Law firm culture? SF vs DC vs Chicago Forum

[domesticshoe]

Hi all!

I'm sure my question will be way too general, but I'm struggling to narrow down which cities to apply to for OCI. Right now I'm thinking San Francisco, DC, or Chicago. I like all three and don't have major geographical ties anywhere, so at this point I'm mostly thinking about quality of life and not working too crazy of hours.

I know quality of life / firm culture vary a lot by firm and practice area, but I'd really appreciate any advice.

[oblig.lawl.ref]

Hi all!

I'm sure my question will be way too general, but I'm struggling to narrow down which cities to apply to for OCI. Right now I'm thinking San Francisco, DC, or Chicago. I like all three and don't have major geographical ties anywhere, so at this point I'm mostly thinking about quality of life and not working too crazy of hours.

I know quality of life / firm culture vary a lot by firm and practice area, but I'd really appreciate any advice.

I would be curious to hear others view but my recollection from going through OCI a while ago was that DC and Chicago are tough markets without ties. I think the Bay Area is more agnostic on ties. That's a consideration. Another thing to keep in mind is that these are smaller markets, so you would do well to diversify.

I personally think it's very difficult to get quality work and ensure you don't have crazy hours. BL is BL and the better the work, the more the competition for it, the more the competition, the crazier the demands. SF is probably a tad chiller than NYC on the whole but you can end up in some tough spots here too.

[2013]

Are you at least top 1/3 at a T14 or top 10% at tier 1 school? If not, it’ll probably be hard to land a job in DC through OCI.

It’ll be a waste to bid on dc if you could have a better shot in a different city (like NY).

[SamuelDanforth]

This is likely school dependent, but I found that DC did not care at all about ties. I think SF and Chicago both care, although my experience with Chicago is anecdotal. I think SF firms care more than SV firms, and SF-based firms care more than non-SF based firms. It's definitely not to the same level as places like Seattle, San Diego, Boston, etc, but it's more tie-conscious than DC, and more than LA in my personal experience (as someone from CA but not LA or SF).

As for quality of life, I think it's pretty firm dependent in SF. My impression is there isn't a culture of late-night office work, and associates tend to keep roughly a 9:00-5:00 office schedule, and then log-in from home. But I certainly know associates billing 2400+ in SF, even if it's less of the norm than NY.

[PMan99]

The question is way too general for anyone to give useful advice.

Hours will depend more on the firm and practice group than the city, particularly since you're not looking at NYC (where things tend to be crazier in general). DC can be very grade selective and Chicago firms can value ties a bit. SF was pretty grade/ties selective a few years ago, but I imagine the tech boom over the last half decade has softened that a bit.

That said, three things come to mind. First, regulatory practices, which are concentrated in DC, have the reputation for being the most QOL/hours-friendly of any biglaw practice area. This will vary from firm to firm and subspecialty to subspecialty, though. Also exit opportunities may be limited, especially if you don't want to or can't work in the government down the road. Second, the easiest route to in-house right now is probably through tech/IP transactions in the Bay Area (or VC or something similar). The hours may be rough, but you'll be able to get out of biglaw fairly quickly and probably to a decent paying job. Third, Chicago is significantly less expensive that SF/DC, so your money will farther there. But I'd assume you're more likely to end up on the standard biglaw lit/corp track there.

[HillandHollow]

wrt to Chicago:
If you don't have ANY ties, it will be a little tough. Also, you will need to be able to say you have experienced a midwest winter. Not joking. A friend of mine is involved in hiring at a Chicago firm. She told me that one small (but real) concern is that someone from, say, California might think they want to move to Chicago, but then once they get there and experience their first real winter, they will say forget this and transfer out. I'm not sure I believe someone would actually do that, or that this is actually a real concern for a firm, but she alleges that a partner told her this happened more than once, so now they screen for it.

Chicago is also tough to get into without ties because Northwestern and UChicago are both there, are both excellent schools, and both have high numbers of people sticking around after graduation.

DC doesn't really need ties, since like no one has actual ties there, and it's an obviously attractive location for lawyers. Very grade- and prestige-conscious, though.

SF was weird about ties when I was in law school, but I think the market there has expanded enough that it isn't as big a deal any more.

NYC doesn't care about ties, either, fwiw, and hires the most people by far. Not a bad place to start, at least.

[Necho2]

This is likely school dependent, but I found that DC did not care at all about ties. I think SF and Chicago both care, although my experience with Chicago is anecdotal. I think SF firms care more than SV firms, and SF-based firms care more than non-SF based firms. It's definitely not to the same level as places like Seattle, San Diego, Boston, etc, but it's more tie-conscious than DC, and more than LA in my personal experience (as someone from CA but not LA or SF).

This is a very solid point. My experience with ties is that SF-based firms literally make that an initial hurdle in the interviews. They ask why, you throw some ties at them, and generally they accept it and move on. I only have the experience of someone with very strong ties so not sure how vital it was, but definitely something that 3/4s of my interviewees addressed in the first 10 minutes of the interview in a fairly direct way.

[Anonymous User]

Hi all!

I'm sure my question will be way too general, but I'm struggling to narrow down which cities to apply to for OCI. Right now I'm thinking San Francisco, DC, or Chicago. I like all three and don't have major geographical ties anywhere, so at this point I'm mostly thinking about quality of life and not working too crazy of hours.

I know quality of life / firm culture vary a lot by firm and practice area, but I'd really appreciate any advice.

One of my best friends from law school ended up in Chicago working in a satellite office of a major firm. The hours he describes seem to be almost as bad as NY biglaw and he says that the native Chicago firms (Mayer Brown, Sidley, Kirkland) are even more intense.

[Elston Gunn]

I would really encourage you to ask yourself some more questions, rather than pose such a general question to the board.

First, you haven’t said anything about your credentials, unless I missed it. Are they strong enough to make you feel confident about targeting these markets? Are you going to target NYC too? All three of these markets can be tough if you don’t have top credentials, especially DC, which is the toughest big market in the country.

Second, really ask yourself where you want to live. These are extremely different cities that are also very far aware from each other.

Third, try to figure out what kind of work you want to do. These markets do very different things. If you want to do corporate and go in-house ASAP, so to SF. If you want to litigate for the government, go to DC. Etc.

All these questions are way more important than general vague impressions of the different cultures in the markets.