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I understand that these two firms are indistinguishable on most metrics (i.e. generalist approach, prestige, highest RPL and PPP, quality of exit opportunities, lean staffing, etc.). However, I got the impression that S&C's clients, deals, and cases have a greater leaning towards wall street institutions while Cravath's deals and cases more frequently involve non-financial corporations. Is this observation accurate, and what implications does this have on the type of exit opportunities?

Anonymous User wrote:I understand that these two firms are indistinguishable on most metrics (i.e. generalist approach, prestige, highest RPL and PPP, quality of exit opportunities, lean staffing, etc.). However, I got the impression that S&C's clients, deals, and cases have a greater leaning towards wall street institutions while Cravath's deals and cases more frequently involve non-financial corporations. Is this observation accurate, and what implications does this have on the type of exit opportunities?

Well, much of that difference is a result of S&C having a dedicated financial institutions practice, which Cravath doesn't. If you work in the S&C FIG group, your exit ops would be bank-heavy. Otherwise - i.e. in the S&C and Cravath corporate finance and M&A practices - I don't think there's a material difference in the client roster (and exit ops) between the two firms.

I think categorizing both broadly as "generalist" is a pretty bold step. The difference in Cravath's long rotations versus SullCrom's feel good "do whatever you want!!!" approach is pretty damn big despite the end result for both being 4th years who are generalists. I say this because that's the first thing I would suggest someone choosing between the two to look at instead of dismissing that aspect as identical.

To answer your question S&C has an extremely strong relationship with Goldman and a solid relationship with JPM and I believe they get more work from both than Cravath does, but I don't know that it's enough to do a broad generalization of the whole corporate side of each.

Cravath associate here. I think there's some truth to what OP is saying, at least on the litigation side. Although Cravath have had a lot of work representing Credit Suisse and JPM in RMBS litigation, typically Cravath's big lit clients are typically non-banking F500s: Qualcomm, DuPont, AmEx, NCR , etc. Can't really speak to the corporate side, but I do see IBM, Time Warner, BNSF, etc. a lot in the newsletters announcing deals.