White Collar Practices in BigLaw Forum

[Anonymous User]

I have a couple interviews with firms that are Chambers Band 1 in White Collar Crime

I think it seems kinda cool, in theory. I would love to defend white collar criminals, but as I understand this is generally not what white collar practice in Biglaw do.

What sort of things would demonstrate a genuine interest in White Collar? Or what sorts of skills/traits are highly beneficial? Why might someone be particularly drawn to White Collar?

I have a feeling saying "I want to do criminal defense, and I want to work in BigLaw" would make me sound like an idiot, and I admit is probably completely wrong.

Would love to hear any input from anyone that has experience in this field than ks!

[sprezz]

similar thread this past week had some good intel: http://top-law-schools.com/forums/viewt ... 3&t=218449

[Cogburn87]

The substantive law you will be dealing with will depend on what type of work the firm is getting (FCA, FCPA, SEC or FINRA investigations, etc.). However, the cold hard truth is that day-to-day you will be doing a lot of doc review and legal research, just like any other area of litigation.

If you're unlucky, and the firm you work for does a lot of FCPA work, you may have to travel to various third-world shitholes for weeks or months at a time because some employee for the corporation you represent did something unspeakable, like give a gift to a foreign official in exchange for business permit or something (try to ignore the fact that this is often the only way to obtain such a permit in said third-world shithole).

Exit options are shit, just like any other area of litigation.

[Anonymous User]

similar thread this past week had some good intel: http://top-law-schools.com/forums/viewt ... 3&t=218449

Thank you for the link! Read through it, and definitely a couple good tidbits there

The substantive law you will be dealing with will depend on what type of work the firm is getting (FCA, FCPA, SEC or FINRA investigations, etc.). However, the cold hard truth is that day-to-day you will be doing a lot of doc review and legal research, just like any other area of litigation.

If you're unlucky, and the firm you work for does a lot of FCPA work, you may have to travel to various third-world shitholes for weeks or months at a time because some employee for the corporation you represent did something unspeakable, like give a gift to a foreign official in exchange for business permit or something (try to ignore the fact that this is often the only way to obtain such a permit in said third-world shithole).

Exit options are shit, just like any other area of litigation.

Sounds pretty cool TBH. I do like other litigation, so litigation research in an area like this would be badass, imho.

I imagine you're drafting a lot less motions/briefs in a white collar practice though, right? Which I like doing.. What would you be doing more of, as a jr-midlevel, besides an absurd amount of discovery?

And thank you for your outlook! are you practicing in white collar?

[Anonymous User]

Junior associate doing lots of white collar work here.

Much of biglaw white collar work is actually "government/internal investigations." The government comes along and says hey we think you guys did xyz which was against the law, will you look into it, and the client grudgingly burns through a few million in legal fees to show that they are cooperative and trying to remedy the issue in good faith, so they can get a favorable settlement.

This kind of work is extremely factual, lots of doc review, lots of making binders and chronologies, lots of interviews and interview prep and drafting summaries of interviews. If you like factual work and trying to piece things together, then you may like it. Depending on the case, there may be open legal issues that require research, or it may be pretty cut and dried -- if we did this thing then we broke the law.

Frankly being a junior on one of these cases can be very tedious. They also tend to be more unpredictable and full of fire drills than your typical litigation. I like it anyway because I think it's interesting, but it gets old fast being on a big investigation, and it's hard to develop skills sometimes at the junior level because there is just so much fact work. It's not like a big civil case where you can at least get a crack at drafting some minor discovery motion very early on.

There are other kinds of matters also under the white collar rubric which are really very different -- like defending an individual executive where there are actual criminal charges.

[Anonymous User]

As a general rule, the "white-collar" stuff you do at big firms tends to be more internal investigation stuff. These can be tedious and involve tend to involve a shit ton of doc review/binders etc. A big complaint from people in these practices is that they build few real legal skills.

The "best" type of white-collar work tends to be at the white-collar boutiques which might represent a single employee in some massive investigation. This can mean doing things like proffers/reverse proffers with the USAO/SEC/FINRA/CFTC, making pre-indictment pitches and defending cases in federal or state court. The way to get to these firms is to clerk for a year or two and then apply.

[Anonymous User]

As a general rule, the "white-collar" stuff you do at big firms tends to be more internal investigation stuff. These can be tedious and involve tend to involve a shit ton of doc review/binders etc. A big complaint from people in these practices is that they build few real legal skills.

The "best" type of white-collar work tends to be at the white-collar boutiques which might represent a single employee in some massive investigation. This can mean doing things like proffers/reverse proffers with the USAO/SEC/FINRA/CFTC, making pre-indictment pitches and defending cases in federal or state court. The way to get to these firms is to clerk for a year or two and then apply.

What about exiting to these boutique firms post-biglaw?

