Top Law Schools

What are the firms strengths and weaknesses. Undecided on corp v. lit.

Strengths: life sciences IP
Weaknesses: everything else

Feel like the offices I researched have larger labor & employment and real estate groups alongside the usual general litigation and corporate groups.

But on the subject of Paul Hastings, has anyone heard about any movement on offers from any of the west coast offices? And if so, how long from callback to offer/rejection?

I hear they're giving a 10K signing bonus to summers with an EE background.

Has anyone heard back from NYC?

Anonymous User wrote:I hear they're giving a 10K signing bonus to summers with an EE background.

Nationwide?

AdamDeMamp wrote:Strengths: life sciences IP
Weaknesses: everything else

Thanks for the informed response. "everything else". Can you elaborate, or do you just not like PH?

[Anon bc CB pending]

Anonymous User wrote:

I interviewed with the NYC office. Hiring partner told me that EVERYONE who gets a full-time offer to work in the life sciences practice group in NYC gets an 10k bonus.

Is that an accurate assessment? I'm interested in PH because they seem to be known for job satisfaction, relatively good hours, etc.
1) are those rankings of PH inaccurate?
2) are they truly life sciences IP-only? What about just general lit? Of course their website says they have lit and so does nalp but maybe it's just misleading?

Anonymous User wrote:Is that an accurate assessment? I'm interested in PH because they seem to be known for job satisfaction, relatively good hours, etc.
1) are those rankings of PH inaccurate?
2) are they truly life sciences IP-only? What about just general lit? Of course their website says they have lit and so does nalp but maybe it's just misleading?

bump

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Is that an accurate assessment? I'm interested in PH because they seem to be known for job satisfaction, relatively good hours, etc.
1) are those rankings of PH inaccurate?
2) are they truly life sciences IP-only? What about just general lit? Of course their website says they have lit and so does nalp but maybe it's just misleading?

bump

Just finished an SA at PH.

1) It is hard to say. I've only been at PH so I don't have a strong basis for comparison. But from what I've seen, the associates I worked for were generally happy and had lives outside of work.

2) No. This may depend on which office you are interested in, but the non-NYC office I summered at did not do much life sciences IP work at all. The office had plenty of non-IP and non-litigation work to go around. In terms of general litigation, PH has practice groups in traditional big law areas like securities and commercial.

Anonymous User wrote:
1) It is hard to say. I've only been at PH so I don't have a strong basis for comparison. But from what I've seen, the associates I worked for were generally happy and had lives outside of work.

2) No. This may depend on which office you are interested in, but the non-NYC office I summered at did not do much life sciences IP work at all. The office had plenty of non-IP and non-litigation work to go around. In terms of general litigation, PH has practice groups in traditional big law areas like securities and commercial.

Thanks for the feedback!!

Any word on offer rates this year for your non-NY office, as well as NY/LA offer rates to SAs?

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:
1) It is hard to say. I've only been at PH so I don't have a strong basis for comparison. But from what I've seen, the associates I worked for were generally happy and had lives outside of work.

2) No. This may depend on which office you are interested in, but the non-NYC office I summered at did not do much life sciences IP work at all. The office had plenty of non-IP and non-litigation work to go around. In terms of general litigation, PH has practice groups in traditional big law areas like securities and commercial.

Thanks for the feedback!!

Any word on offer rates this year for your non-NY office, as well as NY/LA offer rates to SAs?

They were 100% across all offices this year.

incoming associates get 16k stipend/signing bonus this year

16k? You are getting gyp'd, I got 17k two years ago.

guess they are not going to 190 this year

I'm also interested in this. I have an offer from Paul Hastings NY and I'm quite tempted to believe there is something to all of those top lifestyle rankings on Vault. However, this is Manhattan we are talking about so I figure it's too good to be true. Is it naive to think lifestyle would be better at PH than V15/V10 type firms?

Anonymous User wrote:guess they are not going to 190 this year

I spoke to a non-NYC partner who told me that they will probably move salaries up if others firms do too. But s/he did think that salaries were moving up. This is probably the position that most firms are taking.

Anonymous User wrote:I'm also interested in this. I have an offer from Paul Hastings NY and I'm quite tempted to believe there is something to all of those top lifestyle rankings on Vault. However, this is Manhattan we are talking about so I figure it's too good to be true. Is it naive to think lifestyle would be better at PH than V15/V10 type firms?

AHHHHAHAHAHAHAHA


I'm sorry, I just had to laugh. PH is a notoriously brutal place to work in NYC. God, the stories out of their high yield practice would curdle the blood of a vampire. And the recent laterals . . . oh yeah, those partners are known for their, um, good graces and pleasant personalities. There are some kick-ass stories out of that office, none of them good.

