Alston & Bird 2Ls - 17
King & Spalding 2Ls - 7
Jones Day - 11
ML&A - 7

Everything else is one or two spots here or there and/or requires IP credentials. For those less than 100 spots, you have competition from Emory, UVA, Duke, Vandy, UGA, Georgia State and other local schools, UNC, HYS people from the south, and a bunch of randoms from other schools trying to get to Atlanta. You figure out how competitive you think that is.

[Anonymous User]

HYS anon:

Fellow HYSer from Atl who wants to return there. Grades are above median.

Looking at the EIP spreadsheet (suspect we're at the same HYS), I was struck by how bad our stats are. Any thoughts on why so few CBs extended and ultimately offers? Lack of ties? Grades? Other?

Thoughts / advice on how to get an Atl firm?

[lawhopeful10]

Atlanta is a fucking bloodbath. Look at the numbers.

[Anonymous User]

HYS anon:

Fellow HYSer from Atl who wants to return there. Grades are above median.

Looking at the EIP spreadsheet (suspect we're at the same HYS), I was struck by how bad our stats are. Any thoughts on why so few CBs extended and ultimately offers? Lack of ties? Grades? Other?

Thoughts / advice on how to get an Atl firm?

I think its a combination of just the low number of positions in Atlanta, the low number of HYS students with the willingness and ties to firmly commit to Atlanta, and the historical fact that the Atlanta firms struggle to get HYS students to accept offers. I actually ended up turning down my ATL offers to do a 2L SA in another market.

[BruceWayne]

You know I can't even say anything bad about the anon's point of view who said that many alums from his school painted a different picture from what I'm describing. Frankly, it blows my mind that I hear the same kind of thing from alums of local schools about my school in Atlanta. But like one anon said: these people are often way out of touch. They are basing their comments on a time that has passed. Back in the pre crash days they were spot on. Back then you had 50 person summer class sizes at Alston alone. That's a very different market from the one that we're in now (i.e. with the numbers that a previous anon posted). Atlanta is simply a bloodbath. And frankly, from what the HYS anons are saying it's actually even worse than I thought. It's starting to sound like a market that relies heavily on connections in terms of getting into the big firms. I'm really starting to think the top 14 are a waste of money in regards to getting a position in Atlanta. Especially the one's without strong ATL connects.

[Saddle Up]

You know I can't even say anything bad about the anon's point of view who said that many alums from his school painted a different picture from what I'm describing. Frankly, it blows my mind that I hear the same kind of thing from alums of local schools about my school in Atlanta. But like one anon said: these people are often way out of touch. They are basing their comments on a time that has passed. Back in the pre crash days they were spot on. Back then you had 50 person summer class sizes at Alston alone. That's a very different market from the one that we're in now (i.e. with the numbers that a previous anon posted). Atlanta is simply a bloodbath. And frankly, from what the HYS anons are saying it's actually even worse than I thought. It's starting to sound like a market that relies heavily on connections in terms of getting into the big firms. I'm really starting to think the top 14 are a waste of money in regards to getting a position in Atlanta. Especially the one's without strong ATL connects.

+180. I saw no benefit of paying +100 (and COL) to go to a T10 school given that my gpa/lsat provided me a deep discount at E. Plus COL is free. I replied that my brother and sister went to school in GA and both have large firm jobs (my sis is in the other room studying for the bar that her firm paid for). Some TLSers claim it’s either T14 or lose out. How do they come up with these ridiculous and costly attitudes?

[Anonymous User]

You know I can't even say anything bad about the anon's point of view who said that many alums from his school painted a different picture from what I'm describing. Frankly, it blows my mind that I hear the same kind of thing from alums of local schools about my school in Atlanta. But like one anon said: these people are often way out of touch. They are basing their comments on a time that has passed. Back in the pre crash days they were spot on. Back then you had 50 person summer class sizes at Alston alone. That's a very different market from the one that we're in now (i.e. with the numbers that a previous anon posted). Atlanta is simply a bloodbath. And frankly, from what the HYS anons are saying it's actually even worse than I thought. It's starting to sound like a market that relies heavily on connections in terms of getting into the big firms. I'm really starting to think the top 14 are a waste of money in regards to getting a position in Atlanta. Especially the one's without strong ATL connects.

+180. I saw no benefit of paying +100 (and COL) to go to a T10 school given that my gpa/lsat provided me a deep discount at E. Plus COL is free. I replied that my brother and sister went to school in GA and both have large firm jobs (my sis is in the other room studying for the bar that her firm paid for). Some TLSers claim it’s either T14 or lose out. How do they come up with these ridiculous and costly attitudes?

