The State of the Chicago Legal Market (Transactional) Forum

[Anonymous User]

Some practicing attorneys warned me that the Chicago legal market has had difficulty recovering since 2008. They said things like "lack of work" "layoffs" and "large clients moving out of town". Chicago has been on the top of my list for OCI bids, but these people put The Fear in me. I think the worst thing for a young lawyer is to be sitting around with not enough to do. I was wondering if anyone can comment with their personal experiences in the transactional sector and dissuade or confirm my worries.

[Anonymous User]

I am going to be a transactional associate in Chicago this fall. The Chicago legal market is down from pre-recession and it looks like it is a new normal. However, my firm placed us into practice groups a month ago and they just would not put an associate in a slow group. This mostly means the firm keeps a smaller summer class now (before recession like 15-20, now like 5-7) and goes to the lateral market instead to fill in gaps.

Having said that, if you want big law, transactional in Chicago is much easier to land an SA slot than litigation-focused interviewee.

[homestyle28]

Pretty sure all the major players in town are snapping up transactional folks almost as fast as they can get them right now. I know that my firm has welcomed new laterals almost every month I've been here.

[DELG]

Pretty sure all the major players in town are snapping up transactional folks almost as fast as they can get them right now. I know that my firm has welcomed new laterals almost every month I've been here.

I don't think there's a single large Chi firm that doesn't have active job postings for transactional juniors/midlevels.

[Anonymous User]

Gunning for transactional in one of these firms:

Sidley Austin
Kirkland Ellis
Katten
Mayer Brown
Skadden
McDermott
Jones Day

So you guys think I'd be safe as far as job security is concerned? What about meaningful work availability? Ideally, I want to stay at one firm long term. But should I want to leave, my other concern is not developing any transferrable skills.

[homestyle28]

Gunning for transactional in one of these firms:

Sidley Austin
Kirkland Ellis
Katten
Mayer Brown
Skadden
McDermott
Jones Day

So you guys think I'd be safe as far as job security is concerned? What about meaningful work availability? Ideally, I want to stay at one firm long term. But should I want to leave, my other concern is not developing any transferrable skills.

No. We're saying those groups are busy now and have been for months. It will change. You might be awful at it. And so on. But, you'll have better security as a transactional lawyer than a litigator, generally speaking.

[Anonymous User]

Well, right. I was just referring to job security in a vacuum and assuming that I won't completely suck at being a lawyer. I understand that's a hefty assumption, though.

[Anonymous User]

Long term, the state of the Chicago transactional legal market is decidedly "in steady decline".

This isn't unique to Chicago, FWIW. Transactional work at every upper-secondary city has been on the wane for, gosh, 20 years or more. Boston, Philly, Chicago, DC, even Dallas and LA/SF to a lesser degree. The end game looks like it will be 3 big markets - NYC for generic M&A/cap markets/finance, and then the specialty practices in SV and Houston. All the key firms in the good secondary cities have been investing heavily in developing NY offices over the last 10-20 years - e.g., Ropes, Kirkland, Gibson, et al.. That's not a coincidence.

A lot of weaker secondary city firms - not Kirkland/Ropes/Gibson, but the next tier down, got particularly hit post-2008 because of the general increase in "inequality" in transactional practices. That's only accelerated the trend of work migrating to the NYC firms with the top corporate practices. There's kind of a hole in the market between the top transactional practices and the stuff that's dried up or now goes to midlaw firms, and unfortunately a lot of Chicago firms are smack in that hole.

That being said, the transactional lateral market is strong everywhere now, especially for midlevels, since so few associates were being trained up in 2009-2011. But that's sort of temporary / doesn't speak to the long term share of the transactional market in secondary cities.

If you want to be a transactional lawyer, you really should be looking to NYC as your first option unless you have compelling reasons to stay in Chicago - which, obviously, many folks do.

[Anonymous User]

My worry with NYC is not the strength of the market, it's the reputation NY firms have for not giving its young associates meaningful work (thereby giving them no transferable skills to lateral with) while simultanously trying to push them out by the 3rd year. Is this churn-and-burn model more common in lit departments than corporate?

Also, with CoL + state tax + city tax NY will take me by far the longest to pay off my loans. I plan on dumping as much of my income as I can towards my loans to get out of debt asap.

[wons]

My worry with NYC is not the strength of the market, it's the reputation NY firms have for not giving its young associates meaningful work (thereby giving them no transferable skills to lateral with) while simultanously trying to push them out by the 3rd year. Is this churn-and-burn model more common in lit departments than corporate?

Also, with CoL + state tax + city tax NY will take me by far the longest to pay off my loans. I plan on dumping as much of my income as I can towards my loans to get out of debt asap.

Don't know where you got that from, but that's completely untrue. In fact, I'd say its precisely the opposite - the top NYC corporate firms are the best places to get meaningful corporate experience as a junior, simply because there's so much more deal flow and we have to delegate to juniors in order to tread water. If you go to Cravath/S&C/DPW/etc . . . you'll come out well-trained, that much I can promise you. And forced attrition at year 3 is rare in corporate - more like end of year 4 / year 5.

Can't speak to lit, as I'm a corporate guy. I've heard it can be totally different.

[Anonymous User]

My worry with NYC is not the strength of the market, it's the reputation NY firms have for not giving its young associates meaningful work (thereby giving them no transferable skills to lateral with) while simultanously trying to push them out by the 3rd year. Is this churn-and-burn model more common in lit departments than corporate?

