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Hello,

One of these offers is expiring very soon and I have a question regarding decisions for summer associate job. Leaning lit heavily, especially appellate. Interested in pursuing corporate for the summer, but don't know enough about it in practice to say definitely yes or no to corporate work. Like Gibson a lot, especially because of ability to do the work you want. Don't like how they're not as highly ranked on vault in corporate (like M&A) although I've seen other rankings that show their corporate work is highly regarded. Met people in all different practice areas and like them.

Latham is kind of a jack of all trades, slightly better/equivalent prestige/New York rankings but negligible. Higher in corp but less so in lit. Haven't met as many people there. Don't like their overextension globally (in my opinon) and their quickness to "Latham" attorneys.

Thoughts for which to pick? My concern over corporate is for exit opportunities. One thing I'd like to know is if Gibson corporate department is indeed well regarded in the industry for work and also for exits.

As a 3L who worked at a firm and knows people at both Latham and GDC NY I will say that almost nothing you mention will matter in any practical sense. No one except law students gives a shit about negligible differences in vault rankings. You're going to be in those buildings a lot. Go where you thought the people would be better to work with. I guarantee you that the work you will be doing at either firm regardless of whether you do lit or Corp is going to be the exact same.

Only one of these firms Lathamed their first-year class a few years ago.

PROTIP: it was Latham.

truth2017 wrote:Hello,

One of these offers is expiring very soon and I have a question regarding decisions for summer associate job. Leaning lit heavily, especially appellate. Interested in pursuing corporate for the summer, but don't know enough about it in practice to say definitely yes or no to corporate work. Like Gibson a lot, especially because of ability to do the work you want. Don't like how they're not as highly ranked on vault in corporate (like M&A) although I've seen other rankings that show their corporate work is highly regarded. Met people in all different practice areas and like them.

Latham is kind of a jack of all trades, slightly better/equivalent prestige/New York rankings but negligible. Higher in corp but less so in lit. Haven't met as many people there. Don't like their overextension globally (in my opinon) and their quickness to "Latham" attorneys.

Thoughts for which to pick? My concern over corporate is for exit opportunities. One thing I'd like to know is if Gibson corporate department is indeed well regarded in the industry for work and also for exits.

GDC has a very good corporate department in California and DC. It's not great in NY (Band 5). So the good corporate work is there, although it's probably going to be mostly coming out of California. But it's so good at litigation that it bumped Cleary (I think) out of Band 1 on Chambers for NY litigation this year. Latham's litigation department is weaker, although, Latham's litigation department is probably better, relatively speaking, than GDC's corporate department in NY.

If you want to do appellate, that's going to be in DC, not NY. Are you planning to split? How easy is it to transfer offices? It's very easy at some firms and difficult at others.

Desert Fox wrote:Corp ->Latham

Lit -> Gibson

TCR.