Mixed Messages re: Vault Forum

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Mixed Messages re: Vault

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Sep 06, 2014 9:56 am

Hello,

There seems to be conflicting signals coming from this board. Many experienced posters dismiss Vault rankings, particularly for non-NY litigation. Yet the vast majority of people asking for help choosing firms are choosing between top-ranked Vault firms, and threads such as "V10 Associate taking questions" get hundreds of posts.

Is there anybody out there who has actually turned down a V10 in favor of a lower-ranked firm? Can that person please comment on whether they had any difficulty finding exit options?

I am choosing between a couple of smaller lower-ranked firms and a V20, all of which are strong in my desired (non-transactional) practice area and have assured me that I would get work in that practice area. The fit is immensely better at the smaller lower-ranked firms, but I feel like from an exit options perspective it would be risky to choose them. Assuming that partnership is out of the question at any of these firms, I would have more exit options coming out of the V20; I have asked several partners at other firms in the field about this and they have confirmed that Name+Good Experience > No Name+Great Experience. Is this long-term security worth an unpleasant initial few years?

Thanks.

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Re: Mixed Messages re: Vault

Post by goldeneye » Sat Sep 06, 2014 10:06 am

Vault is useful on this board because it gives people a sense of what firm you're talking about. I know many people who turned down v10 for firms in the 50s. Fit, practice group, etc all factor in.

It's mainly also a prestige things that law students get off on. There's some agreement that higher vault firms have better exit options but again, that's all case by case in some sense (who your clients are, experience)

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Re: Mixed Messages re: Vault

Post by Tiago Splitter » Sat Sep 06, 2014 10:13 am

The top vault firms tend to be strong across lots of practice areas, which is nice for people who after one year of law school are far from sure which direction they'd like to take. If you already know the relatively narrow practice area you want to end up in, this advantage means a lot less to you.

As to the question of whether the "initial long term security is worth an unpleasant initial few years" I'd caution you not to expect things to be any better lifestyle-wise at the lower ranked firms, especially if those firms are still V100 types.

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Re: Mixed Messages re: Vault

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Sep 06, 2014 10:23 am

Tiago Splitter wrote: As to the question of whether the "initial long term security is worth an unpleasant initial few years" I'd caution you not to expect things to be any better lifestyle-wise at the lower ranked firms, especially if those firms are still V100 types.
OP here, thanks for the reply. I did not mean lifestyle, I meant fit, as generally I prefer smaller firms.

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Re: Mixed Messages re: Vault

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Sep 06, 2014 11:36 am

Anonymous User wrote:
Tiago Splitter wrote: As to the question of whether the "initial long term security is worth an unpleasant initial few years" I'd caution you not to expect things to be any better lifestyle-wise at the lower ranked firms, especially if those firms are still V100 types.
OP here, thanks for the reply. I did not mean lifestyle, I meant fit, as generally I prefer smaller firms.
*Generally, bigger firms are more like collections of smaller firms, especially in niche practice groups.

*There's no difference in workload between V10 firms and, say, the NY office of a firm that's V73.8763

*Assessing fit at a big firm is a fools errand.

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Re: Mixed Messages re: Vault

Post by dixiecupdrinking » Sat Sep 06, 2014 1:52 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
*There's no difference in workload between V10 firms and, say, the NY office of a firm that's V73.8763
There may well be a difference, because there isn't as much work to go around at the lower ranked firm. But that might be worse than having too much work... depending on how long you'd like to stay employed.

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Re: Mixed Messages re: Vault

Post by A. Nony Mouse » Sat Sep 06, 2014 3:27 pm

Honestly, though, do the lower-ranked firms really not have as much work to go around? Or are they just doing different kinds of work? There are lot of truly crappy shitlaw firms that have plenty of work to go around; amount of work doesn't seem to correlate to rankings. (To the extent anyone cares about any of these rankings.)

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Re: Mixed Messages re: Vault

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Sep 06, 2014 4:41 pm

A. Nony Mouse wrote:Honestly, though, do the lower-ranked firms really not have as much work to go around? Or are they just doing different kinds of work? There are lot of truly crappy shitlaw firms that have plenty of work to go around; amount of work doesn't seem to correlate to rankings. (To the extent anyone cares about any of these rankings.)
Yes, they dont have as much work. And it's fucking terrifying to sit with no work and no way to get work and to know that if you don't hit a target, you're fucking fired.

