Top Law Schools

Interested in litigation, particularly white collar defense/government investigations. Firm culture is important to me, but I've liked everyone I've talked to at both firms. My offers expire soon, so I'd appreciate any thoughts on these two. Thanks!

Can't speak specifically to those practice areas, but Kirkland is known for its litigation and especially the amount of training they dump into new associates through KITA. Further, Kirkland has above-market compensation.

Unless there is some specific reason that someone can give for why taking Sidley is the more sensible decision here, I would think Kirkland is a no-brainer if you like both of the firms the same in terms of culture.

Anonymous User wrote:Can't speak specifically to those practice areas, but Kirkland is known for its litigation and especially the amount of training they dump into new associates through KITA. Further, Kirkland has above-market compensation.

Unless there is some specific reason that someone can give for why taking Sidley is the more sensible decision here, I would think Kirkland is a no-brainer if you like both of the firms the same in terms of culture.

Above market bonuses. Sometimes. And they have higher billable requirements commiserate with it.

Kirkland DC's rep is one is fairly muddled around town. There are several notorious screamers there, and the hours are pretty brutal
A complete eat-what-you-kill compensation among the partners means they take it personally when you slack off.

If you're really set on white collar defense / government investigations, there's plenty of that work everywhere in D.C., but you should be aware that's really not Kirkland's bread and butter. They're commercial litigators and heavily favor civil stuff. Government investigations just about never result in a trial and it's all about appeasing the Feds, which kind of flies in their face of the super agressive style they're so proud of and cultivate.

I'd stay away from Kirkland what you meant when you said by "firm culture" being important was work/life balance and working for friendly partners.

For which dc firms would you say white collar is their bread and butter?

Above market bonuses. Sometimes.

Correction: when billing above 2,100, always.

The rest of your post sounds so vitriolic that I'm not sure it's worth responding to, except for the white collar point. Firm has aggressively been building up its wcc practice, in dc and firmwide. The number of wcc laterals they've brought in in the past two years alone has been staggering.