I don't know if V10 necessarily guarantees more job security than other firms but I would say the key thing is exit options. In-house and plenty of other exit options care very much about prestige. They also care about perceived quality of training (which you could also get at non-prestigious firms), but often prestigious firms are thought to have good training as well and ideally they'd like prestige and training.Anonymous User wrote:Well the benefit of Wachtell is the chance of a 100% bonus. As far as the other V10 firms are concerned I agree with you. The only benefits I can see are exit options, job security, and of course the prestige.Anonymous User wrote:Why do people only bid on V10 firms? This is bewildering to me. All of the big firms start at the same rate. Many of the top firms have a reputation for working you ridiculous hours for the same salary (ok, possibly a small additional bonus). Most people will never make equity partner, so profits/partner doesn't seem to matter, but even if they do, how much money do you really need? I can understand bidding on specialized firms that have a strength in an area of interest. But merely bidding on a firm because they've jumped 4 spots and are now in the V10 seems ridiculous. Is there some benefit that I'm not seeing other than saying "I work at Wachtell" and hoping that the girl at the end of the bar knows that that's supposed to be impressive (she doesn't)?
A bad scenario for exit options is to go to a firm that's meh in terms of reputation and it's generally considered not to give its junior associates very much responsibility.
Also, even if you go into biglaw with the intention of gunning for partner, while many will find that biglaw life suits them, many more will discover (unfortunately) that they hate it or that they need less hours for personal reasons, etc. etc. So don't discount the value of exit options. Some people will ignore this and end up complaining that they wish OCS had warned them...
