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Have SA offers from all 3 in NYC, interested in corporate / transactional. Have gotten a good Cultural vibe from all, enjoyed speaking with all attorneys. Appeal of Debevoise / Willkie is ability to rotate within corporate and try different projects on various teams. Proskauer appeal is opportunity to do sports law work (which is hard to get into) and general corporate. Am fine with office locations for all 3, all 3 are doing well in terms of compang performance / financial strength.

Long term goal is to work in-house at a F500, ideally do this job for 4-5 years and then switch.

Having a hard time making a decision, appreciate all of your input.

As you said, they're basically interchangeable, and if you're not gunning for partner that flattens out the differences even more. Maybe try talking to more people (alumni of your law school who are 1st/2nd-years now) and see if you can get a better sense of fit.

I wouldn't count on actually getting to do any sports law FWIW.

It's very competitive to get a seat at the cool kids sports law cafeteria table at Proskauer but my vote is for Proskauer anyway. They do a lot of interesting/complex work for smaller (and usually more aggressive) funds. Debevoise isn't particularly good at corporate other than fund formation and repping the insurance industry (maybe aviation if you're interested in finance), especially compared to their lockstep peers. They've always been a less profitable cousin of DPW and Cleary on the corporate side. Excellent at arb and white collar though.

Not a substantive point but can't take Willkie corporate seriously anymore after the admissions scandal lol

The Lsat Airbender wrote: I wouldn't count on actually getting to do any sports law FWIW.

This. Know someone that joined Proskauer a few years ago to do sports law and went out of her way to make sure she ended up in group.

Did get to do sports law for a bit but it was not enough to keep her occupied full time so she got staffed on other projects, which kept her busy when sports law got busy again and now she’s basically General IP/M&A support.

I think this is true with niche practices in general. You join the firm for something but often that something can’t fill your schedule and your temporary assignments end up being permanent.

The Lsat Airbender wrote:As you said, they're basically interchangeable, and if you're not gunning for partner that flattens out the differences even more. Maybe try talking to more people (alumni of your law school who are 1st/2nd-years now) and see if you can get a better sense of fit.

I wouldn't count on actually getting to do any sports law FWIW.

Thanks - could you elaborate more on how not gunning for partner makes them even more interchangeable? I’m not super well versed in the trajectory of a big law career, appreciate your help.

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Russellwestbrookzero wrote:

The Lsat Airbender wrote:As you said, they're basically interchangeable, and if you're not gunning for partner that flattens out the differences even more. Maybe try talking to more people (alumni of your law school who are 1st/2nd-years now) and see if you can get a better sense of fit.

I wouldn't count on actually getting to do any sports law FWIW.

Thanks - could you elaborate more on how not gunning for partner makes them even more interchangeable? I’m not super well versed in the trajectory of a big law career, appreciate your help.

Culturally: You can hang in there for 4-5 years at a firm where you're a cultural weirdo, as long as you do good work, but those subjective concerns can ice partnership consideration and also make your life more miserable over time.

Financially: The firm's long-term financial prospects don't matter to someone who 1) only wants to stay for the medium term and 2) will only ever get paid lockstep anyway.

Professionally: You need to be absolutely in love with your practice niche in order to make a decades-long career out of it and different firms can vary widely in the quality of different practice groups, but if you're going to exit anyway then you really just want to get the "generic corp" experience that every V50 offers decent amounts of.


Does that make sense? It's like the difference between hookup material and husband material -- a wider array of factors are important for the latter.