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Straight out of tier 1 law school with an offer from K&E NYC.

I'm just very confused about M&A/ PE vs. Funds.While I get that K&E is known for its M&A and more specifically its recently booming public M&A and private equity practice, I've been warned that the hours are unpredictable, intense, the life is insanely stressful and that the competition / aggressiveness of co-workers are likely to kill me.

I've also been told that Funds would be (a better fit) for me (think - high anxiety issues, very prone to stress breakdowns) because the hours are atleast more predictable and the work gets fairly standardized.

Can anyone please help?

1. What should I do? Brave the risk and plunge head first into M&A/ PE? Or be safe, think strategic and long-term and pick funds? (No prior work ex here - so for all I know I could end up hating either practice area).

2. In terms of work/ quality of work/ how interesting or mundane or easy to comprehend the work is - M&A vs Funds?

3. The kind of people/ partners you work with - M&A vs Funds?

4. Also, is it true that once you go funds, you remain in funds and can never see anything non-funds again? Even if its free-market?

5. Or should I take advantage of free-market for the first six months and do everything that comes my way and then retreat to funds if I really dont like what work I'm doing?

Any help/ guidance would be super.

Thanks!

Anonymous User wrote:
Any help/ guidance would be super.

Thanks!

It is absolutely true that in any biglaw firm, the M&A group will have a less consistent workflow than the fund formation group.

This is just the nature of the job - timelines are much longer and much more predictable in fund formation, leading to fewer firedrills. Of course, rushes will happen, but in general you can begin billing every day when you arrive, planning your work for the week/month.

On the other hand, M&A moves much more unpredictably and quickly, leading to a day spent doing nothing, followed by tasks that arise at 6pm to be done by the next day.

Only you know your own temperament, what you can handle, and what you prefer. Fund formation has, imo, less exciting and broad exit options, but does lead to some good opportunities in house at PE funds. Whether or not the diverse exit options that M&A brings is worth it to you is something only you can say.

You sound really highly strung, and frankly nowhere in biglaw is safe from the kind of work conditions that bring someone prone to anxiety and stress breakdowns to the edge. But if I were you, I'd do funds because nothing is worth fucking with your health.

Also, K&E is maybe not for you.

You're overthinking this. Since K&E is free market, why don't you just try both and see which one you like better? Six months of funds experience does not lock you into becoming a funds lawyer. You generally can drift between practice groups when you're a first/second year. Near the end of second year is when you should be gravitating to one particular group.

Yes, M&A is more unpredictable and generally has more Type-A personalities than funds. Funds is generally more predictable in hours, and you are generally negotiating the same market terms in the LPAs. And there are a host of other practice areas you could explore as well. I did work for 4 different practice groups before settling into one (not at K&E).

jhett wrote:You're overthinking this. Since K&E is free market, why don't you just try both and see which one you like better? Six months of funds experience does not lock you into becoming a funds lawyer. You generally can drift between practice groups when you're a first/second year. Near the end of second year is when you should be gravitating to one particular group.

Yes, M&A is more unpredictable and generally has more Type-A personalities than funds. Funds is generally more predictable in hours, and you are generally negotiating the same market terms in the LPAs. And there are a host of other practice areas you could explore as well. I did work for 4 different practice groups before settling into one (not at K&E).

Thank you, I think I'm definitely overthinking hahah. I think I'll try my hand at everything like you said, and see what fits me best.

But the free-market system is more dangerous than beneficial, tbh. Its probably very easy to get lost in the shuffle, especially if you're chipping away at different practice areas and then nobody really knows how good/ bad you are towards the end of the first year because you've worked like minimally but like with a lot of different people.

Any advice on navigating a free market system?

K&E M&A 2nd year approaching 3rd year, M&A is very intense and the hours are unpredictable and tough. Agree that it's very competitive here (although that said, our image is a bit overblown on this front, there are plenty of friendly team-oriented people here).

The substance of M&A work is generally more interesting in my opinion, fund formation seems really dry. M&A will give you a broader array of exit options as well.

Regarding partners, it really just depends who you work with. I don't know many investment funds partners but I think personality differences are larger within groups than between them.

Also, I know several people who have switched practice groups after lateralling here, so it's possible.

bigLexcited wrote:Thank you, I think I'm definitely overthinking hahah. I think I'll try my hand at everything like you said, and see what fits me best.

But the free-market system is more dangerous than beneficial, tbh. Its probably very easy to get lost in the shuffle, especially if you're chipping away at different practice areas and then nobody really knows how good/ bad you are towards the end of the first year because you've worked like minimally but like with a lot of different people.

Any advice on navigating a free market system?