Its not that easy because even with small chances going to a T-14/HYS still give a given person a much better chance than staying local. When you expand the universe beyond Atlanta then the odds of getting biglaw AT ALL significantly expand for a T-14/HYS student. Those four summer classes shown above are the largest biglaw classes in the city and cumulatively represent probably like 75-80% of all biglaw SA positions in the city. Expand on that and you end up with ~60 biglaw SA positions in the city.

Emory's 2L class alone is something like 230 students. In the class of 2013 only 25% of students got jobs in firms of 250+ or a federal clerkship. Even if you assume all fed clerkships get biglaw we are talking about 50-60 students getting jobs in Biglaw AT ALL. Say a huge portion of those (40% or so) are in Georgia with the rest split amongst all other cities in the US. Thats (if we are being pretty optimistic, anecdotally I believe this number is a bit smaller) 20ish students getting Georgia biglaw jobs from the top school in the state.

Schools like UVA and Duke place like 55-65% in biglaw+fed clerkships in a given year plus superior placement in other realms. Your brother in sister did very well to get biglaw jobs but honestly if you are shooting for biglaw at all the pretty much all the schools in the state of Georgia are extremely risky choices.

I could've had whatever Emory's top scholarship is instead of going to HYS. To be completely honest, and assuming similar performance to what I put up at HYS, I don't think I would've done well enough at Emory to get a single offer in ATL while I got a couple from below median at HYS.

[EfficientJimBreech]

Sorry dude, but you are getting robbed (even if only in the form of time) at Emory. What an unjustly pretentious place with shoddy employment stats and an even shoddier facility for the law school.

[NYSprague]

You know I can't even say anything bad about the anon's point of view who said that many alums from his school painted a different picture from what I'm describing. Frankly, it blows my mind that I hear the same kind of thing from alums of local schools about my school in Atlanta. But like one anon said: these people are often way out of touch. They are basing their comments on a time that has passed. Back in the pre crash days they were spot on. Back then you had 50 person summer class sizes at Alston alone. That's a very different market from the one that we're in now (i.e. with the numbers that a previous anon posted). Atlanta is simply a bloodbath. And frankly, from what the HYS anons are saying it's actually even worse than I thought. It's starting to sound like a market that relies heavily on connections in terms of getting into the big firms. I'm really starting to think the top 14 are a waste of money in regards to getting a position in Atlanta. Especially the one's without strong ATL connects.

+180. I saw no benefit of paying +100 (and COL) to go to a T10 school given that my gpa/lsat provided me a deep discount at E. Plus COL is free. I replied that my brother and sister went to school in GA and both have large firm jobs (my sis is in the other room studying for the bar that her firm paid for). Some TLSers claim it’s either T14 or lose out. How do they come up with these ridiculous and costly attitudes?

Because there are a handful of jobs in Atlanta. It sounds like your connections will help you. But you did forget to mention that you weren't going to have to borrow any money for school. The cost concern for many people is that they will have to repay debt.You could have gone to a much better school and not have any debt. (And no I'm not saying yo should waste your family money, just that you would not have had the stress of repaying loans.)
But don't forget that most people don't have two siblings going into big law jobs in atlanta to help pave the way. If you don't get a shot at big law, it will really be because of you or your credentials. You have ins that few people can match.
Also, you wanted to live at home to ride your show horses.
Your considerations are unique to you and not widely applicable to people who can't live at home, don't have to worry about money and don't high tight connec tions in a small , competitive market.
You still should have gone to a better school, but you will be fine whether law works out or not.

[Saddle Up]

I am not going to dispute everything you noted. I can say that over the past three years our home has been grand central for a number of law students (actually longer taking into account my brother’s LS friends visiting during his time at UG) and as best as I could tell they were happy. BTW: My sis didn’t get her job through any connections (that I know of), she went to a callback and became a summer and was offered.

Her friends all ended up with a firm job (a couple were in Macon and Savannah). I got to know a few of her friends pretty well (especially the ones who liked to ride), especially her summer friend from Penn who loved the school, but Philly, not so much.

If their results (and those of their cohorts) were gloom and doom I’d likely have jumped ship. That wasn't the case. Attending a well-respected Top 20 school at a discount in a zero COL metro is, and was, too good a deal to pass up.

[Anonymous User]

Thoughts on Atlanta firms most likely to hire from the bottom of the class at CCN? Florida native but entire family now lives in ATL.

Yes, I've read through most of the thread and see that it's highly unlikely, but I wanted to see if there is any more specific insight other than "mass-mail everyone and hope your ass gets lucky" (which I will indeed do).

[Anonymous User]

Thoughts on Atlanta firms most likely to hire from the bottom of the class at CCN? Florida native but entire family now lives in ATL.

Yes, I've read through most of the thread and see that it's highly unlikely, but I wanted to see if there is any more specific insight other than "mass-mail everyone and hope your ass gets lucky" (which I will indeed do).

