I'm doing a 2L summer rotation in the London office of my firm's capital markets group. I have enjoyed my time in London so far, and I'm wondering how limiting it would be to start my career here if I wanted to return to the US. Would I be at a severe disadvantage to my US peer (our NY office has very robust CM capabilities)? I'm also curious about any stories of successfully staying in London and partnership prospects at various US shops abroad. I'd say my firm is probably either in the top tier or second tier of CM work for US firms in the UK.
A lot of the older threads focus on the COLA pay and possibility of landing the gig. I'm past the point where those two are questions for me.
London CM to Start my Career Forum
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NoLongerALurker
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Re: London CM to Start my Career
Have friends who started in London. Also have friends who started in US with an eye to moving to London, successfully pulled that off, and now feel like they could come back stateside pretty easily. As between the two, I think the latter is preferable (first two years or so in States, then move over to London). But I don't know how significant my friends who started in London are hampered by it --- actually, each one of them left biglaw altogether within 3 years.
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Anonymous User
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Re: London CM to Start my Career
I started in London and transferred back to the states after 3 years in CM. The benefit of starting in a US office is you get a chance to sample different practice groups before getting locked into CM. The benefit of starting in London is you are specialized from the start and as a result are likely to get more deal-running experience earlier in your career than you would in a US office. If you are enjoying CM and London, I don't think there is a significant downside to starting there. At least for the past few years, the CM lateral market has been hot and the transition back to the US for me and all my colleagues who did (both internal transfers and external lateral hiring) was pretty easy.
The one piece of advice I wish I had received was to actually learn the underlying rules. London CM work is predominantly 144A/Reg S offerings, which still generally follow S-K and S-X requirements but there is more flexibility around the edges where compliance would be particularly onerous. I found I tended to learn how to do an offering based on past practice and looking at precedents rather than learning S-K and S-X. If you do transition back to a CM practice in the US, you need to know the actual underlying rules, so that was by far the biggest learning curve. If you can teach yourself the underlying rules driving the practice in London, transitioning to US registered work when you come back to the states won't be an issue.
As for partnership, I don't think it is any different than partnership prospects in NY or another major legal market, which is to say it is possible though highly selective and difficult. There are far less firms in London with US practices but also far less US lawyers. Overall, the new classes of partners in London CM at my firm made it the same year as their colleagues in the US.
The one piece of advice I wish I had received was to actually learn the underlying rules. London CM work is predominantly 144A/Reg S offerings, which still generally follow S-K and S-X requirements but there is more flexibility around the edges where compliance would be particularly onerous. I found I tended to learn how to do an offering based on past practice and looking at precedents rather than learning S-K and S-X. If you do transition back to a CM practice in the US, you need to know the actual underlying rules, so that was by far the biggest learning curve. If you can teach yourself the underlying rules driving the practice in London, transitioning to US registered work when you come back to the states won't be an issue.
As for partnership, I don't think it is any different than partnership prospects in NY or another major legal market, which is to say it is possible though highly selective and difficult. There are far less firms in London with US practices but also far less US lawyers. Overall, the new classes of partners in London CM at my firm made it the same year as their colleagues in the US.
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Anonymous User
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Re: London CM to Start my Career
these are really great responses. Would they apply also to CM work in Hong Kong or Singapore?
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