Skadden v. Simpson v. Cleary (all NY) Forum

[Anonymous User]

I was fortunate to receive offers from these firms because they are all my top choices, and it was difficult to distinguish one from another during callback interviews. I'm mainly interested in doing corporate work at this point (maybe M&A?), and I have international background so I wouldn't mind spending some time in overseas offices.

From what I gathered so far, in terms of culture Skadden is very different from its peer NY firms (Cravath, Sullcrom, DPW, Simpson and Cleary) in that it has a "going out" culture, but I would like to know more about the work environment in general at each firm, as well as their strength in major corporate practice areas such as M&A, capital markets, and credit.

In addition to practice groups and culture, factors I consider important are exit options and opportunities overseas.

Thank you!

[Anonymous User]

Skadden and Simpson are two of the 5-6 best corporate practices in NYC (esp PE for Simpson and M&A for Skadden). Could easily choose Cleary though if u like them / want international. I've heard Skadden is more social than its peers (may be true, based on people I know there) but I would imagine working environments to be all similar.

[jbagelboy]

Given your interests, I'd head to Cleary. Terrific firm with the most legitimate international environment (and junior opportunity) of the V10. If you were very serious about one area of law like PE or aggressive acquisitions, I'd say Simpson or Skadden, respectfully, but you don't seem to be.

Random through away, one drawback relative to its peers is that due to the office location, Cleary summers generally aren't taken above 14th St for firm lunches, which precludes most of the best tasting menus and steakhouses in the city (bernadin, marea, ect). You have bouley and batard though.

[Anonymous User]

I would personally choose Simpson over Skadden/Cleary. In terms of the practice area (M&A for example), Simpson is the most prestigious. Even if you want to go international, exit option is excellent at Simpson. It may be because I want Simpson really bad (so I may be biased) but if I were given offers from those three, I would choose Simpson.

[Anonymous User]

Simpson is more prestigious than Skadden for M&A? Really?

[DOOK101]

Given your interests, I'd head to Cleary. Terrific firm with the most legitimate international environment (and junior opportunity) of the V10. If you were very serious about one area of law like PE or aggressive acquisitions, I'd say Simpson or Skadden, respectfully, but you don't seem to be.

Random through away, one drawback relative to its peers is that due to the office location, Cleary summers generally aren't taken above 14th St for firm lunches, which precludes most of the best tasting menus and steakhouses in the city (bernadin, marea, ect). You have bouley and batard though.

Respectively, and throw.

[jbagelboy]

Given your interests, I'd head to Cleary. Terrific firm with the most legitimate international environment (and junior opportunity) of the V10. If you were very serious about one area of law like PE or aggressive acquisitions, I'd say Simpson or Skadden, respectfully, but you don't seem to be.

Random through away, one drawback relative to its peers is that due to the office location, Cleary summers generally aren't taken above 14th St for firm lunches, which precludes most of the best tasting menus and steakhouses in the city (bernadin, marea, ect). You have bouley and batard though.

Respectively, and throw.

I mostly tls from my phone and I don't always care to check the autocorrects. But thanks.

[Mack.Hambleton]

Given your interests, I'd head to Cleary. Terrific firm with the most legitimate international environment (and junior opportunity) of the V10. If you were very serious about one area of law like PE or aggressive acquisitions, I'd say Simpson or Skadden, respectfully, but you don't seem to be.


Random through away, one drawback relative to its peers is that due to the office location, Cleary summers generally aren't taken above 14th St for firm lunches, which precludes most of the best tasting menus and steakhouses in the city (bernadin, marea, ect). You have bouley and batard though.

Respectively, and throw.

[2014]

I would personally choose Simpson over Skadden/Cleary. In terms of the practice area (M&A for example), Simpson is the most prestigious. Even if you want to go international, exit option is excellent at Simpson. It may be because I want Simpson really bad (so I may be biased) but if I were given offers from those three, I would choose Simpson.

[VulcanVulcanVulcan]

I would personally choose Simpson over Skadden/Cleary. In terms of the practice area (M&A for example), Simpson is the most prestigious. Even if you want to go international, exit option is excellent at Simpson. It may be because I want Simpson really bad (so I may be biased) but if I were given offers from those three, I would choose Simpson.

2Ls giving advice on firm choices remains the best.

There's nothing that shows that STB is more "prestigious" than Skadden or Cleary. Not Vault, not Chambers, not anything.