[dbg]

similar thread this past week had some good intel: http://top-law-schools.com/forums/viewt ... 3&t=218449

Thank you for the link! Read through it, and definitely a couple good tidbits there

The substantive law you will be dealing with will depend on what type of work the firm is getting (FCA, FCPA, SEC or FINRA investigations, etc.). However, the cold hard truth is that day-to-day you will be doing a lot of doc review and legal research, just like any other area of litigation.

If you're unlucky, and the firm you work for does a lot of FCPA work, you may have to travel to various third-world shitholes for weeks or months at a time because some employee for the corporation you represent did something unspeakable, like give a gift to a foreign official in exchange for business permit or something (try to ignore the fact that this is often the only way to obtain such a permit in said third-world shithole).

Exit options are shit, just like any other area of litigation.

Sounds pretty cool TBH. I do like other litigation, so litigation research in an area like this would be badass, imho.

I imagine you're drafting a lot less motions/briefs in a white collar practice though, right? Which I like doing.. What would you be doing more of, as a jr-midlevel, besides an absurd amount of discovery?

And thank you for your outlook! are you practicing in white collar?

Not really, honestly. 5th year white collar associate here. There's not nearly as much "adventure" as you might think. And international travel -- even in business class -- gets old real fast. There's a fantasy that you can make mini-vacations out of your work trips, but with most time pressures and client demands it just doesn't work that way. I have a friend here who flew to Japan to do an interview. He was on the ground in Japan for about half as long as his total time in the air. I've never had it quite that bad, but close. Or if you go to Europe, you fly overnight and are expected to head straight to the conference room when you land.

The previous couple of posters have it right. At the junior level, it's very fact based. You review the docs, you put together binders, you write interview outlines, and someone else does the interview (while you furiously take notes). That said, the issues are sometimes really interesting and fairly sexy. And when you get more senior and someone else is doing the binders, it's more interesting. (But it's still your job to review everything the juniors do, and often re-do it. In the partners' minds, the buck stops with the midlevel if the outlines and documents suck.)

Personality-wise, you have to be prepared for the fact that sometimes your work results in people getting fired or worse, people who you looked in the eye and asked them to help you. And sometimes the people hiring you have their own political agendas within the client organization and want you to uncover wrongdoing of someone else. Annoying, but you have to just suck it up and move on.

Getting to rep individual defendants is a more fun, but a lot harder to come by in big firms. And even then, it is hardly ever real "litigation" in the sense of writing anything other than an outline for a partner's proffer presentation. It's also frustrating to never get the chance to really make a bet on the defense you prepared. Doesn't matter how BS you think the government's theory is, but white collar defendants never go to trial. So the best part of litigation IMO -- the competitive mentality of "I can beat them" -- you never get to do in white collar.

[Anonymous User]

similar thread this past week had some good intel: http://top-law-schools.com/forums/viewt ... 3&t=218449

Thank you for the link! Read through it, and definitely a couple good tidbits there

The substantive law you will be dealing with will depend on what type of work the firm is getting (FCA, FCPA, SEC or FINRA investigations, etc.). However, the cold hard truth is that day-to-day you will be doing a lot of doc review and legal research, just like any other area of litigation.

If you're unlucky, and the firm you work for does a lot of FCPA work, you may have to travel to various third-world shitholes for weeks or months at a time because some employee for the corporation you represent did something unspeakable, like give a gift to a foreign official in exchange for business permit or something (try to ignore the fact that this is often the only way to obtain such a permit in said third-world shithole).

Exit options are shit, just like any other area of litigation.

Sounds pretty cool TBH. I do like other litigation, so litigation research in an area like this would be badass, imho.

I imagine you're drafting a lot less motions/briefs in a white collar practice though, right? Which I like doing.. What would you be doing more of, as a jr-midlevel, besides an absurd amount of discovery?

And thank you for your outlook! are you practicing in white collar?

Not really, honestly. 5th year white collar associate here. There's not nearly as much "adventure" as you might think. And international travel -- even in business class -- gets old real fast. There's a fantasy that you can make mini-vacations out of your work trips, but with most time pressures and client demands it just doesn't work that way. I have a friend here who flew to Japan to do an interview. He was on the ground in Japan for about half as long as his total time in the air. I've never had it quite that bad, but close. Or if you go to Europe, you fly overnight and are expected to head straight to the conference room when you land.

The previous couple of posters have it right. At the junior level, it's very fact based. You review the docs, you put together binders, you write interview outlines, and someone else does the interview (while you furiously take notes). That said, the issues are sometimes really interesting and fairly sexy. And when you get more senior and someone else is doing the binders, it's more interesting. (But it's still your job to review everything the juniors do, and often re-do it. In the partners' minds, the buck stops with the midlevel if the outlines and documents suck.)