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Re: Mixed Messages re: Vault

Post by A. Nony Mouse » Sat Sep 06, 2014 4:44 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
A. Nony Mouse wrote:Honestly, though, do the lower-ranked firms really not have as much work to go around? Or are they just doing different kinds of work? There are lot of truly crappy shitlaw firms that have plenty of work to go around; amount of work doesn't seem to correlate to rankings. (To the extent anyone cares about any of these rankings.)
Yes, they dont have as much work. And it's fucking terrifying to sit with no work and no way to get work and to know that if you don't hit a target, you're fucking fired.
Sure, but why do rankings correlate with amount of work?

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Re: Mixed Messages re: Vault

Post by jbagelboy » Sat Sep 06, 2014 5:00 pm

A. Nony Mouse wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
A. Nony Mouse wrote:Honestly, though, do the lower-ranked firms really not have as much work to go around? Or are they just doing different kinds of work? There are lot of truly crappy shitlaw firms that have plenty of work to go around; amount of work doesn't seem to correlate to rankings. (To the extent anyone cares about any of these rankings.)
Yes, they dont have as much work. And it's fucking terrifying to sit with no work and no way to get work and to know that if you don't hit a target, you're fucking fired.
Sure, but why do rankings correlate with amount of work?
Larger matters which consume more associate hours -> more industry recognition -> higher chambers band/initial vault survey ranking -> more demand from law students -> circle back to higher vault survey

It's safe to assume davis polk and cravath will remain busy due to institutional clients and big name partners drawing work. Businesses will then approach these firms more often for high margin legal work. The cycle continues.

This isn't to say lots of V100 firms aren't really busy, and other factors play into it, but generally I would buy a roughly correlative relationship between vault bracket and amount of work.

To the person who asked whether anyone actually takes firms outside the V10 over V10: every fucking day. For lit especially, lots of people at Jones Day or Sidley in DC could also work at skadden or kirkland in NY, ect. Also V10 is super arbitrary because at least at my school, for litigation Debevoise and Paul Weiss (technically outside the v10 but "v10" in aura) are regularly chosen over Cravath ect

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Re: Mixed Messages re: Vault

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Sep 06, 2014 5:16 pm

A. Nony Mouse wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
A. Nony Mouse wrote:Honestly, though, do the lower-ranked firms really not have as much work to go around? Or are they just doing different kinds of work? There are lot of truly crappy shitlaw firms that have plenty of work to go around; amount of work doesn't seem to correlate to rankings. (To the extent anyone cares about any of these rankings.)
Yes, they dont have as much work. And it's fucking terrifying to sit with no work and no way to get work and to know that if you don't hit a target, you're fucking fired.
Sure, but why do rankings correlate with amount of work?
Because clients want to hire a famous name; if a GC hires Davis Polk and the securities offering is fucked, he can blame davis polk, whereas if he hires Polsinelli and things get fucked, he's fired.

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Re: Mixed Messages re: Vault

Post by A. Nony Mouse » Sat Sep 06, 2014 5:25 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
A. Nony Mouse wrote:Sure, but why do rankings correlate with amount of work?
Because clients want to hire a famous name; if a GC hires Davis Polk and the securities offering is fucked, he can blame davis polk, whereas if he hires Polsinelli and things get fucked, he's fired.
Depends on the clients, though, I would think. For some clients Polsinelli's probably the fancy choice.

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Re: Mixed Messages re: Vault

Post by oblig.lawl.ref » Sat Sep 06, 2014 5:27 pm

jbagelboy wrote:
A. Nony Mouse wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
A. Nony Mouse wrote:Honestly, though, do the lower-ranked firms really not have as much work to go around? Or are they just doing different kinds of work? There are lot of truly crappy shitlaw firms that have plenty of work to go around; amount of work doesn't seem to correlate to rankings. (To the extent anyone cares about any of these rankings.)
Yes, they dont have as much work. And it's fucking terrifying to sit with no work and no way to get work and to know that if you don't hit a target, you're fucking fired.
Sure, but why do rankings correlate with amount of work?
Larger matters which consume more associate hours -> more industry recognition -> higher chambers band/initial vault survey ranking -> more demand from law students -> circle back to higher vault survey

It's safe to assume davis polk and cravath will remain busy due to institutional clients and big name partners drawing work. Businesses will then approach these firms more often for high margin legal work. The cycle continues.

This isn't to say lots of V100 firms aren't really busy, and other factors play into it, but generally I would buy a roughly correlative relationship between vault bracket and amount of work.

