Top Law Schools

Debating offers from these firms, have a few weeks to decide but trying to decide quickly. All Chicago offices, interested in litigation, no real drive to gun for appellate practices at this juncture but wouldn't rule it out if I can, by some miracle, get the right clerkship down the road. I liked them all on my visits, have no preference for big classes vs. smaller classes. Don't care about Vault rank, do care about Chicago Biglaw pecking order. Really no gut feel on this, could see myself happily at any of them. Pleaze halp.

Sidley.

Most stable, most prestigious, plenty of work to go around, good at everything, and closes no doors down the road.

There is one major player missing from this list...

Anonymous User wrote:There is one major player missing from this list...

Very observant. Maybe he doesn't have an offer from SNR Denton...

I would probably do:

Sidley>Winston>>Mayer>>>>Latham for Litigation (excluding App lit, which is Mayer all the way).

Ask your profs/career services whether you have a realistic shot at a COA clerkship. Meaning that if you applied broadly, you would have >50% shot at getting one. If they think you do, pick Mayer and apply broadly -- with a COA clerkship and Mayer appellate experience, you will have a ton of options in academia, AUSA, etc. that will be much harder than without those credentials.* Otherwise pick Sidley.

* Yes, yes. You have no interest in doing any of that at this point. Wait until you spend a few years in a big firm working 60-80 hours a week. Then, a 50 hour a week job making $125k doing really cool hands-on government work, or an academic job making $100k working 30 hours a week with the summers off, will sound a little different. It did for me, at least. Now I'm scrambling to make up for the fact that I didn't keep my options open in the first place.

Bumpelstilstkin