[Anonymous User]

Congrats on such awesome options! You really can't go wrong here. Full disclosure, I'm a Skadden NY associate. I don't think Vault or Chambers' rankings or league tables are going to be particularly helpful here, since all these firms are more or less tied for best for NY corporate (along with the other top NY firms). (The exception is if you know which corporate practice group you want--Skadden tops the M&A deal charts, Simpson is clearly best for PE M&A, Skadden does more issuer-side finance, etc.)

All three of these firms have international offices, although my impression is that SImpson does less international work than Skadden or Cleary. Skadden probably has the biggest international presence of the three (in terms of most international offices and most overseas attorneys), but it's probably close enough to not tip the scales any way.

If you're interested in splitting different offices during your summer, I know that's very common and easy to do at Skadden. It's also common to move offices as an associate.

In terms of a "going out" culture, Skadden maybe attracts more extroverts based on reputation, but that's not to say introverts would ever feel out of place. Having your own office probably contributes to that. Your summer will be very busy with events, but life as an associate is a lot more boring. I'd just describe the culture as more relaxed and informal--you're more likely to see folks in jeans, more likely to have folks work from home, people don't really care about what time you get in (one guy I work with a lot comes in after 11 most days and works late).

But I'd be wary about generalizing the "culture" of any firm with ~700 attorneys--there's going to be people of all types at all the firms. Your best move, if you're still struggling with deciding, is to just take a second look at each firm, to meet more people and get more opinions.

[Anonymous User]

All three of these firms have international offices, although my impression is that SImpson does less international work than Skadden or Cleary. Skadden probably has the biggest international presence of the three (in terms of most international offices and most overseas attorneys), but it's probably close enough to not tip the scales any way.

Skadden is certainly bigger than Cleary overall (1750 lawyers v. 1200), but on international work I think the nod goes to Cleary (about 500 lawyers abroad, vs. 200 or so, per NALP).

If you are considering NY offices, biggest difference is size. STB and Cleary are about 550 each, Skadden is about 30-40% larger. All of them are big, so not sure how much of a difference that extra 30-40% makes, but it probably has a somewhat different feel.

Skadden's size (in NY and other US offices) also means that it will/should place higher in league tables, but that doesn't necessary translate into better work for associates. If you look at the 2014 league tables, Skadden, Cleary and STB are all in the top 5 on deal value, but Skadden handled about twice as many deals as Cleary or STB -- I suspect that Skadden's M&A department (across the US) probably has about twice the number of lawyers as Cleary/STB, so on average, everyone is doing about the same number of deals, but the STB/Cleary deals, on average, are bigger. Wachtell is smaller still, but competes on total deal value -- their average deal is bigger than STB/Cleary and much bigger than Skadden.

But, whatever... All of these places can give you great M&A (or other corporate) experience. It ultimately is silly to try to rank them based on numbers, etc., as your experience will depend on your relationships at the firm, so go to the place that you think you will be most likely to succeed (based on personality, etc.).

[Anonymous User]

Skadden's size (in NY and other US offices) also means that it will/should place higher in league tables, but that doesn't necessary translate into better work for associates. If you look at the 2014 league tables, Skadden, Cleary and STB are all in the top 5 on deal value, but Skadden handled about twice as many deals as Cleary or STB -- I suspect that Skadden's M&A department (across the US) probably has about twice the number of lawyers as Cleary/STB, so on average, everyone is doing about the same number of deals, but the STB/Cleary deals, on average, are bigger. Wachtell is smaller still, but competes on total deal value -- their average deal is bigger than STB/Cleary and much bigger than Skadden.

Based on the 2014 league table, the point about average deal value doesn't seem to be true if u look at total deal value, deal number and average deal value based on those two numbers (for Skadden vs STB, for both global and US, unless I'm missing something). Anyhow, the deadlock in poll results indicates you can't go wrong with any of these so you should decide based on fit and where u feel most comfortable.

[Anonymous User]

Based on the 2014 league table, the point about average deal value doesn't seem to be true if u look at total deal value, deal number and average deal value based on those two numbers (for Skadden vs STB, for both global and US, unless I'm missing something). Anyhow, the deadlock in poll results indicates you can't go wrong with any of these so you should decide based on fit and where u feel most comfortable.