Also, with CoL + state tax + city tax NY will take me by far the longest to pay off my loans. I plan on dumping as much of my income as I can towards my loans to get out of debt asap.

Don't know where you got that from, but that's completely untrue. In fact, I'd say its precisely the opposite - the top NYC corporate firms are the best places to get meaningful corporate experience as a junior, simply because there's so much more deal flow and we have to delegate to juniors in order to tread water. If you go to Cravath/S&C/DPW/etc . . . you'll come out well-trained, that much I can promise you. And forced attrition at year 3 is rare in corporate - more like end of year 4 / year 5.

Can't speak to lit, as I'm a corporate guy. I've heard it can be totally different.

Credited. Anon poster - no idea what you're talking about. I'm a corporate guy, NYC V5. 95% substantive work so far because there's a ton of work to go around. All of my buddies are comparable shops have similar experiences. Maybe what you're saying is true for litigators, but I wouldn't know anything about that.

[Anonymous User]

Tbf it was lit attorneys who told me this so that my be why they said what they did. I'm just trying to do my due diligence with a major life decision. I really appreciate all the candid responses.

[Anonymous User]

You may want to consider that talking to biglaw associates who lasted 3 years means that your diligence has a biased sample. Keep in mind that most top NY firms don't hit 50% attrition until after year 4, and that many of the people who leave (particularly in corporate) go to other big law firms, such that the average lifespan in biglaw of a NY transactional associate is probably 6ish years. "3 and out" represents a largely self-selected minority. Are you talking to attorneys who had good experiences as well?

[Anonymous User]

OP here

OKOK, I've been unclear. That's my bad. The attorneys I talked to were north east law school (UChi/Harvard) grads who chose other markets based on what I said they said. So, yeah, I didn't take their word for it because they're baby attorneys (although I gleaned the same from partners I talked to as well). That's why I came here to get your guys advice. What I'm gathering from here, and from elsewhere on TLS, is that NY transactional = booming market and Chi is slipping in seemingly all respects.

[bdubs]

OP here

OKOK, I've been unclear. That's my bad. The attorneys I talked to were north east law school (UChi/Harvard) grads who chose other markets based on what I said they said. So, yeah, I didn't take their word for it because they're baby attorneys (although I gleaned the same from partners I talked to as well). That's why I came here to get your guys advice. What I'm gathering from here, and from elsewhere on TLS, is that NY transactional = booming market and Chi is slipping in seemingly all respects.

I am not a transactional guy, but all of my sources have said that if you work at Kirkland Chicago you will get top tier transactional experience in a lot of groups. From what I heard KE is trying to build up NY but it's just not the center of the firm's business yet and is still second to Chicago. Thee recommendation was to consider KE Chicago along with the NY offices of V10 if you want to be a transactional attorney.

[Anonymous User]

How's Sidley transactional? Is it either on par with K&E or a close number 2?

[Anonymous User]

Sidley transactional in Chicago is pretty solid. Definitely behind Kirkland, but they still have really big clients.

I think in Chicago for transactional, it is Kirkland as a clear no. 1, followed by Skadden and Sidley. Latham, Winston, Jones Day and Mayer are pretty busy from what I hear from my friends there. Their deals just tend to be a little smaller

[Anonymous User]

OP here

OKOK, I've been unclear. That's my bad. The attorneys I talked to were north east law school (UChi/Harvard) grads who chose other markets based on what I said they said. So, yeah, I didn't take their word for it because they're baby attorneys (although I gleaned the same from partners I talked to as well). That's why I came here to get your guys advice. What I'm gathering from here, and from elsewhere on TLS, is that NY transactional = booming market and Chi is slipping in seemingly all respects.

Oy. I think you're missing the thrust of the thread. This has very little to do with Chicago slipping. It's just that corporate work is dominated by New York; this goes back to the days of William Cromwell, Paul Cravath and John W. Davis. It's not a new phenomenon. When folks complain about how tough it is to be a transactional associate in the top firms, they don't mean that they're doing meaningless work that doesn't train them, they mean that its like a fire hydrant spraying so much substantive work at you that you can't possibly drink it all up. And the thing is - that's how you learn to be a great corporate lawyer - by doing deals, and LOTS of them, so many that you get tendonitis in your fingers from all the typing. All corporate firms train their associates differently, but that's the one trait they have in common.

Its for that reason that if you're a dead-red corporate guy, without an interest in oil & gas or VC/tech, NY is lightyears ahead of anywhere else. Sure, you can get a similar experience at a handful of firms in other cities - it's not like you're giving up THAT much if you work at K&E Chicago or Ropes Boston - but there are literally an order of magnitude more great corporate associate jobs in NY than probably the rest of the country combined.

If you have a compelling reason to be in Chicago - then go to Chicago! There are many things more important than super-optimizing your professional ambitions - your own happiness, the happiness of your spouse or children, being close to your family, etc. But please, don't go to Chicago or any other secondary city because of some wacky, second-hand, and wrong guidance about where you will get the best corporate training.

[Anonymous User]

OP again

Telling me I'm wrong is exactly what I wanted to hear. I may have intentionally poked the bear a bit by making a sweeping, generalized statement about Chicago. I love Chicago and that's why I want to work there. And the above poster is right about me keeping my perspective about happiness etc. It's just easy to lose site of that, which is what's important, in the frenzy of OCI. Thanks for the advice to everybody.