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Or, if not D.C.-centric, are strong in D.C.

I want to litigate and I want to work in D.C. What areas should I consider?

Antitrust

Anything regulatory is going to be emphasized more in a DC office since DC is where the regulators are. Most DC offices have strong general commercial lit practices as well though. Why is this anon?

Nelson wrote:Why is this anon?

Not OP, but I can't figure out why TLS posters get so uptight about the anon feature. Is it really that much different than creating a new username and posting with it? Can't count the number of times a poster has asked a good question that gets followed up with a random and pointless "why is this anon." This is why posters on autoadmit laugh at TLS. Nothing makes for better reading than someone getting all uptight over an anonymous posting.

Patent is somewhat DC-centric. The two major hubs for patent pros/lit are DC and Silicon Valley, with NYC as a close third.

Anonymous User wrote:Or, if not D.C.-centric, are strong in D.C.

I want to litigate and I want to work in D.C. What areas should I consider?

Regulatory, appellate, internal investigations, fcpa, etc.

Basically all lit is strong in DC. It's what makes DC, DC.

anonymous2012 wrote:Regulatory, appellate, internal investigations, fcpa, etc.

+1 to most of this. D.C. is definitely very strong in appellate, regulatory/administrative work, and antitrust work. My understanding is that relatively-speaking NY has more internal investigation / white collar work than D.C., but I only know of this from off-handed conversations.

You will be able to find bigname DC firms that do high-end work in any litigation practice though. (I am guessing you are interested in biglaw practice.) The nature of most biglaw practice is that even if some practice area is common in your city, you still may not be assigned to a case in that practice. And the converse is true too. Even if some practice area is relatively area is uncommon, your firm might be the only firm in the city to do a lot of X. So more than the city itself, it really depends on your firm and how you are assigned work within the firm.

anonymous2012 wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Or, if not D.C.-centric, are strong in D.C.

I want to litigate and I want to work in D.C. What areas should I consider?

Regulatory, appellate, internal investigations, fcpa, etc.

Basically all lit is strong in DC. It's what makes DC, DC.

This isn't really correct. Internal investigations, FCPA, antitrust, etc.... are all oriented around a regulator and not a courtroom. The processes aren't totally different, but it's not exactly what I would call litigation. Sometimes there are litigation components, but very few firms in D.C. spend a majority of their time working on the litigation piece of the work.

I think TCR is probably patent litigation because of the ITC and fed circuit. It's true that there is more straight appellate lit in D.C. but it's still a unicorn for most people. Also, there is a big difference between litigation and just handling appeals.

bdubs wrote:I think TCR is probably patent litigation because of the ITC and fed circuit. It's true that there is more straight appellate lit in D.C. but it's still a unicorn for most people. Also, there is a big difference between litigation and just handling appeals.

Tons of boutiques and a lot of larger firms have satellite offices in DC for this. Granted, it might be tough if only because I think there's a trend of people with BS level patent prosecution credentials going into litigation as more MS's and PhD's are going through law school and taking the prosecution jobs. Still know several people in Pat Lit who aren't science background, but many of them were already general litigation and just specialized at their firms.

Definitely antitrust, as that's the hub of both the FTC and DOJ. Though, antitrust is also strong in NY for mergers. And the DOJ does have criminal antitrust enforcement offices in NYC, Chicago, and San Francisco. They also have civil units in NYC and SF.

Also basically anything that involves ALJs.