To the person who asked whether anyone actually takes firms outside the V10 over V10: every fucking day. For lit especially, lots of people at Jones Day or Sidley in DC could also work at skadden or kirkland in NY, ect. Also V10 is super arbitrary because at least at my school, for litigation Debevoise and Paul Weiss (technically outside the v10 but "v10" in aura) are regularly chosen over Cravath ect
I think the part here about DPW, etc. being busy because they have industry rep is a gross oversimplification. There are actually practice groups in many of these type (e.g. v5-10) firms that are pretty slow. To say that DPW, etc., is busy as a firm bc they have institutional clients or whatever is wrong. Clients use these firms for certain expertise and DPW, etc., don't have the same across the board expertise that I think a lot of law students pretend they do on this board. They have weak practice groups and those are less busy than say a v50 in it's strongest group probably is.

tldr lots of practice groups in v5-10s are slow (just a 3L, like 98% of posters here, but I have heard this from associates in these places).

OP, per usge a lot of ppl on these boards giving advice are not associates, so be careful.

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Re: Mixed Messages re: Vault

Post by baal hadad » Sat Sep 06, 2014 5:29 pm

Vault is shit

The only thing it correlates to (NYC corporate) the rankings don't even purport to measure

I don't know what conflicting messages you're getting op

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Re: Mixed Messages re: Vault

Post by jbagelboy » Sat Sep 06, 2014 5:35 pm

I was intentionally overgeneralizing, no one can speak to every specific group but wrt to the "terrifying to not have work" element, it seems like there's a difference. And obviously this isn't intended in any way to support vault im one of its harshest critics

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Re: Mixed Messages re: Vault

Post by Anonymous User » Sat Sep 06, 2014 5:39 pm

oblig.lawl.ref wrote: OP, per usge a lot of ppl on these boards giving advice are not associates, so be careful.

I am the person giving the advice you're critiquing, and I'm an associate. And I've seen both sides of the coin. So, be careful accepting at face value what a lower ranked firm tells you.

This is not to say that the point that a lower ranked firms good group can't be as busy or busier than the equivalent group at an ostensibly fancier firm isn't true. But as a rising 2L picking a firm, you rarely have the level of specific knowledge about what group you're going to end up in that you can pick a firm on that basis. What if the group doesn't give you an offer at the end of the summer? What if you realize you don't want to do XYZ niche practice?

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Re: Mixed Messages re: Vault

Post by iplulzer » Sun Sep 07, 2014 9:03 am

Anonymous User wrote:
A. Nony Mouse wrote:Honestly, though, do the lower-ranked firms really not have as much work to go around? Or are they just doing different kinds of work? There are lot of truly crappy shitlaw firms that have plenty of work to go around; amount of work doesn't seem to correlate to rankings. (To the extent anyone cares about any of these rankings.)
Yes, they dont have as much work. And it's fucking terrifying to sit with no work and no way to get work and to know that if you don't hit a target, you're fucking fired.
This is such bullshit. There are thousands of law firms in this country, though according to TLS only 100 matter (or like 10-20 really). The suggestion that those hallowed 10 firms are drowning in work whereas else is fighting for scraps the point where associates should worry about not having enough work is completely insane. Do you really think no other legal activity occurs in this country beside advising some corporate giant in acquiring another corporate giant?

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Re: Mixed Messages re: Vault

Post by dixiecupdrinking » Thu Sep 11, 2014 3:19 pm

iplulzer wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
A. Nony Mouse wrote:Honestly, though, do the lower-ranked firms really not have as much work to go around? Or are they just doing different kinds of work? There are lot of truly crappy shitlaw firms that have plenty of work to go around; amount of work doesn't seem to correlate to rankings. (To the extent anyone cares about any of these rankings.)
Yes, they dont have as much work. And it's fucking terrifying to sit with no work and no way to get work and to know that if you don't hit a target, you're fucking fired.
This is such bullshit. There are thousands of law firms in this country, though according to TLS only 100 matter (or like 10-20 really). The suggestion that those hallowed 10 firms are drowning in work whereas else is fighting for scraps the point where associates should worry about not having enough work is completely insane. Do you really think no other legal activity occurs in this country beside advising some corporate giant in acquiring another corporate giant?
No one is saying this. There is only a very rough correlation between prestige and healthy workflow. And there are plenty of exceptions on either end. But I think it's silly to say that there is no connection.

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Re: Mixed Messages re: Vault

Post by sinfiery » Thu Sep 11, 2014 4:04 pm

jbagelboy wrote: Larger matters which consume more associate hours -> more industry recognition -> higher chambers band/initial vault survey ranking -> more demand from law students -> circle back to higher vault survey

It's safe to assume davis polk and cravath will remain busy due to institutional clients and big name partners drawing work. Businesses will then approach these firms more often for high margin legal work. The cycle continues.

