S&C v. Covington NY (lit) Forum

[Anonymous User]

Have to make this decision next week. Intrigued by Covington's strong ties in DC because I want to end up there eventually, and also eventually want to work in government. Also like the smaller size of the NY office. Wary, though, of passing up on the S&C preftige from a forever-on-my-resume standpoint, especially since (1) I hope to clerk so will hopefully have another bite at the apple and (2) could probably lateral to Covington DC after a few years at S&C or post-clerkship (which will likely be a couple of years after graduation). Hoping to do a lot of white collar and investigation work.

Any insight on either office would be much appreciated.

[Anonymous User]

Have to make this decision next week. Intrigued by Covington's strong ties in DC because I want to end up there eventually, and also eventually want to work in government. Also like the smaller size of the NY office. Wary, though, of passing up on the S&C preftige from a forever-on-my-resume standpoint, especially since (1) I hope to clerk so will hopefully have another bite at the apple and (2) could probably lateral to Covington DC after a few years at S&C or post-clerkship (which will likely be a couple of years after graduation). Hoping to do a lot of white collar and investigation work.

Any insight on either office would be much appreciated.

S&c is in a different league than cov ny. Occasionally the ny office might work with dc but on the whole, it’s really not the same at all. Also, the office space situation at cov ny is pretty gnarly, and they have definitely subtly pressured summers towards corporate even after hiring someone with an open desire for lit, since that’s what they’re trying to grow in ny.

[Anonymous User]

Have to make this decision next week. Intrigued by Covington's strong ties in DC because I want to end up there eventually, and also eventually want to work in government. Also like the smaller size of the NY office. Wary, though, of passing up on the S&C preftige from a forever-on-my-resume standpoint, especially since (1) I hope to clerk so will hopefully have another bite at the apple and (2) could probably lateral to Covington DC after a few years at S&C or post-clerkship (which will likely be a couple of years after graduation). Hoping to do a lot of white collar and investigation work.

Any insight on either office would be much appreciated.

S&c is in a different league than cov ny. Occasionally the ny office might work with dc but on the whole, it’s really not the same at all. Also, the office space situation at cov ny is pretty gnarly, and they have definitely subtly pressured summers towards corporate even after hiring someone with an open desire for lit, since that’s what they’re trying to grow in ny.

This is not true at all. I was a summer at cov ny and felt absolutely no pressure whatsoever to go into corporate. It is true that the ny office is trying to grow its corporate practice, but the firm as a whole is still heavily dominated by lit. Out of the five big projects I worked on over the summer, two were staffed out of DC and the impression I got is that this is pretty typical. I also don't know what office situation you are talking about. The ny office just finished a new round of renovations and there are tons of office space. All the summers got their own offices. Prestige-wise, cov is known for maintaining a pretty consistent standard across its offices and I don't think there is that much big of a difference b/w ny and dc for clerkship purposes.

[Anonymous User]

Also, the office space situation at cov ny is pretty gnarly

Not OP, but could you expand on this a bit? I thought their offices in the NY Times building were pretty luxe.

[Anonymous User]

Also, the office space situation at cov ny is pretty gnarly

Not OP, but could you expand on this a bit? I thought their offices in the NY Times building were pretty luxe.

My information *could* be outdated but while pretty, they didn’t have enough space for juniors. Pretty sure they literally put all the summers in a conference room one year (summer 17?).

[Anonymous User]

My information *could* be outdated but while pretty, they didn’t have enough space for juniors. Pretty sure they literally put all the summers in a conference room one year (summer 17?).

Thanks - yow, the "SA conference room" sounds like a special kind of awful.

[Anonymous User]

I was a SA in 2017 at Covington's NY office. The only reason summers were put in a large conference room/bullpen set-up was because the office was in the process of being renovated. The renovations were proceeding floor by floor, which already required regular shuffling around for partners and associates.

As far as I know, the renovations are complete at this point and I don't think SAs have been put in the conference room since, although please feel free to correct me.

[Anonymous User]

I’m a Covington DC associate who works a lot with the NY office.
— While you’ll definitely notice the difference in the people you work with and matters you’re staffed on based on your office, there really is quite a lot of cross-office staffing. This is especially true in corporate, where my impression is there just aren’t enough DC associates to support all the DC corporate partners. However, it happens a solid amount in lit/white collar too. One of the firm’s biggest current matters is opioid litigation, and while that’s originated out of DC, it’s heavily staffed with NY people as well. Similarly, I have seen a fair amount of cross-office staffing on white collar matters, both big and small. In my experience the cross-office work is basically seamless.
—It’s definitely true the NY office is most focused on growing the corporate practice, and both the NY and DC offices are looking for a number of corporate laterals (like I take it every firm is these days). It’s also definitely an advantage in NY recruiting to say you’re strongly leaning corporate. That said, I would be very, very surprised if they pushed someone who wanted lit into corporate. Not everyone is 100% satisfied with their mix of matters etc, but I’ve only heard of one person get put in a group they didn’t want, and that was for 50% of their time, and they were able to get out of it within 6 months.
—There’s no office space issue in NY. As others have said, there was a shortage for SAs while renovations were being done, but they’re finished and if anything there’s a small surplus of offices at the moment.
—It’s generally easy to move from the DC office to other US offices, but I don’t know at all how doable it is to go the other way. Not saying it’s especially hard, just don’t have any info.
—I don’t know if it should mean anything to prospective SAs, but I’ve started paying attention to who is going to the NY office this year, and I was quite surprised by how strong their credentials are. We’re talking solid grades at HYS/T14 law review from what I’ve seen. I haven’t paid attention to everything, and these have mostly seemed lit-focused, so take that with a pinch of salt.
—I’m genuinely happy at Covington (really surprisingly so), but I also know we’ve had some huge lit/white collar matters the last few years, and the firm really does attempt to staff everything pretty leanly. So some people
have definitely been getting killed (think ~2500-2700 hours, probably more in a few cases) in both of these offices.
—None of this is to say you should pick Cov NY over S&C. I don’t know the NY market that well outside of Chambers/Vault, though it would certainly seem S&C is the much better brand. My sense is your focus on white collar makes the gap with Covington smaller, since we do a lot of big white collar stuff, and a number of the important white collar partners (Devlin-Brown, Kestenbaum, Vinegrad) are out of NY (though the top Obama DOJ officials are in DC). But as I say I don’t know much about the NY market.

[Anonymous User]

Junior Covington associate here. Covington has a great white collar practice, but you may or may not actually get staffed on those matters. Several folks in my class year, myself included, arrived interested in white collar work and have been forced into other groups. I have since been able to weasel my way onto a small white collar investigation, but 90% of my work is in another practice area that I have no real interest in. The white collar group is definitely busy, but I suppose other groups just have more pressing staffing needs.

The firm says you can switch groups after 6 months if you're unhappy, but I haven't found that to be true in practice. It's very difficult to get off a long-term matter once you've been staffed.