It's all about the partner relationships. You can't just be a nameless cog in the billing machine - you'll definitely get lost in the shuffle then. You have to go ahead and reach out to a lot of partners, and find ones that you seem to connect with and are open to bringing you onto their matters. Then do top notch work for them and keep in communication with them throughout (it may be difficult to do so in big matters staffed with tons of associates, so try to work on smaller matters with more direct interaction). That way, they'll know your name and your work, and they will actively be pursuing you to join their group rather than the other way around.

The free market system puts the onus on you to be proactive in building your career. I'm more of an introvert, but I forced myself to interact with a lot of partners and was able to build a good reputation in several groups.

I'm willing to believe that exit options are better out of M&A than PE, but it's not like...obvious to me why that is. Your skill-set isn't super transferable, and the M&A market is dominated by V10-type places who are the house firm for XYZ banks, unlike say, tax where you can easily jump to a smaller firm, take a pay-cut, and get your life back.

Like what's the idea, you can go in-house? Maybe, but most corporates don't have an *army* of in-house M&A specialists - that's why they're hiring your V10. There's...becoming a banker? Rare, and work-life still sucks. "Investing" is a moonshot, shouldn't factor into your calculus unless you have a background for it already, come on lmao.

If people have concrete examples, be helpful for OP and others. Not accusing people of making stuff up, just think maybe "M&A has better exits" has become a meme people repeat thinking it's self-evidently true when...it's really not.

I like funds much more than M&A. It can get crazy at closing time. But not as bad as M&A, usually.

Anonymous User wrote:I like funds much more than M&A. It can get crazy at closing time. But not as bad as M&A, usually.

Are you a funds lawyer? If yes, could you pls give me a some more information about why you like funds much more than M&A? And what kind of work you did as a first year and what kind of work you do now?

Anonymous User wrote:K&E M&A 2nd year approaching 3rd year, M&A is very intense and the hours are unpredictable and tough. Agree that it's very competitive here (although that said, our image is a bit overblown on this front, there are plenty of friendly team-oriented people here).

The substance of M&A work is generally more interesting in my opinion, fund formation seems really dry. M&A will give you a broader array of exit options as well.

Regarding partners, it really just depends who you work with. I don't know many investment funds partners but I think personality differences are larger within groups than between them.

Also, I know several people who have switched practice groups after lateralling here, so it's possible.

Thank you so much, this was very helpful!

Could you please tell me what work I can expect to do at K&E as a junior associate? OR rather, what my typical day would look like? I'd imagine a lot of due diligence (which is expected), but anything else that would be crucial for me to know?

I'm a former Funds lawyer turned M&A lawyer. I don't think exit options are necessarily "better" out of M&A than they are out of Funds, there are just different types of exits. If you're a Funds lawyer, your skill-set is only useful to private equity funds/hedge funds/banks (and big ones at that). So that's limiting your universe of potential employers. Moreover, when you do go in-house at one of those employers, you are not doing general in-house corporate work like maybe someone at a widget company. You are going to be reviewing the fund documentation that your outside counsel prepares, dealing with investors (from a documentation perspective) and tracking/providing everything you've agreed to in side letters with investors. Now, is that WORSE than what you might do as an in-house lawyer coming from an M&A background? No, it's just different. If you enjoy/can tolerate (because who actually enjoys any of this) that work more so than reading/drafting general commercial agreements, assessing company-wide risks, etc. than it's not any worse of an exit. Plus those employers pay their in-house counsel well because they are swimming in cash. I honestly don't see the difference between what in-house Funds lawyers do and what in-house Tech Trans lawyers do - Tech Trans lawyers are responsible for drafting/reviewing specific types of agreements. They are not generalists and are not GCs. Funds lawyers do the same thing, it's just a less sexy set of documents.

All that being said, I switched practices because I knew I did not want to review that set of documents for the rest of my life, and I did not want to work in PE/banking, be it in-house or at a firm. I bought into the idea that practicing M&A will open up a larger variety of employers to me once I do make the move to go in-house. Having practiced as an M&A lawyer for a little over a year, I think that logic holds up, because you are exposed to a wide variety of companies, documents, etc and are exposed to how companies are structured, how they do business, the risks they deal with, etc. It's more of a macro view of a company rather than a product view (which is what Funds is - you're drafting the product). Is that necessarily better? I don't know. All corporate legal work kind of sucks and the work in M&A is infinitely more stressful and time-consuming. I don't find it any more exciting.

I will also counter the point of the poster above - there are a large number of firms doing M&A across the entire spectrum of the market. "Doing M&A" does not necessarily mean doing big-ticket public mergers. There are companies and PE firms of all sizes doing transactions all the time. The mechanics are generally the same regardless of the size of the deal and you will be exposed to many of the same things regardless of what type of firm you work at.