This isn't to say lots of V100 firms aren't really busy, and other factors play into it, but generally I would buy a roughly correlative relationship between vault bracket and amount of work.
Assuming that most law firms have similar overhead costs, it just doesn't play out like this with the numbers I've seen.

There is data on billable rates that associates/partners charge: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202636785489
There is more data on firms at: http://www.almlegalintel.com (we got free access via our school) when looking at firm profiles individually; Most firms I looked at fall between Skadden and Paul Hastings


There is such a marginal difference between them, if any at all. And it isn't that intertwined with vault. But it kinda is, but, like, the % difference b/w rates is so low. And it isn't really that intertwined. Sorta.

Next step, calculate PPP. Account for ratio of lawyers to partners based on aforementioned rates.

That's how you basically figure out how much work these firms do. And they are, generally, equal.

I'm not sure how work is distributed but I have a feeling it's not about vault prestige but a combination of having a partner with a connection with the company, not having other companies you represent cause potential conflicts of interest, and your reputation with the company in the practice area they are specifically doing (This goes beyond M&A/Cap Markets/etc and likely delves into very specifically what you are doing)


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Anonymous User wrote:
A. Nony Mouse wrote:Honestly, though, do the lower-ranked firms really not have as much work to go around? Or are they just doing different kinds of work? There are lot of truly crappy shitlaw firms that have plenty of work to go around; amount of work doesn't seem to correlate to rankings. (To the extent anyone cares about any of these rankings.)
Yes, they dont have as much work. And it's fucking terrifying to sit with no work and no way to get work and to know that if you don't hit a target, you're fucking fired.
that's not how business works

associates don't make a profit for firms, likely, until years 3 or whatever the number here that gets thrown around

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Re: Mixed Messages re: Vault

Post by dixiecupdrinking » Thu Sep 11, 2014 6:57 pm

sinfiery wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
A. Nony Mouse wrote:Honestly, though, do the lower-ranked firms really not have as much work to go around? Or are they just doing different kinds of work? There are lot of truly crappy shitlaw firms that have plenty of work to go around; amount of work doesn't seem to correlate to rankings. (To the extent anyone cares about any of these rankings.)
Yes, they dont have as much work. And it's fucking terrifying to sit with no work and no way to get work and to know that if you don't hit a target, you're fucking fired.
that's not how business works

associates don't make a profit for firms, likely, until years 3 or whatever the number here that gets thrown around
you are probably responding to an actual associate who has either experienced what they're describing or has friends who have.

It is not a perfect correlation (see Latham, Weil, and lots of good lower ranked firms), but by and large, one of the things you are getting by going to a top vault firm is some greater assurance that you'll have enough work and won't get laid off due to not making your hours.

There are firms where there isn't enough work to go around and people get stealthed in their second or third year. There are firms aggressively hiring second and third year laterals because they have too much work. The former tend to be at the lower end of the vault ranks and the latter tend to be at the high end. Not exclusively; maybe not even reliably; using vault to measure business volume would be foolhardy. But it is a correlation. This is based on anecdotal experiences of people at firms up and down the V100.

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Re: Mixed Messages re: Vault

Post by KidStuddi » Thu Sep 11, 2014 9:17 pm

sinfiery wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
A. Nony Mouse wrote:Honestly, though, do the lower-ranked firms really not have as much work to go around? Or are they just doing different kinds of work? There are lot of truly crappy shitlaw firms that have plenty of work to go around; amount of work doesn't seem to correlate to rankings. (To the extent anyone cares about any of these rankings.)
Yes, they dont have as much work. And it's fucking terrifying to sit with no work and no way to get work and to know that if you don't hit a target, you're fucking fired.
that's not how business works

associates don't make a profit for firms, likely, until years 3 or whatever the number here that gets thrown around
Why do people keep saying this like it makes sense? Of course junior associates are profitable. Like a fundamental tenet of BigLaw economics is get clients to pay an absurd rate for junior associates sitting in rooms reviewing documents all day long. It is central to how most BigLaw partners made their millions. It's always been this way and it's exactly why BigLaw firms hiring patterns are structured so that the first and second years always make a huge percentage of the firm's attorneys. If these were the least profitable people in the organization, why on earth nearly every firm have it structured so there are far more junior associates than Midlevel / senior ones? Look at Cravath: it's a 500 attorney firm that hires ~80 first years every year. Why on earth would they keep doing this year after year if it isn't profitable? Why would firms stealth and force out mid-levels if they're the profitable ones? Why does everyone take it as a sign of a firm being in dire trouble when they start cutting first and second years?

