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Assuming I have offers at the SEC and small to mid-size law firms in NY, which has better career prospects for working my way into biglaw litigation? I feel like the benefit of the SEC is immediate responsibility. However, the downside is that I would not get a lot of litigation experience. Obviously, the law firms would have the flip-side, more litigation experience, but less responsibility initially. I am also looking at clerkships, but I may have to make this decision before those chips fall into place. In past years, my numbers would have been competitive for biglaw coming from my school, but this year I was just outside the competitive belt. Therefore, I don't think my grades will hold me back once the economy turns around so long as I can get meaningful experience over the next 2-5+ years while we wait for that to happen. Any thoughts?

As far as I know, nothing feeds into biglaw litigation except biglaw litigation. You could probably lateral into some kind of regulatory / government affairs / anti-trust / financial industry lobbying or consulting practice, I would imagine. But I've never heard of big law firms that make hires from agencies (excepting of course something like a Bristow Fellow, of course) or smaller law firms on a regular enough basis to provide concrete advice about how to make lightning strike twice.

I know two people that have gone from SEC NY to doing securities litigation for private firms. One was at smaller firms in NYC (still made bank) and one is a partner at a huge firm in NYC (Vault certified). It seems that private is the way out from the SEC if you make the right contacts, they were pretty outgoing people. They told me after a while most either stick around as lifers there or get into private practice in whatever their specialty was.

jnorsky wrote:I know two people that have gone from SEC NY to doing securities litigation for private firms. One was at smaller firms in NYC (still made bank) and one is a partner at a huge firm in NYC (Vault certified). It seems that private is the way out from the SEC if you make the right contacts, they were pretty outgoing people. They told me after a while most either stick around as lifers there or get into private practice in whatever their specialty was.

You know, I didn't even think of securities litigation. That's probably TCR.

Worth poking around firm bios, I bet you can find some examples of careers that involved stints at the SEC and go from there.

Assuming SEC honors program... SEC!!!

No question. No Contest. How is this even up for discussion.

You go to the SEC for a few years and you will leave as a high demand product. THAT is how you make partner fast at a V100.

disco_barred wrote:As far as I know, nothing feeds into biglaw litigation except biglaw litigation. You could probably lateral into some kind of regulatory / government affairs / anti-trust / financial industry lobbying or consulting practice, I would imagine. But I've never heard of big law firms that make hires from agencies (excepting of course something like a Bristow Fellow, of course) or smaller law firms on a regular enough basis to provide concrete advice about how to make lightning strike twice.

So wrong. DOJ Honors program, SEC Honors program, AUSAs and clerkships ALL are in very high demand at top litigation practices.

ALL big firms love picking up SEC Honors guys. Hell, virtually the entire lit practice at Akin Gump is made up of partners that are former AUSAs/SEC dudes.

Voyager wrote:

disco_barred wrote:As far as I know, nothing feeds into biglaw litigation except biglaw litigation. You could probably lateral into some kind of regulatory / government affairs / anti-trust / financial industry lobbying or consulting practice, I would imagine. But I've never heard of big law firms that make hires from agencies (excepting of course something like a Bristow Fellow, of course) or smaller law firms on a regular enough basis to provide concrete advice about how to make lightning strike twice.

So wrong. DOJ Honors program, SEC Honors program, AUSAs and clerkships ALL are in very high demand at top litigation practices.

ALL big firms love picking up SEC Honors guys. Hell, virtually the entire lit practice at Akin Gump is made up of partners that are former AUSAs/SEC dudes.

AUSA, DoJ honors, and clerkships pretty much require biglaw credentials and in many if not most if not all cases are careers one chooses instead of big law. OP makes it pretty clear that big law is not realistically on the table, so I'm not sure what relevance those programs have. I'll grant you that I was probably wrong about the SEC thing, my brain hasn't switched on this morning yet. But the other things you listed don't seem to plausibly be on OP's radar.

disco_barred wrote:

Voyager wrote:

disco_barred wrote:As far as I know, nothing feeds into biglaw litigation except biglaw litigation. You could probably lateral into some kind of regulatory / government affairs / anti-trust / financial industry lobbying or consulting practice, I would imagine. But I've never heard of big law firms that make hires from agencies (excepting of course something like a Bristow Fellow, of course) or smaller law firms on a regular enough basis to provide concrete advice about how to make lightning strike twice.

So wrong. DOJ Honors program, SEC Honors program, AUSAs and clerkships ALL are in very high demand at top litigation practices.

ALL big firms love picking up SEC Honors guys. Hell, virtually the entire lit practice at Akin Gump is made up of partners that are former AUSAs/SEC dudes.

AUSA, DoJ honors, and clerkships pretty much require biglaw credentials and in many if not most if not all cases are careers one chooses instead of big law. OP makes it pretty clear that big law is not realistically on the table, so I'm not sure what relevance those programs have. I'll grant you that I was probably wrong about the SEC thing, my brain hasn't switched on this morning yet. But the other things you listed don't seem to plausibly be on OP's radar.

I was just pointing out that big law lit shops DO, in fact, hire from gov agencies. The SEC produces people that are in high demand. If he has an opportunity to go there, he should take it. He will then be able to move to the private sector as the securities expert at the firm.... and if he decides that he wants to get involved in prosecution, he will have a relatively easy time moving to a U.S. Attorney's office.

..

YCrevolution wrote:
That said, SEC Honors Program is pretty hard to get.

Right.

The setup for this thread is that someone has an offer for SEC honors and couldn't crack biglaw? Really?