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I am considering a lateral move (I have not yet interviewed or even applied) to WSGR in SF.

Anyone have any input on their M&A practice?

SF or SV? My understanding is most of the big transactions get handled by Pacific in SV. The people who sit in SF are mostly splintered off from a smaller group. This is all second hand from my friend who works there so people should feel free to correct me.

Anonymous User wrote:SF or SV? My understanding is most of the big transactions get handled by Pacific in SV. The people who sit in SF are mostly splintered off from a smaller group. This is all second hand from my friend who works there so people should feel free to correct me.

Thanks for your response - I am interested in hearing more about this as well.

My understanding was that while the SV office handles a lot of the work, the SF office handles a lot of public company M&A.

Any info on their NYC office is also appreciated.

Anonymous User wrote:SF or SV? My understanding is most of the big transactions get handled by Pacific in SV. The people who sit in SF are mostly splintered off from a smaller group. This is all second hand from my friend who works there so people should feel free to correct me.

I think it's pretty even split, generally. The M&A group in SV referred to above and the M&A group in SF are essentially two different groups that work together from time to time. I think it is true that the recent large public clients that sold themselves have been staffed out of the SV group. However, I think in general that is not always the case. It just depends on which set of lawyers get hired by the client. I'd say in general, despite maybe this summer's trend, the SF M&A and the SV M&A group are about even in terms of competing for big deals. Maybe, just maybe, SV does slightly better in terms of marque deals but that's just based on recent trends.

Anonymous User wrote:I am considering a lateral move (I have not yet interviewed or even applied) to WSGR in SF.

Anyone have any input on their M&A practice?

Not sure about the substantive work, but more than one friend at the firm has commented on this group's burnout rate (evidently almost 100% associate turnover within a couple years).

The group in the SF office (not the SoMa) does nothing but M&A. Most of their deals are related to clients of the SV office that they handle the sales and acquisitions for. They do high quality and profile work. But they work really really really hard.

Had an offer from the SF M&A group sometime ago (turn it down for various reasons - not saying they weren't great). Some former classmates and colleagues of have lateraled there. Group was a new idea back in late 2013. Very lateral heavy (they basically grew an entire group with internal partners and lateral associates) so lacked a cohesive culture. They do seem to work super hard and have heavy turnover (this turnover could just be a bay area/start-up thing as all the people I knew who went there have since left and ended up at cool companies). My understanding was that when their start-up clients grew big, they were starting to use other firms to do their strategic deal work and WSGR wanted to stop that and put together this group to focus on larger M&A work.

I'm an anon from above who works at WSGR. I will say they do seem to work hard but I'm not sure how hard. They certainly work late hours but idk what their hours our like total. They may take long vacations. I don't know. But what I will say is the exits I have seen from that group are pretty stellar.

Anonymous User wrote:I'm an anon from above who works at WSGR. I will say they do seem to work hard but I'm not sure how hard. They certainly work late hours but idk what their hours our like total. They may take long vacations. I don't know. But what I will say is the exits I have seen from that group are pretty stellar.

Thanks for your response - can you give me an idea of the type of exits you have seen?

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I'm an anon from above who works at WSGR. I will say they do seem to work hard but I'm not sure how hard. They certainly work late hours but idk what their hours our like total. They may take long vacations. I don't know. But what I will say is the exits I have seen from that group are pretty stellar.

Thanks for your response - can you give me an idea of the type of exits you have seen?

Just 4th and 5th years, generally, getting good titles at some of the best tech companies, e.g. salesforce or google. It seems like every few months one of the 4-5 people in those class years exits with a decent title at one of those companies.

FYI for people who read this thread: WSGR just posted a junior tax associate opening for PA

Can anyone speak to their relative strength in NY?

unlicensedpotato wrote:FYI for people who read this thread: WSGR just posted a junior tax associate opening for PA

Interesting. Apparently they just fired a junior from that office for failing the bar.

Anonymous User wrote:

unlicensedpotato wrote:FYI for people who read this thread: WSGR just posted a junior tax associate opening for PA

Interesting. Apparently they just fired a junior from that office for failing the bar.

Cannot be a coincidence.