Paul Hastings NY vs Desmarais for IP lit Forum

[Anonymous User]

Choosing between these 2 firms for summer positions. Paul Hastings does mostly life sciences/big pharma work, which is what I think I'm interested in but not really sure. Desmarais is a bit more varied but I'm a bit concerned about their NPE work particularly given recent Supreme Court cases and pending legislation. Seems like both firms offer pretty good experience early on.

Anyone have useful information/anecdotes on either firm? Trends? Reputations? Exit options? I've done the basic research on Vault/Chambers/etc. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

[fats provolone]

uh these firms seem really different in more ways than technology focus

[glitched]

I'd probably do Paul Hastings mainly bc you'll have way more options re practice areas that you can check out, or maybe even switch to in your first two years if you don't end up liking patent lit.

[Tomasz]

no idea, but a quick google seems to imply Desmarais may be a patent troll. I wonder how that would look for future work?

[Anonymous User]

no idea, but a quick google seems to imply Desmarais may be a patent troll. I wonder how that would look for future work?

You probably should have stopped at the bolded. Yes there is NPE "troll" work. No it will probably not look bad for future work from all objective measures I've seen. People have left the firm for 1. other firms; 2. in-house; 3. leaving the law entirely; 4. going solo. Plus, the mix is about 50/50 plaintiff/defense work. Doing NPE stuff is not the stain people think it is -- Irell represented Rockstar Bidco but I doubt anyone would advise against going to Irell because of "troll" work.

Source: I asked all this when I interviewed there.

To OP: as fats said, the firms couldn't be more different. I interviewed at both places, met the heads of both practices (O'Malley and Desmarais), and you probably possess enough self-awareness to figure out which suits you. I'd willingly wager that 90% of the poll participants have no connection to patent litigation at all. Much better to figure this out on your own than ask a self-selected sample of TLS poll respondents.