Anonymous User wrote:I'm a former Funds lawyer turned M&A lawyer. I don't think exit options are necessarily "better" out of M&A than they are out of Funds, there are just different types of exits. If you're a Funds lawyer, your skill-set is only useful to private equity funds/hedge funds/banks (and big ones at that). So that's limiting your universe of potential employers. Moreover, when you do go in-house at one of those employers, you are not doing general in-house corporate work like maybe someone at a widget company. You are going to be reviewing the fund documentation that your outside counsel prepares, dealing with investors (from a documentation perspective) and tracking/providing everything you've agreed to in side letters with investors. Now, is that WORSE than what you might do as an in-house lawyer coming from an M&A background? No, it's just different. If you enjoy/can tolerate (because who actually enjoys any of this) that work more so than reading/drafting general commercial agreements, assessing company-wide risks, etc. than it's not any worse of an exit. Plus those employers pay their in-house counsel well because they are swimming in cash. I honestly don't see the difference between what in-house Funds lawyers do and what in-house Tech Trans lawyers do - Tech Trans lawyers are responsible for drafting/reviewing specific types of agreements. They are not generalists and are not GCs. Funds lawyers do the same thing, it's just a less sexy set of documents.

All that being said, I switched practices because I knew I did not want to review that set of documents for the rest of my life, and I did not want to work in PE/banking, be it in-house or at a firm. I bought into the idea that practicing M&A will open up a larger variety of employers to me once I do make the move to go in-house. Having practiced as an M&A lawyer for a little over a year, I think that logic holds up, because you are exposed to a wide variety of companies, documents, etc and are exposed to how companies are structured, how they do business, the risks they deal with, etc. It's more of a macro view of a company rather than a product view (which is what Funds is - you're drafting the product). Is that necessarily better? I don't know. All corporate legal work kind of sucks and the work in M&A is infinitely more stressful and time-consuming. I don't find it any more exciting.

I will also counter the point of the poster above - there are a large number of firms doing M&A across the entire spectrum of the market. "Doing M&A" does not necessarily mean doing big-ticket public mergers. There are companies and PE firms of all sizes doing transactions all the time. The mechanics are generally the same regardless of the size of the deal and you will be exposed to many of the same things regardless of what type of firm you work at.

Great summary, thanks!

Anonymous User wrote:I'm a former Funds lawyer turned M&A lawyer. I don't think exit options are necessarily "better" out of M&A than they are out of Funds, there are just different types of exits. If you're a Funds lawyer, your skill-set is only useful to private equity funds/hedge funds/banks (and big ones at that). So that's limiting your universe of potential employers. Moreover, when you do go in-house at one of those employers, you are not doing general in-house corporate work like maybe someone at a widget company. You are going to be reviewing the fund documentation that your outside counsel prepares, dealing with investors (from a documentation perspective) and tracking/providing everything you've agreed to in side letters with investors. Now, is that WORSE than what you might do as an in-house lawyer coming from an M&A background? No, it's just different. If you enjoy/can tolerate (because who actually enjoys any of this) that work more so than reading/drafting general commercial agreements, assessing company-wide risks, etc. than it's not any worse of an exit. Plus those employers pay their in-house counsel well because they are swimming in cash. I honestly don't see the difference between what in-house Funds lawyers do and what in-house Tech Trans lawyers do - Tech Trans lawyers are responsible for drafting/reviewing specific types of agreements. They are not generalists and are not GCs. Funds lawyers do the same thing, it's just a less sexy set of documents.

All that being said, I switched practices because I knew I did not want to review that set of documents for the rest of my life, and I did not want to work in PE/banking, be it in-house or at a firm. I bought into the idea that practicing M&A will open up a larger variety of employers to me once I do make the move to go in-house. Having practiced as an M&A lawyer for a little over a year, I think that logic holds up, because you are exposed to a wide variety of companies, documents, etc and are exposed to how companies are structured, how they do business, the risks they deal with, etc. It's more of a macro view of a company rather than a product view (which is what Funds is - you're drafting the product). Is that necessarily better? I don't know. All corporate legal work kind of sucks and the work in M&A is infinitely more stressful and time-consuming. I don't find it any more exciting.

I will also counter the point of the poster above - there are a large number of firms doing M&A across the entire spectrum of the market. "Doing M&A" does not necessarily mean doing big-ticket public mergers. There are companies and PE firms of all sizes doing transactions all the time. The mechanics are generally the same regardless of the size of the deal and you will be exposed to many of the same things regardless of what type of firm you work at.

Thank you for sharing your perspective and experience! That was extremely informative!