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Basically doing prospectus supplements for WKSI issuers on a routine basis. Would primarily be equity based products (not MBSs or anything), also some currency & interest rate products.

Extremely narrow field, but I find it interesting and may have an option to do that kind of work at a good firm, for a good client.

Does anybody here have some insight? I'd appreciate anything, but am most curious about career development - it's such a narrow speciality and so tied to a single client, I'm not sure what the trajectory winds up looking like for associates who do the work. Also curious about the legal landscape - how many firms are in the field, and who are the real "players"? Do attorneys who do it have the same kind of appeal as those who do general derivatives work, which seems to be very in demand?

Thanks in advance TLS!

Sounds like you're interested in securities regulation. That's a great field of law. I wouldn't box myself too narrowly in WKSIs though; the area of securities law is extremely rich and you'll get a lot by trying out both the litigation and transactional side of things. In a tough legal market, going for such a niche field of ONLY-WKSIs is not a good idea. But you shouldn't have trouble if you just say that you're interested in securities generally. What year are you?

eerie_erie wrote:Sounds like you're interested in securities regulation. That's a great field of law. I wouldn't box myself too narrowly in WKSIs though; the area of securities law is extremely rich and you'll get a lot by trying out both the litigation and transactional side of things. In a tough legal market, going for such a niche field of ONLY-WKSIs is not a good idea. But you shouldn't have trouble if you just say that you're interested in securities generally. What year are you?

Ah, I wasn't clear in my original post, but this is quite imminent - I am a graduate not a law student. It's not a general interest in sec reg, it's a yes or no decision re: this niche WKSI structured product transactional work. The alternative would be some other (invariably more general) transactional practice.

Figure it's still a long-shot, but a final Monday morning bump just in case anybody out there has some insight. Thanks much.

Midlevel structured products/general derivatives associate.

Big firms in the structured products field are Cadwalader, Cleary, DPW, S&C - there are quite a few other firms that also do structured products, but given the number of issuers taken up by the few firms at the top it's best going to one of the firms that is towards the top of the pack. I know law firms hire specifically for structured products associates which would limit OP's ability to build a more generalized derivatives background if that's the case. That said, career opportunities a bit narrower for structured products than for general derivatives, but still solid - lots of in-house need considering the scope, and fairly limited number of firms that have a lot of experience in the field to provide associates for those positions. Anything which would also provide some regulatory/DF exposure in conjunction with structured products work would only be a plus, and that seems to be fairly common from the sample of firms I'm aware of.

DPW is a big player.

I did this type of work as a paralegal. Attorneys who worked on these products, also worked in other areas as well. Some focused on this, but none ONLY did this type of work. I loved it, but it can get monotonous as they often do the same types of deals over and over, and its just a markup of old docs. Very demanding (and unpredictable) time lines. A deal can come through, and the client wants it filed a few hours later. Most associates had no problem going in house afterwards.

OP here -

Wow, thank you for the responses, that's exactly the information I was looking for. Thank you everyone!