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Obviously the business side of a deal is the driving force, but where do transactional practice areas fall on the spectrum of mind-numbing work? Both as a junior associate and then later in your career.

I'm also curious if working in-house exposes you to more substantive work.

delete - not sure I understood your question correctly

Are you asking for a scale of how involved lawyers get in the substance of a transaction, or more like ranking how intellectually/creatively challenging different transactional practices are?

Substantive involvement and creatively/intellectually challenging would both be on the "interesting" side of the spectrum.

Some choice quotes from the NY corporate thread:

[Corporate work] is the most tedious thing on the face of the earth. Some (M&A) is better than others (capital markets, bank finance, tax), but ultimately there are 20 points the people actually care about in any deal, and you're not responsible for any of them. You're also not responsible for the points people *don't* care about. You're a scribe. You summarize what a document says.

Goal would be to parlay that into major corporation in the thinking (i.e. non-legal) side of M&A and deal work.

I thought corporate law would be as interesting as banking with slightly fewer hours for slightly less pay. I was wrong. It's more hours for someone at my seniority with less pay. Worse, it's infinitely more boring than the bank job I had (which also gets ridiculed as boring - but if that's the case I remind you your job is to do the paperwork for that "boring" task)

Tax is more interesting than Corporate.

capital markets is worse, both for juniors and seniors. its 95% just disclosure. you can't be an all-star in capital markets. there is only downside of messing up. there is no way to really stand out as a good capital markets lawyer. it doesn't involve the type of creating thinking that structuring an m&a deal might involve, or the heavy negotiations a m&a deal might involve, there is just no real way to stand out in capital markets. your just preparing a 300 page disclosure document

Technology transactions.

Anonymous User wrote:Technology transactions.

Can confirm. Tech-related work is interesting because it's often somewhat uncharted territory.

ruski wrote:capital markets is worse, both for juniors and seniors. its 95% just disclosure. you can't be an all-star in capital markets. there is only downside of messing up. there is no way to really stand out as a good capital markets lawyer. it doesn't involve the type of creating thinking that structuring an m&a deal might involve, or the heavy negotiations a m&a deal might involve, there is just no real way to stand out in capital markets. your just preparing a 300 page disclosure document

Spoken like someone who sucks at capital markets.

v5junior wrote:

ruski wrote:capital markets is worse, both for juniors and seniors. its 95% just disclosure. you can't be an all-star in capital markets. there is only downside of messing up. there is no way to really stand out as a good capital markets lawyer. it doesn't involve the type of creating thinking that structuring an m&a deal might involve, or the heavy negotiations a m&a deal might involve, there is just no real way to stand out in capital markets. your just preparing a 300 page disclosure document

Spoken like someone who sucks at capital markets.

probably true. circling numbers was always so difficult for me. one time though I circled just the right amount of numbers, that even the partner emailed my a "nice job"

ruski wrote:

v5junior wrote:

ruski wrote:capital markets is worse, both for juniors and seniors. its 95% just disclosure. you can't be an all-star in capital markets. there is only downside of messing up. there is no way to really stand out as a good capital markets lawyer. it doesn't involve the type of creating thinking that structuring an m&a deal might involve, or the heavy negotiations a m&a deal might involve, there is just no real way to stand out in capital markets. your just preparing a 300 page disclosure document

Spoken like someone who sucks at capital markets.

probably true. circling numbers was always so difficult for me. one time though I circled just the right amount of numbers, that even the partner emailed my a "nice job"

yeah man ctrl + f "change of control" sounds way harder. O wait sorry I forgot you spend all your time "structuring deals."

v5junior wrote:

ruski wrote:

v5junior wrote:

ruski wrote:capital markets is worse, both for juniors and seniors. its 95% just disclosure. you can't be an all-star in capital markets. there is only downside of messing up. there is no way to really stand out as a good capital markets lawyer. it doesn't involve the type of creating thinking that structuring an m&a deal might involve, or the heavy negotiations a m&a deal might involve, there is just no real way to stand out in capital markets. your just preparing a 300 page disclosure document

Spoken like someone who sucks at capital markets.

probably true. circling numbers was always so difficult for me. one time though I circled just the right amount of numbers, that even the partner emailed my a "nice job"

yeah man ctrl + f "change of control" sounds way harder. O wait sorry I forgot you spend all your time "structuring deals."

...isn't ruski also in capital markets?

Maybe you should be less insecure about your practice group

Anonymous User wrote:

v5junior wrote:

ruski wrote:

v5junior wrote:

ruski wrote:capital markets is worse, both for juniors and seniors. its 95% just disclosure. you can't be an all-star in capital markets. there is only downside of messing up. there is no way to really stand out as a good capital markets lawyer. it doesn't involve the type of creating thinking that structuring an m&a deal might involve, or the heavy negotiations a m&a deal might involve, there is just no real way to stand out in capital markets. your just preparing a 300 page disclosure document

Spoken like someone who sucks at capital markets.

probably true. circling numbers was always so difficult for me. one time though I circled just the right amount of numbers, that even the partner emailed my a "nice job"

yeah man ctrl + f "change of control" sounds way harder. O wait sorry I forgot you spend all your time "structuring deals."

...isn't ruski also in capital markets?

Maybe you should be less insecure about your practice group

am most certainly not in capital markets.

Am I the only one that's circled a page number just to see what the auditors would do in response?

ruski wrote:capital markets is worse, both for juniors and seniors. its 95% just disclosure. you can't be an all-star in capital markets. there is only downside of messing up. there is no way to really stand out as a good capital markets lawyer. it doesn't involve the type of creating thinking that structuring an m&a deal might involve, or the heavy negotiations a m&a deal might involve, there is just no real way to stand out in capital markets. your just preparing a 300 page disclosure document

True story.

nvm

Anonymous User wrote:

v5junior wrote:

ruski wrote:

v5junior wrote:

ruski wrote:capital markets is worse, both for juniors and seniors. its 95% just disclosure. you can't be an all-star in capital markets. there is only downside of messing up. there is no way to really stand out as a good capital markets lawyer. it doesn't involve the type of creating thinking that structuring an m&a deal might involve, or the heavy negotiations a m&a deal might involve, there is just no real way to stand out in capital markets. your just preparing a 300 page disclosure document

Spoken like someone who sucks at capital markets.

probably true. circling numbers was always so difficult for me. one time though I circled just the right amount of numbers, that even the partner emailed my a "nice job"

yeah man ctrl + f "change of control" sounds way harder. O wait sorry I forgot you spend all your time "structuring deals."

...isn't ruski also in capital markets?

Maybe you should be less insecure about your practice group

Just lol. (a) no he isn't, (b) even if you were right, strong argument bro, (c) I finished my rotation in capM over a year ago so idk why I should feel defensive about it, just trying to refute some nonsense here and (d) strong use of anon.