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Hello,

I am a junior associate currently in the midst of choosing between two V100 firms. One would be for the finance practice at the firm (mostly lev fin), the other would be for a securities/capital markets and corp. Neither practice at their respective firms is all that prominent, though the former has a larger presence in NYC than the latter (which is a satellite office), though my group is not its most prominent group. I am leaning toward the cap markets/securities practice as I think it may have better options in the longer term, but I was wondering what peoples thoughts would be in this context? As mentioned, neither practice at each firm is all that prominent. On the finance side, it would be mostly lender work (aka, banks) and the corp with with a number of more issuer work with small, emerging companies. Kind of hesitant to name names currently. Thanks for the insight!

If all else is equal, take the firm with the larger presence

Stay away from finance. It's very specialized; it's hard to lateral to anything but finance or go in house a few specific industries/choices. You can always move back toward finance, but it's much harder to move to being a generalist after you've been a specialist. If your satellite firm is too small, you can "level up" to a HQ firm. I wouldn't look back. Your clients will be more chill at this firm, you'll get a bette sense of how the law works overall (and not in a very niche field) and you will have geographic exit opportunities besides just NY or Charlotte or a few other very limited places. The choice to me is very, very clear.