Munger (LA) v Gibson (DC) Forum

[seraph9]

I am lucky enough to have offers from both Munger and Gibson (DC). I have a slight preference for LA, but am interested in appellate litigation which Gibson obviously excels in. I am also interested in working at a US Attorneys office or at the DOJ down the road, and while I am moderately conservative, I don't rate that very highly as a factor. It seems like Munger has better partnership prospects and substantive early experience because of the low leverage, while Gibson crushes appellate and white collar and would probobly be better for getting a government job in DC? I would love to get everyone's opinion, and what y'all know about the work/people/substantive experience/reputation/government exit opportunities of the two firms.

[sidesalad]

If you have a preference for LA, even slight, I would do Munger. They send a ton of people to the USAO and DOJ. And their appellate group is very strong, both in LA and more recently in DC. So I'd go to Munger and if you decide you really want to be in DC in the future, you could see if you could transfer to their DC office (and working under Don Verrilli seems a pretty good deal and not a bad path to government work in DC, though that likely will depend on the administration at the time).

Based on what I've heard from people I know at both firms, the culture is better at Munger as are (as you note) the partnership prospects. Low leverage means less ramp-up time, too, before you should be doing real work.

[Anonymous User]

I am lucky enough to have offers from both Munger and Gibson (DC). I have a slight preference for LA, but am interested in appellate litigation which Gibson obviously excels in. I am also interested in working at a US Attorneys office or at the DOJ down the road, and while I am moderately conservative, I don't rate that very highly as a factor. It seems like Munger has better partnership prospects and substantive early experience because of the low leverage, while Gibson crushes appellate and white collar and would probobly be better for getting a government job in DC? I would love to get everyone's opinion, and what y'all know about the work/people/substantive experience/reputation/government exit opportunities of the two firms.

Munger seems to be growing its appellate practice quickly, they opened a DC office and hired Don Verilli and many attys from the Obama SG's office and OLC. Plus it's probably a better firm to be as a young attorney and partnership at Gibson is supposed to be near-impossible. Plus withdrawing from Gibson would open up a spot for me . Overall I think the decision is clear.

[Anonymous User]

If you have a preference for LA, even slight, I would do Munger. They send a ton of people to the USAO and DOJ. And their appellate group is very strong, both in LA and more recently in DC. So I'd go to Munger and if you decide you really want to be in DC in the future, you could see if you could transfer to their DC office (and working under Don Verrilli seems a pretty good deal and not a bad path to government work in DC, though that likely will depend on the administration at the time).

Based on what I've heard from people I know at both firms, the culture is better at Munger as are (as you note) the partnership prospects. Low leverage means less ramp-up time, too, before you should be doing real work.

I work/worked at MTO; anon for obvious reasons. AUSA is true, but I have not seen anyone go to main justice in several years. Definitely not directly from the LA office. Maybe someone has landed there after making another move first.

You generally cannot "see if you can transfer to the DC office". There are like 8 attorneys there, all of whom currently started in that office (coming largely, but not exclusively, from OSG or from SCOTUS clerkships). I don't want to say it's impossible, if you did a lot of appellate and were well-liked by the DC partners. But I absolutely wouldn't count on this. It is a truly cross-office firm in terms of your daily work, but your main relationships will likely still be in LA and SF, and actual office transfers are pretty rare.

No real insight into Gibson but friends I've known there seemed pretty happy, relatively speaking for biglaw. Agreed that you will get early responsibility at MTO, but it's statistically pretty likely to be trial court work.

Preference for LA probably seals it for MTO here, at least for trying it out for a summer, unless you are pretty sure you want to end up in DC government down the line. That said, a lot of these things are questions you can ask on a second look or call with whatever associates you clicked with on your callback.

[Anonymous User]

If you have a preference for LA, even slight, I would do Munger. They send a ton of people to the USAO and DOJ. And their appellate group is very strong, both in LA and more recently in DC. So I'd go to Munger and if you decide you really want to be in DC in the future, you could see if you could transfer to their DC office (and working under Don Verrilli seems a pretty good deal and not a bad path to government work in DC, though that likely will depend on the administration at the time).

Based on what I've heard from people I know at both firms, the culture is better at Munger as are (as you note) the partnership prospects. Low leverage means less ramp-up time, too, before you should be doing real work.

I work/worked at MTO; anon for obvious reasons. AUSA is true, but I have not seen anyone go to main justice in several years. Definitely not directly from the LA office. Maybe someone has landed there after making another move first.

