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Narrowed down to 2 offers to choose from. I'm interested in litigation generally - beyond that, no preference right now. Hoping to exit to AUSA eventually or exit to a mid-sized market with strong ties.

My understanding is Cleary DC lit is heavy antitrust. Would this negatively impact AUSA options?

The Kirkland DC office is reverse-leveraged. Looks like 90-some partners and 60-some associates. With the two-tiered partnership, not sure how negative that may be.

Any other comments on these firms (DC offices in particular) are very welcome.

Note: I do not have an Akin DC offer but have completed a CB there; to the extent this would change any answers, feel free to share.

similar choice for me, don't have insight but curious

OP here, any comments are appreciated.

Speaking from some knowledge of both offices: both Kirkland and Cleary have pretty substantial presences in DC and are well-respected. You'll be fine at either. But both have downsides: Cleary is very antitrust-focused in DC, this is true. Kirkland has an aggressive free-market system that works well for some people and doesn't for others. But I'm sure you can do general litigation at Cleary DC, and in any event, I'm not sure that antitrust litigation is a terrible thing to do before trying for AUSA. It's not like you're doing M&A.

Kirkland's "leverage" is misleading because some of those partners are just senior associates. It's not a two-tier partnership, really, in any formal sense. A sixth-year associate is a "partner" but is not a partner in any meaningful sense of the world. I don't think the demographics at Kirkland are any different than they are at other DC firms.