The notion that junior associates are no longer going to be profitable is the BigLaw version of the boogeyman. It's a doomsday scenario industry analysts like to throw around because clients are starting to buck about paying such high rates for the time of juniors and, if that trend ever reaches a critical mass, dozens and dozens of law firms would crumble. Without the stupid easy profits generated by putting an army of baby lawyers in a room full of boxes and telling them to find bad things, it will be a lot less easy for law firm partners to rake it in. People keep throwing it around here like it's already happened, but if that were the case you'd see way more PattonBoggs type collapses.

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Re: Mixed Messages re: Vault

Post by rickgrimes69 » Fri Sep 12, 2014 4:11 am

KidStuddi wrote:
sinfiery wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
A. Nony Mouse wrote:Honestly, though, do the lower-ranked firms really not have as much work to go around? Or are they just doing different kinds of work? There are lot of truly crappy shitlaw firms that have plenty of work to go around; amount of work doesn't seem to correlate to rankings. (To the extent anyone cares about any of these rankings.)
Yes, they dont have as much work. And it's fucking terrifying to sit with no work and no way to get work and to know that if you don't hit a target, you're fucking fired.
that's not how business works

associates don't make a profit for firms, likely, until years 3 or whatever the number here that gets thrown around
Why do people keep saying this like it makes sense? Of course junior associates are profitable. Like a fundamental tenet of BigLaw economics is get clients to pay an absurd rate for junior associates sitting in rooms reviewing documents all day long. It is central to how most BigLaw partners made their millions. It's always been this way and it's exactly why BigLaw firms hiring patterns are structured so that the first and second years always make a huge percentage of the firm's attorneys. If these were the least profitable people in the organization, why on earth nearly every firm have it structured so there are far more junior associates than Midlevel / senior ones? Look at Cravath: it's a 500 attorney firm that hires ~80 first years every year. Why on earth would they keep doing this year after year if it isn't profitable? Why would firms stealth and force out mid-levels if they're the profitable ones? Why does everyone take it as a sign of a firm being in dire trouble when they start cutting first and second years?

The notion that junior associates are no longer going to be profitable is the BigLaw version of the boogeyman. It's a doomsday scenario industry analysts like to throw around because clients are starting to buck about paying such high rates for the time of juniors and, if that trend ever reaches a critical mass, dozens and dozens of law firms would crumble. Without the stupid easy profits generated by putting an army of baby lawyers in a room full of boxes and telling them to find bad things, it will be a lot less easy for law firm partners to rake it in. People keep throwing it around here like it's already happened, but if that were the case you'd see way more PattonBoggs type collapses.
Pre-2007, you were totally right. But many clients really aren't willing to pay for stuff like the bolded anymore. Lots of that either gets farmed out to contract attorneys in Wheeling, WVa, or else gets written off entirely, because everyone knows they're baby lawyers who don't know what they are doing. The days of endless buffet billing are becoming increasingly more rare for all but the very top firms handling bet-the-company cases. Subsequently, juniors become less profitable simply because they convert fewer hours to billables (not to mention the sunk costs of recruiting, training, and mentoring these baby lawyers).

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Re: Mixed Messages re: Vault

Post by OneMoreLawHopeful » Fri Sep 12, 2014 2:40 pm

rickgrimes69 wrote: Pre-2007, you were totally right. But many clients really aren't willing to pay for stuff like the bolded anymore. Lots of that either gets farmed out to contract attorneys in Wheeling, WVa, or else gets written off entirely, because everyone knows they're baby lawyers who don't know what they are doing. The days of endless buffet billing are becoming increasingly more rare for all but the very top firms handling bet-the-company cases. Subsequently, juniors become less profitable simply because they convert fewer hours to billables (not to mention the sunk costs of recruiting, training, and mentoring these baby lawyers).
This kind of analysis fails to account for the ability of law firms to adapt.

Superficially, sure there's a lot of reliance on contract lawyers, and there aren't huge conference rooms w/ 20 associates doing manual doc review.

However, on the question of "are 1st year associates profitable?" firms have definitely taken steps to ensure that they are. At my firm, the clients, cases, and assignments that first years are given are all calculated to maximize realization. Partners often negotiate billing arrangements where it is made explicit that first year time will be paid for to cover certain tasks (and many clients accept because assigning more seasoned associates will cost more). As a result, first year time is realized at a much higher rate than TLS ever gives it credit for.

It's hard to believe this is only the case at my firm, it seems more likely to be an industry-wide trend, and probably helps to explain why big law hiring of first years has nudged up in recent years.

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