Personality-wise, you have to be prepared for the fact that sometimes your work results in people getting fired or worse, people who you looked in the eye and asked them to help you. And sometimes the people hiring you have their own political agendas within the client organization and want you to uncover wrongdoing of someone else. Annoying, but you have to just suck it up and move on.

Getting to rep individual defendants is a more fun, but a lot harder to come by in big firms. And even then, it is hardly ever real "litigation" in the sense of writing anything other than an outline for a partner's proffer presentation. It's also frustrating to never get the chance to really make a bet on the defense you prepared. Doesn't matter how BS you think the government's theory is, but white collar defendants never go to trial. So the best part of litigation IMO -- the competitive mentality of "I can beat them" -- you never get to do in white collar.

thanks for this. so do you regret your choice of practice area? Whats next for you ?

[Anonymous User]

8:08 anon here. IMO the best reason to do biglaw white collar work is to go to the government later. Even if you want to defend this stuff forever, pretty much all the partners in this area have a stint at a USAO, DOJ, etc. I don't see a clear path to staying in private practice otherwise. Maybe there are in house opportunities as, e.g., FCPA compliance becomes a bigger focus, I dunno.

[dbg]

similar thread this past week had some good intel: http://top-law-schools.com/forums/viewt ... 3&t=218449

Thank you for the link! Read through it, and definitely a couple good tidbits there

The substantive law you will be dealing with will depend on what type of work the firm is getting (FCA, FCPA, SEC or FINRA investigations, etc.). However, the cold hard truth is that day-to-day you will be doing a lot of doc review and legal research, just like any other area of litigation.

If you're unlucky, and the firm you work for does a lot of FCPA work, you may have to travel to various third-world shitholes for weeks or months at a time because some employee for the corporation you represent did something unspeakable, like give a gift to a foreign official in exchange for business permit or something (try to ignore the fact that this is often the only way to obtain such a permit in said third-world shithole).

Exit options are shit, just like any other area of litigation.

Sounds pretty cool TBH. I do like other litigation, so litigation research in an area like this would be badass, imho.

I imagine you're drafting a lot less motions/briefs in a white collar practice though, right? Which I like doing.. What would you be doing more of, as a jr-midlevel, besides an absurd amount of discovery?

And thank you for your outlook! are you practicing in white collar?

Not really, honestly. 5th year white collar associate here. There's not nearly as much "adventure" as you might think. And international travel -- even in business class -- gets old real fast. There's a fantasy that you can make mini-vacations out of your work trips, but with most time pressures and client demands it just doesn't work that way. I have a friend here who flew to Japan to do an interview. He was on the ground in Japan for about half as long as his total time in the air. I've never had it quite that bad, but close. Or if you go to Europe, you fly overnight and are expected to head straight to the conference room when you land.

The previous couple of posters have it right. At the junior level, it's very fact based. You review the docs, you put together binders, you write interview outlines, and someone else does the interview (while you furiously take notes). That said, the issues are sometimes really interesting and fairly sexy. And when you get more senior and someone else is doing the binders, it's more interesting. (But it's still your job to review everything the juniors do, and often re-do it. In the partners' minds, the buck stops with the midlevel if the outlines and documents suck.)

Personality-wise, you have to be prepared for the fact that sometimes your work results in people getting fired or worse, people who you looked in the eye and asked them to help you. And sometimes the people hiring you have their own political agendas within the client organization and want you to uncover wrongdoing of someone else. Annoying, but you have to just suck it up and move on.

Getting to rep individual defendants is a more fun, but a lot harder to come by in big firms. And even then, it is hardly ever real "litigation" in the sense of writing anything other than an outline for a partner's proffer presentation. It's also frustrating to never get the chance to really make a bet on the defense you prepared. Doesn't matter how BS you think the government's theory is, but white collar defendants never go to trial. So the best part of litigation IMO -- the competitive mentality of "I can beat them" -- you never get to do in white collar.

thanks for this. so do you regret your choice of practice area? Whats next for you ?

I don't regret it at all, although I'm also glad I've mixed in some substantive litigation. (That part depends on how the firm is structured. At my firm it's possible to do work "out of group" but I've gotten some "but it's not in your group" comments during reviews about commercial civil litigation that I've done.)

And actually, now that I'm a mid-senior associate, I like white collar more and more. There's more stress in having to do the day-to-day "running an investigation" -- i.e. the nitty-gritty that partners don't do -- but also more interaction with witnesses, clients, etc. As for what's next for me, still not sure. Not actively trying to leave, but if you want a long-term career in white collar, you need time in government. (And that means DOJ/USAO/SEC. There are a couple of partners out there who are former FPD's, but it's rare.)

In house white collar is almost nonexistent. (What company wants to have to have an in-house criminal lawyer?) And in-house "compliance" is very different.