Shoot for the larger classes. A+B, ML&A, etc. Also if Troutman has a summer class check them out. TBH, though, there aren't enough biglaw firms in ATL for there to be a real need to "focus"

[Anonymous User]

Thoughts on Atlanta firms most likely to hire from the bottom of the class at CCN? Florida native but entire family now lives in ATL.

Yes, I've read through most of the thread and see that it's highly unlikely, but I wanted to see if there is any more specific insight other than "mass-mail everyone and hope your ass gets lucky" (which I will indeed do).

Shoot for the larger classes. A+B, ML&A, etc. Also if Troutman has a summer class check them out. TBH, though, there aren't enough biglaw firms in ATL for there to be a real need to "focus"

Yeah unfortunately for OP the biggest class sizes tend to be the most selective (K&S, A&B, e.g.)

You're right that focus isn't really relevant. There are maybe 10 BigLaw firms and a couple more MidLaw. Even if OP spends time tailoring every cover letter, the entire mass mail wouldn't take more than a couple hours. OP, good luck.

Unrelated: does anyone have any thoughts on Lewis Brisbois? Type of work they mostly do in Atl? Salary? Atmosphere?

[hellojd]

As a rising 2L who may be bidding on a couple of ATL firms, can someone comment on how K&S, A&B, etc. compare to NYC BigLaw? Is the quality of work about the same, and how does quality of life compare? I remember hearing from someone at Jones Day down there and she said that she regularly pulled all nighters and long hours, so from data point in didn't seem that ATL had much of an advantage if any in terms of work life balance.

[lawhopeful10]

As a rising 2L who may be bidding on a couple of ATL firms, can someone comment on how K&S, A&B, etc. compare to NYC BigLaw? Is the quality of work about the same, and how does quality of life compare? I remember hearing from someone at Jones Day down there and she said that she regularly pulled all nighters and long hours, so from data point in didn't seem that ATL had much of an advantage if any in terms of work life balance.

I'm a rising 2L at UGA and I spoke with some Paul Hastings attorneys who said in their Atlanta office they get to work earlier than the NY office and finish earlier, basically saying they don't often work into the night like they might at other locations. This was just one associates opinion so I don't know how much you can extrapolate from that. I have heard anecdotally though that work life balance is generally better in Atlanta firms than New York and I think the retention rate is higher.

[BruceWayne]

As a rising 2L who may be bidding on a couple of ATL firms, can someone comment on how K&S, A&B, etc. compare to NYC BigLaw? Is the quality of work about the same, and how does quality of life compare? I remember hearing from someone at Jones Day down there and she said that she regularly pulled all nighters and long hours, so from data point in didn't seem that ATL had much of an advantage if any in terms of work life balance.

You're going to work your ass off at the top Atlanta firms (i.e. the ones you named). It may not be as bad as NYC but it won't be good either.

Re quality: in a lot of ways I'm not even sure what a 2L means when they say "quality of work" and I'm not sure you really know what that means either. Frankly, you will be doing a lot of the same thing at any big firm as an entry level associate--a lot of memos/research and other things that aren't really "glamorous". It takes years to really get to do the type of work where the "quality" of what you're doing is going to vary heavily between big firms. That being said the big ATL firms will have big time clients so the work is going to be "quality" in the sense that you will be doing things/working with companies that a future prospective employer will value. The other thing to remember is that litigation "quality" isn't higher at NYC firms as compared to anywhere else to begin with. The "difference" in work is more relevant in regards to transactional practices.

[Anonymous User]

As a rising 2L who may be bidding on a couple of ATL firms, can someone comment on how K&S, A&B, etc. compare to NYC BigLaw? Is the quality of work about the same, and how does quality of life compare? I remember hearing from someone at Jones Day down there and she said that she regularly pulled all nighters and long hours, so from data point in didn't seem that ATL had much of an advantage if any in terms of work life balance.

I'm a rising 2L at UGA and I spoke with some Paul Hastings attorneys who said in their Atlanta office they get to work earlier than the NY office and finish earlier, basically saying they don't often work into the night like they might at other locations. This was just one associates opinion so I don't know how much you can extrapolate from that. I have heard anecdotally though that work life balance is generally better in Atlanta firms than New York and I think the retention rate is higher.

I'm an associate at large Atlanta-based firm with NY offices. My impression is that work/life balance "is generally better" in Atlanta as you say. But "better than awful" does not necessarily mean good. For example, you might say hours requirements are "only 2000 hours in Atlanta versus 2400 in NY." Or you end up working 2200 Atl versus 2600 or 2800 NY, because we're more "relaxed." That's a big hours difference, right? Yes, but 2000+ sucks, 2200 sucks a lot. It may not be all-nighters (or at least not all the time), but it's working a LOT. I know an associate who moved from NY to Atl. He said his minimum at old firm was like 2150. He did similar hours here, but he got thanked for all his hard work, as compared to just doing what was expected in NY.

