Deb or DPW for lit? Forum

[Anonymous User]

General reputation, exit options, etc. thanks!

[J90]

Any rough idea what you'd like to do?

For example, Debevoise has a phenomenal white-collar crime group, but make sure that's your cup of tea. Davis won't be handling the same kinds of mega investigations, but those can be pretty brutal and often monotonous.

Hard to go wrong, but if you already have offers do second looks and both places and ask more about how general or specific a person's lit practice is, how their career came along and where people are moving to. They'll be happy to answer at that stage.

[Anonymous User]

Davis polk

Its interchangeable between paul weiss, davis and cravath. Deb is right up there but maybe a sliver less well regarded in lit

The distinction is relatively minor though and if you like the people at debevoise better go there

[Anonymous User]

I can say that while I was at DPW - it fluctuated from lit being dead to being understaffed. When it was dead, the lit associates were pushed to doing cap mkts work (very low level junior work) and when they were under water since 2/3+ of the incoming associates were doing corporate, they started making corp people with low hours do doc review. Needless to say, people weren't happy in either situation.

No clue how Deb treated their associates but wanted to add that piece of anecdote.

[Anonymous User]

Op here, thanks for the replies.

Want general lit-- not really sure. Maybe white collar, maybe complex commercial, not really sure. Maybe thinking future prosecutor/gov't.

[Anonymous User]

Poll created

[Anonymous User]

I may be wrong, but something to look at is the percentage of people in lit/corp. My friend whose a first year at Debevoise told me about a year ago that most of the work at Deb is corporate, not lit. I think his summer class reflected that as well. I can't remember the details, but it was enough for me to choose another firm for lit. This isn't the most important factor, but that's why I voted DPW. Congrats!

[swampman]

I may be wrong, but something to look at is the percentage of people in lit/corp. My friend whose a first year at Debevoise told me about a year ago that most of the work at Deb is corporate, not lit. I think his summer class reflected that as well. I can't remember the details, but it was enough for me to choose another firm for lit. This isn't the most important factor, but that's why I voted DPW. Congrats!

Chambers says there's a 50-50 split between corporate and lit at Deb.

[v5junior]

Davis polk

Its interchangeable between paul weiss, davis and cravath. Deb is right up there but maybe a sliver less well regarded in lit

The distinction is relatively minor though and if you like the people at debevoise better go there

Not sure why this DPW trolling is anonymous...

I'll concede I don't know much about litigation, but the only litigation groups ranked on chambers (securities lit) have DPW band 2 and deb at band 3. Cravath and Paul Weiss (and 5 other firms) are band 1.

m.chambersandpartners.com/12788/680/editorial/5/1

[Desert Fox]

[parkslope]

Davis polk

Its interchangeable between paul weiss, davis and cravath. Deb is right up there but maybe a sliver less well regarded in lit

The distinction is relatively minor though and if you like the people at debevoise better go there

Out of the V10 firms, that's an awfully arbitrary three to single out.

[parkslope]

On a broader note, every year there are lots of STB VERSUS SKADDEN VERSUS CLEARY threads, and I'm not sure that a single one, ever, has actually resulted in a clear answer or an obvious choice or ranking. For corporate, it might be possible to make some distinctions between the V10 firms. Some firms have stronger M&A, some are stronger at capital markets, some do PE, some do VC, and so on. Fine. I get that.

In litigation, however, it is harder to sort the firms for a few reasons: (1) Chambers has fewer sub-rankings, (2) most of the V10 do a lot of general commercial litigation and securities litigation and white collar that is very interchangeable between firms and (3) OPs are often not interested in more specialty litigation areas like antitrust, tax litigation, IP lit, and so on, where Chambers does break out more specific rankings.

So I haven't seen a more satisfying answer on TLS to WHICH V10 FOR NY LITIGATION??? other than "Paul Weiss is pretty good!" and "the Chambers Band 1 firms are good!" (which now has Gibson Dunn in that group, interestingly). And my inclination is that there is not a more satisfying answer.

