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So I have narrowed it down to two. I am having time deciding between them. I am only really interested in corporate. They both seem to do pretty good work. They both seem to have smart and nice people working for them. Deb. is a bit more structured than Cleary. Cleary's completely open model is at once scary and fascinating. Also, I am LGBT so that is a concern (though both seem to do very well in this regard).

Also concerned about exit options to in-house. I would like to be in for the long haul, but that hardly ever turns out well.

Anonymous User wrote:So I have narrowed it down to two. I am having time deciding between them. I am only really interested in corporate. They both seem to do pretty good work. They both seem to have smart and nice people working for them. Deb. is a bit more structured than Cleary. Cleary's completely open model is at once scary and fascinating. Also, LGBT is a concern.

You like or don't like a large LGBT population? If the latter, weird, because you picked two firms that do well on LGBT issues. Cleary has a reputation as one of the go-to firms for LGBT people, and they definitely play that up. But I know LGBT people who found Debevoise to be very open with lots of the gheyz as well. I believe both do the "gay gross-up" as well, for LGBT folks with partners.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:So I have narrowed it down to two. I am having time deciding between them. I am only really interested in corporate. They both seem to do pretty good work. They both seem to have smart and nice people working for them. Deb. is a bit more structured than Cleary. Cleary's completely open model is at once scary and fascinating. Also, LGBT is a concern.

You like or don't like a large LGBT population? If the latter, weird, because you picked two firms that do well on LGBT issues. Cleary has a reputation as one of the go-to firms for LGBT people, and they definitely play that up. But I know LGBT people who found Debevoise to be very open with lots of the gheyz as well. I believe both do the "gay gross-up" as well, for LGBT folks with partners.

Sorry, I hadn't thought that my last sentence would be read as "I want to avoid LGBT people." I meant that the firm's treatment/culture regarding LGBT is an issue as I am an LGBT applicant. I know both do well and Clearly somewhat better of the two.

Edited OP to clarify.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:So I have narrowed it down to two. I am having time deciding between them. I am only really interested in corporate. They both seem to do pretty good work. They both seem to have smart and nice people working for them. Deb. is a bit more structured than Cleary. Cleary's completely open model is at once scary and fascinating. Also, LGBT is a concern.

You like or don't like a large LGBT population? If the latter, weird, because you picked two firms that do well on LGBT issues. Cleary has a reputation as one of the go-to firms for LGBT people, and they definitely play that up. But I know LGBT people who found Debevoise to be very open with lots of the gheyz as well. I believe both do the "gay gross-up" as well, for LGBT folks with partners.

Sorry, I hadn't thought that my last sentence would be read as "I want to avoid LGBT people." I meant that the firm's treatment/culture regarding LGBT is an issue as I am an LGBT applicant. I know both do well and Clearly somewhat better of the two.

Ah, gotcha! I think Cleary has a slightly better record, but both are very strong for LGBT people, and I'd pick based on practice interest/gut feeling about the overall firm experience.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:So I have narrowed it down to two. I am having time deciding between them. I am only really interested in corporate. They both seem to do pretty good work. They both seem to have smart and nice people working for them. Deb. is a bit more structured than Cleary. Cleary's completely open model is at once scary and fascinating. Also, LGBT is a concern.

You like or don't like a large LGBT population? If the latter, weird, because you picked two firms that do well on LGBT issues. Cleary has a reputation as one of the go-to firms for LGBT people, and they definitely play that up. But I know LGBT people who found Debevoise to be very open with lots of the gheyz as well. I believe both do the "gay gross-up" as well, for LGBT folks with partners.

Sorry, I hadn't thought that my last sentence would be read as "I want to avoid LGBT people." I meant that the firm's treatment/culture regarding LGBT is an issue as I am an LGBT applicant. I know both do well and Clearly somewhat better of the two.

Ah, gotcha! I think Cleary has a slightly better record, but both are very strong for LGBT people, and I'd pick based on practice interest/gut feeling about the overall firm experience.

Yeah that's the tough part. They seem pretty similar. I am going in for a second look at both. I hope to have more info by then. I just wanted to get people's impressions though.

I would pick Cleary for transactional and Debevoise for lit.

Cleary does a lot of capital markets work, which is great but not for everyone. I think Debevoise has a more well-rounded corporate practice but doesn't excel at one area the way Cleary excels at capital markets. Food for thought if you like/dislike capital markets work.

Sobriquet wrote:I would pick Cleary for transactional and Debevoise for lit.

I hate/hate/hate lit! Research is too never ending!

Anonymous User wrote:Cleary does a lot of capital markets work, which is great but not for everyone. I think Debevoise has a more well-rounded corporate practice but doesn't excel at one area the way Cleary excels at capital markets. Food for thought if you like/dislike capital markets work.

Good point.. cap. Markets sounds interesting but I have almost no idea what the mechanics of it is.

Anonymous User wrote:Cleary does a lot of capital markets work, which is great but not for everyone. I think Debevoise has a more well-rounded corporate practice but doesn't excel at one area the way Cleary excels at capital markets. Food for thought if you like/dislike capital markets work.

According to Chambers, Debevoise is Band 2/3 in M&A, PE, Securities, Financial Regulation, Capital Markets, Securities and Banking and Finance.

Cleary is Band 1/2 in those areas with Securities, Capital Markets and Financial Regulation being in Band 1.

Seems like Cleary has the better corporate practice, at least according to these metrics.

Anonymous User wrote:Cleary does a lot of capital markets work, which is great but not for everyone. I think Debevoise has a more well-rounded corporate practice but doesn't excel at one area the way Cleary excels at capital markets. Food for thought if you like/dislike capital markets work.

What does capital markets work entail? Any research involved?

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Cleary does a lot of capital markets work, which is great but not for everyone. I think Debevoise has a more well-rounded corporate practice but doesn't excel at one area the way Cleary excels at capital markets. Food for thought if you like/dislike capital markets work.

What does capital markets work entail? Any research involved?

Also interested in this. (Warning: Speculation Follows) I would imagine there is some limited research. For example, an IPO has to meet certain guidelines/disclosure stuff (I would imagine). So you might have to research those. But, it may also be fairly standard so that once you know it, you know it. Again all speculation. If anyone has any real insight, I would appreciate it.

SA who did a few capital markets deals here.

As a summer associate, and probably as a junior associate, capital markets work mostly involves updating documents from prior securities transactions with new dates, amounts of money, types of securities, names of company officers, etc. reflecting that it's a new deal and/or a new client. Sending documents back and forth to the client, and inputting changes, is a big part of the work--a lot of editing. While this probably won't mean anything to rising 2Ls who haven't taken Sec Reg, I also did some research on whether securities offered under two different exemptions to the '33 Act might be integrated and seen as the same offering by the SEC (since the SEC doesn't treat all exemptions alike, it might have caused a problem had the SEC found them to be integrated).

Mid-level associates often run the day-to-day of the deal by managing the timeline of the deal and coordinating the actions of the issuer and underwriters. They also will be the ones getting phone calls from the issuer (if issuer's counsel; a lot of work at firms with banks as clients is as underwriter's counsel) saying: I think I want to write this in my prospectus/press release/etc. ... to which the lawyer will invariably say no.