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What's the market like for doing transactional work outside of NY/Chicago? How about in secondary markets? Are most lawyers outside major markets doing lit?

fanmingrui wrote:What's the market like for doing transactional work outside of NY/Chicago? How about in secondary markets? Are most lawyers outside major markets doing lit?

Your questions don't quite make sense together. Most law firms primarily focus on transactional work, and the deal with any litigation issues that arise from those transactions. However, most lawyers focus on litigation work because they are not hired (by law firms or otherwise). This is because it is difficult to start in transaction without a leg in the door before you begin (re: money or connections, mostly the latter).

As to your first question, firms are hiring associates for transactional work. I'm not certain as to what specifically you are asking.

Aberzombie1892 wrote:Most law firms primarily focus on transactional work, and the deal with any litigation issues that arise from those transactions.

What.

fanmingrui wrote:What's the market like for doing transactional work outside of NY/Chicago? How about in secondary markets? Are most lawyers outside major markets doing lit?

Pretty huge market for corporate work in NorCal.

fanmingrui wrote:What's the market like for doing transactional work outside of NY/Chicago? How about in secondary markets? Are most lawyers outside major markets doing lit?

"Most" lawyers (in private practice) outside of major markets are probably litigating, but there is still a market for corporate transactional (and other transactional) work in mid-market cities. Minneapolis firms (seeing your avatar) will probably never be lead counsel on a $1 billion deal, but there are firms in a lot of cities that will do lots of deals ranging up to several hundred million dollars.

Edited to clarify: I mean that these firms will do lots of deals, some of which will range up to several hundred million dollars--not that they will do lots of deals valued at several hundred million (although some firms may do a fair number of deals that big).

lots of transactional work in texas (mainly dealing with oil/gas/energy and some related banking/finance)

RVP11 wrote:

Aberzombie1892 wrote:Most law firms primarily focus on transactional work, and the deal with any litigation issues that arise from those transactions.

What.

Most large law firms do focus on transactional work and handle lit issues arising from that work.

Aberzombie1892 wrote:
Most large law firms do focus on transactional work and handle lit issues arising from that work.

What?

You do realize that there are firms that don't operate on the NYC model right? I.e law firms outside of NYC.

BruceWayne wrote:

Aberzombie1892 wrote:
Most large law firms do focus on transactional work and handle lit issues arising from that work.

What?

You do realize that there are firms that don't operate on the NYC model right? I.e law firms outside of NYC.

Not even NY law firms operate on that model. Companies very often use different counsel for corporate and litigation matters.

Boston transactional does great Private Equity and Life-Sciences work.

f0bolous wrote:lots of transactional work in texas (mainly dealing with oil/gas/energy and some related banking/finance)

yep. During oci, a lot of the bigtex firm partners told me about their multi-billion dollar deals, anywhere from oil and gas to airline M&As. I noticed a lot of private equity work too.

monkey85 wrote:Boston transactional does great Private Equity and Life-Sciences work.

Ropes and the small Weil office certainly do great PE work. I don't know if anyone else qualifies as "great" though.

Anonymous User wrote:Ropes and the small Weil office certainly do great PE work. I don't know if anyone else qualifies as "great" though.

Agree. Which is why I'm going to work for one of those and not the others.

Emma. wrote:

fanmingrui wrote:What's the market like for doing transactional work outside of NY/Chicago? How about in secondary markets? Are most lawyers outside major markets doing lit?

Pretty huge market for corporate work in NorCal.

Yeah. I bet Silicon Valley is bigger than Chicago in terms of revenue. If not, there are a lot more jobs in Silicon for transactional work than Chicago.

TaipeiMort wrote:

Emma. wrote:

fanmingrui wrote:What's the market like for doing transactional work outside of NY/Chicago? How about in secondary markets? Are most lawyers outside major markets doing lit?

Pretty huge market for corporate work in NorCal.

Yeah. I bet Silicon Valley is bigger than Chicago in terms of revenue. If not, there are a lot more jobs in Silicon for transactional work than Chicago.

Chicago does almost all the mid-market M&A work throughout the entire midwest, and Chicago is a much bigger financial center than SF so there is a lot more lending and securities work. A lot of F500's in the midwest use Chicago firms, so there is all the tax, real estate, and other corporate work those companies need.

NALP shows ~2,300 attorneys in Palo Alto, Redwood Shores, Menlo Park, and Mountain View. WSGR is about 65% corporate (defined broadly), Latham is about 50%, Orrick is 40%, Fenwick and Skadden are only 35%, and Weil is only 25% corporate. A lot of the out-of-town firms with 50-100 person offices in Palo Alto heavily lean towards patent lit. Let's take Orrick as archetypal and assume 40% of the 2,300 attorneys are corporate, or about 920.

In Chicago, just between Kirkland (350), Sidley (300), Mayer (200), Skadden (140), and Latham (60) you've got over 1,000 corporate attorneys. Meanwhile, these five firms represent 2,000 of the 11,300 NALP firm attorneys in the city. The remaining firms are actually less lit-heavy than SV because SV is so patent-lit heavy. Firms like Neal Gerber, Katten, and Schiff are 50-60% corporate. So it wouldn't be surprising if there are 5,000-6,000 corporate attorneys at NALP firms in Chicago.

Difficult question about SV/SF corporate v. Chicago corporate

Kirkland SF (heavily PE work in a new, growing office)

OR

Sidley Chi (flagship office of major firm but not as well-regarded on corporate work as Kirkland)