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I received offer from both. Five years from now still see myself in NYC. Want to do financial services regulation and project finance, or securities, PE. International presence of the firm is important to me.

Honestly the only thing I'm worried about Shearman is its rankings in recent years (from once a top-ten firm to 30ish today). But I don't really think Vault rankings are that important, are they?

Would like to hear your thoughts on work, clients, compensation, reputation, culture, work/life balance, etc. of the two firms.

Anonymous User wrote: But I don't really think Vault rankings are that important, are they?

No, they aren't.

OP, do you have to stay in NY or could you see yourself one day moving to the west coast? MOFO has great inter-office flexibility. People regularly jump from NY to SF and the other way around. I would take MOFO SF over Shearman NY in a heartbeat. MOFO is the top dog in the bay area and you will get to work on all the front-line grabbing google/fb/apple deals whereas Shearman NY is unfortunately now a second rate player for NYC corporate work and shows no sign of recovery.

I am interested in what people have to say about Shearman. Considering them for litigation myself.

cjw564 wrote:OP, do you have to stay in NY or could you see yourself one day moving to the west coast? MOFO has great inter-office flexibility. People regularly jump from NY to SF and the other way around. I would take MOFO SF over Shearman NY in a heartbeat. MOFO is the top dog in the bay area and you will get to work on all the front-line grabbing google/fb/apple deals whereas Shearman NY is unfortunately now a second rate player for NYC corporate work and shows no sign of recovery.

dude's not interested in SF.

also, I don't think Mofo reps google, fb, or apple on the corporate side.

cjw564 wrote:OP, do you have to stay in NY or could you see yourself one day moving to the west coast? MOFO has great inter-office flexibility. People regularly jump from NY to SF and the other way around. I would take MOFO SF over Shearman NY in a heartbeat. MOFO is the top dog in the bay area and you will get to work on all the front-line grabbing google/fb/apple deals whereas Shearman NY is unfortunately now a second rate player for NYC corporate work and shows no sign of recovery.

No, Shearman is still a top tier firm for most corporate practices such as M&A and capital markets. Check Chambers. In New York, Shearman is still the better firm reputation-wise. Mofo is a second rate player in New York.

Yeah, Shearman is still legit for Corp work but idk why you'd want to go there for lit.

For litigation, Shearman is strong in securities litigation but I don't know if you are interested in that.

Anecdotally, many people I know who work/have worked at Shearman say the culture is not great and there are a lot of people they disliked.

cjw564 wrote:OP, do you have to stay in NY or could you see yourself one day moving to the west coast? MOFO has great inter-office flexibility. People regularly jump from NY to SF and the other way around. I would take MOFO SF over Shearman NY in a heartbeat. MOFO is the top dog in the bay area and you will get to work on all the front-line grabbing google/fb/apple deals whereas Shearman NY is unfortunately now a second rate player for NYC corporate work and shows no sign of recovery.

except MoFo isn't particularly strong at any of the things the OP actually said they wanted to do, and the OP specifically wants to live in New York, not the west coast.

I don't mean any offense, but this post is the sort of cringeworthy prestige chasing that can be scary about law students/this website

While MoFo is indisputably the better firm for litigation, Shearman has a more reputable and deeper international transactional practice.