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Any thoughts on a choice between Latham v. Weil? Concerned about the recent layoffs at Weil and the infamous Lathaming. Any insight is helpful. Practice area unsure.

weil layoffs were over a year ago and weren't really in NY. Latham's no offers/deferrals were in 2009.

I am seriously considering Weil NY and I got a great explanation of the layoffs from A partner During the cb. I don't think it'll happen again, at least not to that scale. They know it would kill them

Loved Weil NY on CB, FWIW. Compared to Latham NY, I found Weil to be much more sociable (completely anecdotal, take with a grain of salt). I would probably say that the offices were about equal, perhaps with a slight lead for Weil if you are on the Central Park side (great view that way). Congrats on the offers, though, two excellent firms, you can't really go wrong.

I've worked with Weil's NY and DC offices for a couple years as an outside consultant. There are some good people, but it seems pretty bad for diversity purposes. I have seen far more happy female attorneys at Latham than I have at Weil - at Weil I've seen a progression of talented and hard-working female attorneys get lots and lots of doc review and other less prestigious tasks - even ones that are 6th - 8th year associates who should be past that kind of work.

Maybe Latham is the same but from my (Admittedly more limited) experience with them, it seems otherwise. If you're a childless white male, I imagine Weil is little different from any other big NY firm.

off topic but what was the turnaround time for CB to offer for latham?

Anonymous User wrote:off topic but what was the turnaround time for CB to offer for latham?

I've heard of less than 24 hours

Anonymous User wrote:off topic but what was the turnaround time for CB to offer for latham?

i had my callback weds and the offer call came in from my screener early friday evening.

Anonymous User wrote:I've worked with Weil's NY and DC offices for a couple years as an outside consultant. There are some good people, but it seems pretty bad for diversity purposes. I have seen far more happy female attorneys at Latham than I have at Weil - at Weil I've seen a progression of talented and hard-working female attorneys get lots and lots of doc review and other less prestigious tasks - even ones that are 6th - 8th year associates who should be past that kind of work.

Maybe Latham is the same but from my (Admittedly more limited) experience with them, it seems otherwise. If you're a childless white male, I imagine Weil is little different from any other big NY firm.

thanks for the input. i think there was a hint of that on my callback.

Did CBs with both recently-ish and had to choose between the two.

I liked people at both firms, so that was a wash.

However, ultimately went with Latham because, like you, I was unsure of practice area. I felt Latham offered a wider variety of strong practice areas. And, unlike Weil, they do not make you select a practice group before you join the firm after graduation. You get up to two years to try the practice groups that interest you and then select. I think this one aspect of choosing firms is often overlooked and underrated, especially for those law students (probably the majority of us) who really do not have much direction as to which part of the law they want to practice. HTH.

For what its worth, I was told at Weil that they allow to to switch groups if you are unhappy after starting. Junior Partner told me during the interview with his group that even though his group is hiring me, If I start and don't like it I can switch. They seem pretty open to it and there have been a few every year that do it.

Anonymous User wrote:Did CBs with both recently-ish and had to choose between the two.

I liked people at both firms, so that was a wash.

However, ultimately went with Latham because, like you, I was unsure of practice area. I felt Latham offered a wider variety of strong practice areas. And, unlike Weil, they do not make you select a practice group before you join the firm after graduation. You get up to two years to try the practice groups that interest you and then select. I think this one aspect of choosing firms is often overlooked and underrated, especially for those law students (probably the majority of us) who really do not have much direction as to which part of the law they want to practice. HTH.

Anonymous User wrote:For what its worth, I was told at Weil that they allow to to switch groups if you are unhappy after starting. Junior Partner told me during the interview with his group that even though his group is hiring me, If I start and don't like it I can switch. They seem pretty open to it and there have been a few every year that do it.

I also discussed specialization with interviewers at my Weil callback. My takeaway was that switching groups is frowned upon and uncommon. Even if you can switch groups once at Weil, their groups are very narrow. Litigation is split up into securities litigation, complex civil litigation, antitrust, etc. This was a big turn off to me. I don't want to be working on the exact same kinds of matters all the time, and it's probably not so great for a lawyer to only develop familiarity with one narrow subset of the law. That's personal, though, and you may feel differently.

Yea my experience was with the Corporate group, which is more or less broken into a few big time practices and there is a lot of overlap in terms of deal teams being put together. Seems like corporate is more open minded about it than lit about switching.