Fair enough -- I agree:

Skadden -- $520 bn value; 192 deals -- avg. value $2.7 bn
Sullcrom -- $450 bn value; 101 deals -- avg. value $4.5 bn
Cleary -- $429 bn value; 86 deals -- avg value $5.0 bn
Weil -- $391 bn value; 179 deals -- avg. value $2.1 bn
STB -- $355 bn value; 132 deals -- avg. value $2.7 bn
Wachtell -- $355 bn value; 87 deals -- avg value $4.0 bn
Latham -- $352 bn value; 278 deals -- avg. value $1.2 bn

http://www.mergermarket.com/pdf/Mergerm ... Tables.pdf -- page 8 (US deals)

[jbagelboy]

Based on the 2014 league table, the point about average deal value doesn't seem to be true if u look at total deal value, deal number and average deal value based on those two numbers (for Skadden vs STB, for both global and US, unless I'm missing something). Anyhow, the deadlock in poll results indicates you can't go wrong with any of these so you should decide based on fit and where u feel most comfortable.

Fair enough -- I agree:

Skadden -- $520 bn value; 192 deals -- avg. value $2.7 bn
Sullcrom -- $450 bn value; 101 deals -- avg. value $4.5 bn
Cleary -- $429 bn value; 86 deals -- avg value $5.0 bn
Weil -- $391 bn value; 179 deals -- avg. value $2.1 bn
STB -- $355 bn value; 132 deals -- avg. value $2.7 bn
Wachtell -- $355 bn value; 87 deals -- avg value $4.0 bn
Latham -- $352 bn value; 278 deals -- avg. value $1.2 bn

http://www.mergermarket.com/pdf/Mergerm ... Tables.pdf -- page 8 (US deals)

The silly thing about any one year of league table data is that it changes so much the next year. For example, in 2013 it was:

Davis Polk
Wachtell
Simpson
Weil Gotschal

And the year before that was Skadden again.

[parkslope]

Based on the 2014 league table, the point about average deal value doesn't seem to be true if u look at total deal value, deal number and average deal value based on those two numbers (for Skadden vs STB, for both global and US, unless I'm missing something). Anyhow, the deadlock in poll results indicates you can't go wrong with any of these so you should decide based on fit and where u feel most comfortable.

Fair enough -- I agree:

Skadden -- $520 bn value; 192 deals -- avg. value $2.7 bn
Sullcrom -- $450 bn value; 101 deals -- avg. value $4.5 bn
Cleary -- $429 bn value; 86 deals -- avg value $5.0 bn
Weil -- $391 bn value; 179 deals -- avg. value $2.1 bn
STB -- $355 bn value; 132 deals -- avg. value $2.7 bn
Wachtell -- $355 bn value; 87 deals -- avg value $4.0 bn
Latham -- $352 bn value; 278 deals -- avg. value $1.2 bn

http://www.mergermarket.com/pdf/Mergerm ... Tables.pdf -- page 8 (US deals)

The silly thing about any one year of league table data is that it changes so much the next year. For example, in 2013 it was:

Davis Polk
Wachtell
Simpson
Weil Gotschal

And the year before that was Skadden again.

Looking at the number of deals is somewhat problematic because Skadden and Latham have larger presences on the West Coast, Chicago, etc. where the deals will generally be smaller in size. The deal tables don't capture what the NY offices of these firms do versus their other offices.

[Anonymous User]

The average deal value point could be true. Check the footnotes / methodology and see if number of deals includes lapsed / withdrawn bids. If so, then the average *completed* STB deal could well be larger (because that methodology decision will have a larger impact on number of deals for PE-focused law firms than for those that do public company M&A).

However, I don't think having the ability to work on closer to middle-market deals as well as huge ones is at all a bad thing. On smaller deals, the role of the junior associate is different than it is on mega deals and the smaller deals can be a great place to take on more responsibility. I think it's great.

Edit: Skadden associate here, hence the use of Anon.

[Anonymous User]

OP here. I just accepted my offer from Skadden this morning. Thanks for all your input here. I reached out to several associates at each firm who are from my school and also talked to 3Ls who just summered at these firms. I thought hard about this decision, but in the end I kinda decided to follow my gut feeling - as I recall my callback interviews, I liked the vibe at Skadden the best... Plus, the fact that the firm has a really strong global network/presence and robust M&A group also influenced my decision. But again, thanks everyone for your insight! They were really helpful in making my choice.