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I'm debating b/w an offer at Hogan NY and Ropes NY. I am very interested in litigation, particularly litigation with extensive international type work. Thoughts?

The thing with litigation is that it's jurisdiction specific, so while you can represent international clients, your work will be concentrated in a specific geographic region or court system. For example, defending HSBC for violating U.S. sanctions is technically international, the litigation is still being done in a specific American jurisdiction.

With that said, international arbitration sounds like something you could be interested in. It's about as international as you can get for litigation. Hogan has a pretty good practice for arbitration, though I think a lot of the work in U.S. come from the DC office (that's where the World Bank arbitration authority is located).

Thank you, that's very helpful! And in terms of general litigation, any thoughts between the two?

I think both of them have pretty good appellate litigation, though that will be a hard area for a new associate to break into. In terms of general litigation (e.g. commercial & white collar), my personal feeling is that Hogan's stronger, but that's partly because Hogan's DC litigation practice has been consistently strong over the years. If doing international work is something you want to do, Hogan has a huge international network; Ropes & Gray has spent a lot of resources building practices overseas, but it's still smaller than Hogan's international presence.