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I'm interested in litigation and liked all three firms. I'm not super concerned about JD's blackbox compensation. The main two things that are important to me is a friendly culture where the people actually like each other and exit options after 3-5 years (goal is federal govt.) I'd love to hear your thoughts on any of these firms.

Since you're interested in lit, something you should keep in mind is JD and McDermott have a lot more practice areas you can go into. Since you're coming out of 1L year, you want to keep your options open.

That being said, working for a big firm's smaller office would be really nice, so don't count out Ropes.

I'd set up some second look interviews to get a better feel for the culture.