Litigation in Silicon Valley Forum

[bruinfan10]

I was curious if any SF/SV litigators could speak to the pros and cons of working as a litigator in a big firm's SV office, compared to working in SF. Gibson, Latham, OMM, etc have SV offices that are predominantly corporate but also have small securities or IP practice groups: one or two partners and a handful of litigation associates supporting them.

I'm trying to get a sense of the negatives of working as a litigator in an SV office, i.e. would the small size of those practice groups keep you from escaping bad partners or finding enough work, vs the positives, i.e. would the scarcity of associates supporting each partner allow those associates to engage in more substantive work more quickly because there are so few of them to go around? Any thoughts on that type of working arrangement in SV litigation would be appreciated.

[rpupkin]

Would the small size of those practice groups have drawbacks in that you couldn't escape bad partners, and would they have the benefit of additional substantive work because there are so few associates to go around?

I think that's a fair assessment.

As you've probably figured out, don't go to one of these places unless you're up for lots of patent lit. If you're a junior litigation associate in the SV office of a place like Gibson and Latham, you're going to have a very hard time avoiding patent lit. If the firm tells you otherwise, don't believe them.

[bruinfan10]

Would the small size of those practice groups have drawbacks in that you couldn't escape bad partners, and would they have the benefit of additional substantive work because there are so few associates to go around?

I think that's a fair assessment.

As you've probably figured out, don't go to one of these places unless you're up for lots of patent lit. If you're a junior litigation associate in the SV office of a place like Gibson and Latham, you're going to have a very hard time avoiding patent lit. If the firm tells you otherwise, don't believe them.

That makes sense. I hadn't considered working in SV, but a friend out there told me that his SV office really needed securities litigators, and I have no idea what working in a super small SV practice group would be like.