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T6 JD/MBA, married with 2 kids, originally from Boulder, CO (wife from Ohio), did I-banking for 2 years on the west coast, interested in general corporate work, grades put me probably around top 20-25%.

Interviews next month, and with my wife and I geographically flexible but wanting a good market for families and exit options, we're not sure what to do (NYC is probably out).

The following cities/regions have been recommended as having strong corporate markets with good exit options, in addition to being family friendly:

Houston, Dallas, Orange County, Denver, Silicon Valley, Washington, DC, Boston, and Atlanta.

What would you do/recommend?

Not positive how much geographic ties play in to Houston/Dallas...cost of living is reasonable, especially compared to O.C., D.C., S.V. and Boston. Oil and gas is booming. If i had my pick, I'd pick either one of those. CA is just absurdly expensive.

At least for law, ties are needed for pretty much all southern cities.

Chrstgtr wrote:At least for law, ties are needed for pretty much all southern cities.

OC is also very ties sensitive, but I think having a family is a great reason that OC firms will be receptive to.

Anonymous User wrote:

Chrstgtr wrote:At least for law, ties are needed for pretty much all southern cities.

OC is also very ties sensitive, but I think having a family is a great reason that OC firms will be receptive to.

People rarely come from out of nowhere though. Nearly all attorneys I've met at large firms in OC have California roots or went to school in CA (Stanford, Cal, USC ect) - with a handful of notable exceptions being electrical engineers.

Many of those markets are pretty tie-sensitive, but I think the recent "legal renaissance" (if you will) in Houston makes it a strong contender for you. Many of the major firms from "traditional" legal markets are setting up shop there, and, as was said earlier, oil and gas is really driving the boom. With so much activity taking place in that legal market, you would probably have some opportunities for corporate work without having to stress too much about having ties there, at least relative to the other cities you listed.

To highlight what I mean by "renaissance" in Houston, here are some recognizable firms that have made the jump to the city in the past two years: Reed Smith, Kirkland and Ellis, Dentons, K&L Gates, Muchin Rosenman, Paul Hastings. I'm sure there are more but these are the first ones I came across.

Anonymous User wrote:T6 JD/MBA, married with 2 kids, originally from Boulder, CO (wife from Ohio), did I-banking for 2 years on the west coast, interested in general corporate work, grades put me probably around top 20-25%.

Interviews next month, and with my wife and I geographically flexible but wanting a good market for families and exit options, we're not sure what to do (NYC is probably out).

The following cities/regions have been recommended as having strong corporate markets with good exit options, in addition to being family friendly:

Houston, Dallas, Orange County, Denver, Silicon Valley, Washington, DC, Boston, and Atlanta.

What would you do/recommend?

There is basically no high-end corporate work in most of those places. For straight corporate, its NYC, NYC and NYC. (Houston is fine as well for energy related work.)

If you were to get hired at one of the really elite firms in a few of those places you'd be OK - there are, for example, 4 or 5 LA firms doing great corporate work, Ropes is ok - but the pool of really good ex-NYC corporate jobs is remarkably small. My guess is that all those cities added together have maybe a tenth as many good corporate law jobs as there are within a one mile radius of the Saks flagship on 50th and 5th.


This is not to say its impossible to do elite corporate work outside of NYC. It's just hard. Saying you want to do corporate but NYC is out is a bit like saying you want to play professional football but the USA is out. It's POSSIBLE to play in Canada, I guess, but . . .

Chicago? LA? Both are more family friendly than NYC and have good transactional work available. I think Houston is probably the best city on your list, but as others have said you might get some resistance if you lack ties.