Top Law Schools

All NY offices for Litigation. Also looking at firm prestige, culture & personality of the firm and attorneys, and exit options.

I would love to hear any and all thoughts.

Paul Weiss has the broadest strength in lit, so if you're not sure which areas of lit you're interested in just go there. For general commercial or securities lit, Paul Weiss. For white-collar/internal investigations or international dispute resolution, Debevoise. Of course, if you liked the people and culture much better at one of these firms just go there. Keep in mind that all of these differences in practice group strength between top NY firms are pretty minute, and the people/culture will have the most effect on you.

Cleary is much more of a corporate shop, so I'd rank that below the other two for you.

There won't be a difference in quality of exit options between these three firms. Debevoise and Paul Weiss especially send a lot of people into the SEC/USAO.

Thanks for all the votes! I'd love to hear some thoughts as well!!

Paul Weiss, definitely. Debevoise and Cleary are both corporate firms first. Paul Weiss is a litigation firm first. That's really all there is to it. As mentioned above, there are some very specific areas where Debevoise may be better (though I think this is also true for Cleary--Debevoise is not more of a litigation firm than Cleary is), but Paul Weiss is a stronger litigation firm across the board.