I don't know how you can say Ropes is "bottom heavy." Let's take litigation for example. According to NALP, Ropes has 27 partners and 134 associates, so about a 20% ratio. Wilmer has 27 partners in litigation and 104 associates. That's a 25% ratio. Where does the bottom-heavy aspect come from?Anonymous User wrote:If you have an offer at Ropes, you likely have one of GP/WH who haven't deferred/mass no offered (GP did when things tanked). Ropes is only hurting because their strongest point is their transactional work (PE/M&A) which overall is doing very poorly now. GP/WH are super busy and both gave 3L/post clerks offers mostly because a lot of their Boston business is lit. While Ropes is doing layoffs now, if transaction heats up, they will likely start killing it again.Anonymous User wrote:A good way to compare Ropes to other firms is that they, at least, have their New Alternatives Program (NAP). They pay you to explore for a year.
You get a $60k stipend to go do WHATEVER you want for one year instead of returning immediately after graduation (e.g., get an MPH or a Tax LLM, go work in Legal Aid, go clerk, or go non-profit). With this, they don't have to no-offer or rescind full-time offers, instead they just tell you to delay returning for a year and hope the economy gets better before you return.
I would rather go to a firm that gives me an opportunity, than to one that will just rescind my offer when times get tough.
I'm not saying don't go to Ropes by any means. Its a great firm, but its more bottom-heavy (more associates to partners) than the other two and its bread and butter is not lit., which is doing well right now.
Granted, Ropes has a much, much larger corporate division than Wilmer. Ropes have 75 partners and 184 associates, while Wilmer has 30 partners and 36 associates. But doesn't this just attest that Ropes is much more balanced, assuming corporate doesn't go off a cliff?
I'm also unsure how exactly corporate is doing "poorly" at Ropes. I can understand it being a bit slow, but poorly?