[Desert Fox]

[v5junior]

On a broader note, every year there are lots of STB VERSUS SKADDEN VERSUS CLEARY threads, and I'm not sure that a single one, ever, has actually resulted in a clear answer or an obvious choice or ranking. For corporate, it might be possible to make some distinctions between the V10 firms. Some firms have stronger M&A, some are stronger at capital markets, some do PE, some do VC, and so on. Fine. I get that.

In litigation, however, it is harder to sort the firms for a few reasons: (1) Chambers has fewer sub-rankings, (2) most of the V10 do a lot of general commercial litigation and securities litigation and white collar that is very interchangeable between firms and (3) OPs are often not interested in more specialty litigation areas like antitrust, tax litigation, IP lit, and so on, where Chambers does break out more specific rankings.

So I haven't seen a more satisfying answer on TLS to WHICH V10 FOR NY LITIGATION??? other than "Paul Weiss is pretty good!" and "the Chambers Band 1 firms are good!" (which now has Gibson Dunn in that group, interestingly). And my inclination is that there is not a more satisfying answer.

Agreed 100%

[v5junior]

Davis polk

Its interchangeable between paul weiss, davis and cravath. Deb is right up there but maybe a sliver less well regarded in lit

The distinction is relatively minor though and if you like the people at debevoise better go there

Not sure why this DPW trolling is anonymous...

I'll concede I don't know much about litigation, but the only litigation groups ranked on chambers (securities lit) have DPW band 2 and deb at band 3. Cravath and Paul Weiss (and 5 other firms) are band 1.

m.chambersandpartners.com/12788/680/editorial/5/1

http://www.chambersandpartners.com/1280 ... torial/5/1

They have DPW ranked band 1 for NY, and Deb band 2.

But wouldn't you rather be band 1 NATIONWIDE?! Not sure how else you'd be able to sleep at night.

[itbdvorm]

For whatever it's worth - Debevoise for some reason seemed to be the firm my year where expectations clashed the highest with reality. Literally knew someone who quit the summer program because some internal investigation thing he was on was so miserable.

Both are great firms, but I would go to DPW hands down - just think the litigation practice there is less painful (not hours-wise - task-wise)

[Anonymous User]

Davis polk

Its interchangeable between paul weiss, davis and cravath. Deb is right up there but maybe a sliver less well regarded in lit

The distinction is relatively minor though and if you like the people at debevoise better go there

Out of the V10 firms, that's an awfully arbitrary three to single out.

For corporate/overall, yea, that would be bullshit, but not for litigation. My impression from experience with more than one of these firms (and I'm sure others will elect to disagree) is that s&c and simpson are slightly more corporate focused, cleary lags a step behind in lit, and skadden is a worse place to work as a junior, even if it has nationwide renown. I'm excluding Wachtell because it doesnt compete for talent as narrowly with these others as they do amongst themselves.

But all the band 1 elite ny litigation firms are comparable

[v5junior]

Davis polk

Its interchangeable between paul weiss, davis and cravath. Deb is right up there but maybe a sliver less well regarded in lit

The distinction is relatively minor though and if you like the people at debevoise better go there

Out of the V10 firms, that's an awfully arbitrary three to single out.

For corporate/overall, yea, that would be bullshit, but not for litigation. My impression from experience with more than one of these firms (and I'm sure others will elect to disagree) is that s&c and simpson are slightly more corporate focused, cleary lags a step behind in lit, and skadden is a worse place to work as a junior, even if it has nationwide renown. I'm excluding Wachtell because it doesnt compete for talent as narrowly with these others as they do amongst themselves.

But all the band 1 elite ny litigation firms are comparable

Well, there's clearly nothing that's going to stop this propaganda train.

[Anonymous User]

Take your pick, kid. Both are great. Go to where you like the people better, don't let moronic tls trollers try to press you one way or another based on crap. At that level, can't go wrong

[Rahviveh]

Doing lit at any of these places sounds blow your brains out boring

[los blancos]

The real answer for lit is LOL why can't you losers get into a boutique?

Hey man it's hard for everyone to be a top 10%, LR, art III, special snowflake gunner.