So yeah, like BruceWayne said, you work your ass off, even if not as bad as NY. How much of a life you have depends a lot on how efficient/focused you are when you're in the office.

[Anonymous User]

Thoughts on Atlanta firms most likely to hire from the bottom of the class at CCN? Florida native but entire family now lives in ATL.

Yes, I've read through most of the thread and see that it's highly unlikely, but I wanted to see if there is any more specific insight other than "mass-mail everyone and hope your ass gets lucky" (which I will indeed do).

Shoot for the larger classes. A+B, ML&A, etc. Also if Troutman has a summer class check them out. TBH, though, there aren't enough biglaw firms in ATL for there to be a real need to "focus"

Yeah unfortunately for OP the biggest class sizes tend to be the most selective (K&S, A&B, e.g.)

You're right that focus isn't really relevant. There are maybe 10 BigLaw firms and a couple more MidLaw. Even if OP spends time tailoring every cover letter, the entire mass mail wouldn't take more than a couple hours. OP, good luck.

Unrelated: does anyone have any thoughts on Lewis Brisbois? Type of work they mostly do in Atl? Salary? Atmosphere?

Troutman's summer class is up there with the others, around 10-15, and they are a little bit less grade selective. However, they seem to stress ties a little more than the others do.

[Anonymous User]

As a rising 2L who may be bidding on a couple of ATL firms, can someone comment on how K&S, A&B, etc. compare to NYC BigLaw? Is the quality of work about the same, and how does quality of life compare? I remember hearing from someone at Jones Day down there and she said that she regularly pulled all nighters and long hours, so from data point in didn't seem that ATL had much of an advantage if any in terms of work life balance.

Quality of work depends on practice group. As others have said, you really can't compare litigation. Look at the Chambers rankings for corporate.

Quality of life also depends. It's worth noting that compensation at the ATL-based firms can vary based on hours. Generally bonuses are some $ amount for each hour in excess of their target. The satellites (Jones Day and PH) have a higher base ($150k) but they don't pay much in the way of bonuses.

[hellojd]

As a rising 2L who may be bidding on a couple of ATL firms, can someone comment on how K&S, A&B, etc. compare to NYC BigLaw? Is the quality of work about the same, and how does quality of life compare? I remember hearing from someone at Jones Day down there and she said that she regularly pulled all nighters and long hours, so from data point in didn't seem that ATL had much of an advantage if any in terms of work life balance.

You're going to work your ass off at the top Atlanta firms (i.e. the ones you named). It may not be as bad as NYC but it won't be good either.

Re quality: in a lot of ways I'm not even sure what a 2L means when they say "quality of work" and I'm not sure you really know what that means either. Frankly, you will be doing a lot of the same thing at any big firm as an entry level associate--a lot of memos/research and other things that aren't really "glamorous". It takes years to really get to do the type of work where the "quality" of what you're doing is going to vary heavily between big firms. That being said the big ATL firms will have big time clients so the work is going to be "quality" in the sense that you will be doing things/working with companies that a future prospective employer will value. The other thing to remember is that litigation "quality" isn't higher at NYC firms as compared to anywhere else to begin with. The "difference" in work is more relevant in regards to transactional practices.

Thanks for all the perspectives everyone!

Re: quality, I obviously am not a full-time at a firm and am still trying to learn more about that life, but I am a V50 1L SA in a secondary market, and comparing the work and types of departments to some of my friends who are 2Ls at S&C, etc. there is a different in the type/importance of deal you're working on, the profile of the client you're working with, etc. Obviously even with a blockbuster $1bb+ acquisition there's lots of boring stuff that needs to be taken care of, but the types of legal issues that are raised I think are more nuanced and complex potentially. And I guess as part of quality of work I also meant whether the types of deals you work on are those you can see in the WSJ, etc.

What I'm saying applies more to corporate than litigation of course, which I don't know nearly as much about. A friend in a small market <50 lawyer firm is loving his experience and says he's doing the type of stuff that you would never get to do at V10 firm's litigation department as a first year. And I've heard that "bet the company" cases have a ridiculous amount of red-tape bureaucracy to step through.

[Anonymous User]

I can second that Atlanta is a tough nut to crack. Applied to large satellite office there. Aced the CB, heard from a personal connection who is on the executive committee that the managing partner of the atlanta office and the department head that interviewed me both loved me. Still got dinged.

[Anonymous User]

I can second that Atlanta is a tough nut to crack. Applied to large satellite office there. Aced the CB, heard from a personal connection who is on the executive committee that the managing partner of the atlanta office and the department head that interviewed me both loved me. Still got dinged.

Out of curiosity, why do you think you were dinged then? Ties? Grades? Other?