I am certain of very few things in the world. The sun will rise in the east. If I don't drink, I will die of thirst. One day, will get old and die. And PH NY is one of the worst places to work in the city, and will be a massively worse experience than working at any (checks to see if K&E is in the V10 yet. ) I mean, all but one V10 firm.

Anonymous User wrote:I'm also interested in this. I have an offer from Paul Hastings NY and I'm quite tempted to believe there is something to all of those top lifestyle rankings on Vault. However, this is Manhattan we are talking about so I figure it's too good to be true. Is it naive to think lifestyle would be better at PH than V15/V10 type firms?

The only thing I've heard out of their NYC office from a friend who left as a mid-level was that he neither loved or hated his experience there. I suspect that is a decent outcome for biglaw, but your experience will probably differ depending on your practice group and which partners you work for.

Anonymous User wrote: AHHHHAHAHAHAHAHA


I'm sorry, I just had to laugh. PH is a notoriously brutal place to work in NYC. God, the stories out of their high yield practice would curdle the blood of a vampire. And the recent laterals . . . oh yeah, those partners are known for their, um, good graces and pleasant personalities. There are some kick-ass stories out of that office, none of them good.

I am certain of very few things in the world. The sun will rise in the east. If I don't drink, I will die of thirst. One day, will get old and die. And PH NY is one of the worst places to work in the city, and will be a massively worse experience than working at any (checks to see if K&E is in the V10 yet. ) I mean, all but one V10 firm.

I wish you would elaborate. Did you work there? Who told you these stories? Any specifics about these stories? Did you not get a callback at PH and venting on TLS makes you feel good about your life? Some of us in this middle of this OCI process would like to hear more. I'm sure everyone loves your fun little quips and cute writing.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I'm also interested in this. I have an offer from Paul Hastings NY and I'm quite tempted to believe there is something to all of those top lifestyle rankings on Vault. However, this is Manhattan we are talking about so I figure it's too good to be true. Is it naive to think lifestyle would be better at PH than V15/V10 type firms?

AHHHHAHAHAHAHAHA


I'm sorry, I just had to laugh. PH is a notoriously brutal place to work in NYC. God, the stories out of their high yield practice would curdle the blood of a vampire. And the recent laterals . . . oh yeah, those partners are known for their, um, good graces and pleasant personalities. There are some kick-ass stories out of that office, none of them good.

I am certain of very few things in the world. The sun will rise in the east. If I don't drink, I will die of thirst. One day, will get old and die. And PH NY is one of the worst places to work in the city, and will be a massively worse experience than working at any (checks to see if K&E is in the V10 yet. ) I mean, all but one V10 firm.

Can you explain your view of the firm? What gives you this idea - did you work there?

Also, let's say this is true. Then what accounts for their ridiculously high rankings in "lifestyle"-type categories? Even if it's not a walk in the park, surely it can't be that much more brutal than all of the other firms that are unranked for those lifestyle categories.

No biglaw is a lifestyle firm, but in DC there isn't a lot of pressure to bill above 2k. You get bonus at 1950. I suspect there is a bit of gaming of the rankings to keep us number 1, but I think in general it's better than my friends firms. I work on white collar stuff and we are busy but it's still not absurd. They'll hire new laterals rather than force us to work insane hours. One big exception is employment. They've run each new associate they got in the past 5 years out of town. I'm not exaggerating, they all leave within a year or two. Youngest associate is a 5th year.

I wouldn't lateral because I think odds are I'd work for a shitter firm in terms of QOL.

Word on the street is that NYC is worse to work for, but I dunno if it's worse than other NYC firms. I sorta doubt it, but who knows.

It's a weird firm. We aren't really prestigious at anything, yet are pretty damn profitable. I think it's just well managed. It's also sorta cheap, so PH would never lead to 190k.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote: AHHHHAHAHAHAHAHA


I'm sorry, I just had to laugh. PH is a notoriously brutal place to work in NYC. God, the stories out of their high yield practice would curdle the blood of a vampire. And the recent laterals . . . oh yeah, those partners are known for their, um, good graces and pleasant personalities. There are some kick-ass stories out of that office, none of them good.

I am certain of very few things in the world. The sun will rise in the east. If I don't drink, I will die of thirst. One day, will get old and die. And PH NY is one of the worst places to work in the city, and will be a massively worse experience than working at any (checks to see if K&E is in the V10 yet. ) I mean, all but one V10 firm.

I wish you would elaborate. Did you work there? Who told you these stories? Any specifics about these stories? Did you not get a callback at PH and venting on TLS makes you feel good about your life? Some of us in this middle of this OCI process would like to hear more. I'm sure everyone loves your fun little quips and cute writing.

.

has any heard back from one of their super interview days last week?