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In top 10% with LR at a T14. Interested in hearing what my best options are for corporate in Chicago. My current top firms in no real order are:

Kirkland
Skadden
Sidley
Latham
Mayer
Winston
Katten Muchin

I will clearly need more firms, but I'm not sure what other firms to consider. Definitely concerned about general instability at several of the Chicago firms, including a few on my list. Will also be using some bids on another market.

The market has kind of been cornered, as far as I know your list is pretty damn comprehensive.

Get rid of Katten and put in McDermott. That being said, you really really don't want to end up at McDermott (Unless you want to do tax or t&e).

Kirkland
Latham
---
Cravath
S&C
Davis Polk
Simpson Thacher
Cleary
Skadden NY

rayiner wrote:Kirkland
Latham
---
Cravath
S&C
Davis Polk
Simpson Thacher
Cleary
Skadden NY

Yeah, that's pretty much a more blunt way of putting what I was trying to convey...

Anonymous User wrote:Get rid of Katten and put in McDermott. That being said, you really really don't want to end up at McDermott (Unless you want to do tax or t&e).

Is katten's corporate that bad or the firm in general?

rayiner wrote:Kirkland
Latham
---
Cravath
S&C
Davis Polk
Simpson Thacher
Cleary
Skadden NY

Latham??? I'd take Kirkland, Sidley, Skadden, Mayer, and Winston above Latham if we are talking about a full service corp practice.

barry wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Get rid of Katten and put in McDermott. That being said, you really really don't want to end up at McDermott (Unless you want to do tax or t&e).

Is katten's corporate that bad or the firm in general?

It's not necessarily that bad, it's just not noteworthy. Not much different than Jenner, SNR, Baker, etc for corporate. Katten in general is a mess (but so is MWE).

rayiner wrote:Kirkland
Latham
---
Cravath
S&C
Davis Polk
Simpson Thacher
Cleary
Skadden NY

OP here. So Kirkland and Latham are the only legit corporate options in Chicago? Any particular reason to avoid Sidley?

Anonymous User wrote:

rayiner wrote:Kirkland
Latham
---
Cravath
S&C
Davis Polk
Simpson Thacher
Cleary
Skadden NY

OP here. So Kirkland and Latham are the only legit corporate options in Chicago? Any particular reason to avoid Sidley?

This is ridiculous post by Rayiner. There are 5 firms I'd take before them in Chi. Do you know what you are interested within corp?

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

rayiner wrote:Kirkland
Latham
---
Cravath
S&C
Davis Polk
Simpson Thacher
Cleary
Skadden NY

OP here. So Kirkland and Latham are the only legit corporate options in Chicago? Any particular reason to avoid Sidley?

This is ridiculous post by Rayiner. There are 5 firms I'd take before them in Chi. Do you know what you are interested within corp?

Not set on anything, possibly M&A.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

rayiner wrote:Kirkland
Latham
---
Cravath
S&C
Davis Polk
Simpson Thacher
Cleary
Skadden NY

OP here. So Kirkland and Latham are the only legit corporate options in Chicago? Any particular reason to avoid Sidley?

This is ridiculous post by Rayiner. There are 5 firms I'd take before them in Chi. Do you know what you are interested within corp?

There are not five firms in Chicago with a healthy corporate practice. There are not three firms in Chicago with a healthy corporate practice.

rayiner wrote:There are not five firms in Chicago with a healthy corporate practice. There are not three firms in Chicago with a healthy corporate practice.

Since this thread is probably gonna stall anyway, I don't feel too bad slightly derailing: what would you say are the three firms in Chicago with healthy litigation practices. And by healthy, I mean worth considering in contention with the top 20 NY firms or so.

rayiner wrote:
There are not five firms in Chicago with a healthy corporate practice. There are not three firms in Chicago with a healthy corporate practice.

Latham certainly isn't one of them.

Anonymous User wrote:

rayiner wrote:
There are not five firms in Chicago with a healthy corporate practice. There are not three firms in Chicago with a healthy corporate practice.

Latham certainly isn't one of them.

If I had been interested in Lit, my preferences would have been: Kirkland, Jenner, Sidley, Winston, Mayer

Anonymous User wrote:

rayiner wrote:
There are not five firms in Chicago with a healthy corporate practice. There are not three firms in Chicago with a healthy corporate practice.

Latham certainly isn't one of them.

I was giving Latham the benefit of the doubt, since the firm seems to be busy across the board. Then let's just say there is only one healthy corporate practice in Chicago.

"Corporate" encompasses a lot of stuff, much of which falls outside of the general corporate practice group umbrella. For example, if you want to do banking, IP transactional, or insurance/financial services transactional, Sidley arguably has the best practice in the city. If you want to do real estate, on the other hand, dla piper is much better.

Anonymous User wrote:

rayiner wrote:Kirkland
Latham
---
Cravath
S&C
Davis Polk
Simpson Thacher
Cleary
Skadden NY

Latham??? I'd take Kirkland, Sidley, Skadden, Mayer, and Winston above Latham if we are talking about a full service corp practice.

The firms ranked Band 1 for Chicago in Corporate M&A are: Kirkland, Sidley, Skadden, and Latham. Kirkland is obviously better. Sidley isn't doing so hot (epic deferrals even compared to other firms that deferred) and rumor is that Skadden Chicago is extremely slow and not getting better.

In my opinion, if one wants to do corporate in Chicago, go to Kirkland. If you can't get Kirkland, then go to pretty much any V10 in NYC (Debevoise and Paul Weiss included). Bite the bullet. Job security is way too tenuous at any other firm in Chicago.