You generally cannot "see if you can transfer to the DC office". There are like 8 attorneys there, all of whom currently started in that office (coming largely, but not exclusively, from OSG or from SCOTUS clerkships). I don't want to say it's impossible, if you did a lot of appellate and were well-liked by the DC partners. But I absolutely wouldn't count on this. It is a truly cross-office firm in terms of your daily work, but your main relationships will likely still be in LA and SF, and actual office transfers are pretty rare.

No real insight into Gibson but friends I've known there seemed pretty happy, relatively speaking for biglaw. Agreed that you will get early responsibility at MTO, but it's statistically pretty likely to be trial court work.

Preference for LA probably seals it for MTO here, at least for trying it out for a summer, unless you are pretty sure you want to end up in DC government down the line. That said, a lot of these things are questions you can ask on a second look or call with whatever associates you clicked with on your callback.

I am in the same position and so am also anonymous. I agree with all of this. I would underscore that if you are interested in joining a firm and attempting to stay on through partnership, MTO is a no brainer. The track is really short — take a look at the graduation years for recent partnership classes — and while it’s obviously hard, no one would suggest it is impossible or an unrealistic goal to set, as the size of recent partnership classes relative to the firm headcount demonstrates.

[Anonymous User]

GDC DC alum checking in. I got substantive experience very early on and appellate/SCOTUS work despite having no clerkship. The firm would rather have people transfer offices than leave, and moving from DC to the LA office is relatively easy according to the people I knew who did it. I knew at least one associate who went to CD Cal as an AUSA straight from GDC DC. Don't hesitate to reach out to GDC recruiting and ask to speak to attorneys who had the experience you're interested in (AUSA/DOJ, transferred to LA, etc.), they'll make it happen if you want to know more.

[Anonymous User]

Bump

[LBJ's Hair]

If you want to preserve geographic flexibility, answer is pretty clearly GDC. That's probably how I'd make my decision, since both firms are excellent and your career aspirations seem largely unformed (appellate but also USAO but also maybe firm partner) and GDC is like, a good-to-excellent option for all of those things? (FWIW I know nothing about the relative partnership prospects at GDC vs MTO but suspect many/most of the posters here don't either.) Know people at GDC who have moved offices; if were in DC one year then got engaged and needed to move to LA, would be a pretty painless process.

But you can't go wrong obviously, both great firms/offices

[derekne]

If you want to preserve geographic flexibility, answer is pretty clearly GDC. That's probably how I'd make my decision, since both firms are excellent and your career aspirations seem largely unformed (appellate but also USAO but also maybe firm partner) and GDC is like, a good-to-excellent option for all of those things? (FWIW I know nothing about the relative partnership prospects at GDC vs MTO but suspect many/most of the posters here don't either.) Know people at GDC who have moved offices; if were in DC one year then got engaged and needed to move to LA, would be a pretty painless process.

But you can't go wrong obviously, both great firms/offices

Agree with the above, though I think MTO definitely wins on partnership prospects. Their associate:partner ratio is incredibly close to 1:1,which is absurdly low for BigLaw and the best you can hope for if you’re gunning to make partner.

[LBJ's Hair]

If you want to preserve geographic flexibility, answer is pretty clearly GDC. That's probably how I'd make my decision, since both firms are excellent and your career aspirations seem largely unformed (appellate but also USAO but also maybe firm partner) and GDC is like, a good-to-excellent option for all of those things? (FWIW I know nothing about the relative partnership prospects at GDC vs MTO but suspect many/most of the posters here don't either.) Know people at GDC who have moved offices; if were in DC one year then got engaged and needed to move to LA, would be a pretty painless process.

But you can't go wrong obviously, both great firms/offices

Agree with the above, though I think MTO definitely wins on partnership prospects. Their associate:partner ratio is incredibly close to 1:1,which is absurdly low for BigLaw and the best you can hope for if you’re gunning to make partner.

yeah the leverage is favorable obviously, I just have no clue how these decisions get made, how many they make a year vs how many MTO associates are staying on til they get pushed out vis-a-vis GDC, etc

[Anonymous User]

First MTO associate anon from above. My visibility into the actual decision factors is obviously limited. Number of partners made per year is public, and has ranged from 4-8ish. Most but not all are homegrown; last year, I believe all 8 were. Usually around 20-25 incoming associates every year, sometimes less, sometimes a year will have a lateral hire or three, so you can do the math. The odds are quite good if you stick around. But there's of course a fair degree of the typical 3rd-5th-year attrition. My anecdotal impression is it seems like about 1/4 to 1/2 of the associates who stick around to year 6 or so end up making it. The lower end of that would be my best guess for something like a running average.

I'll say I don't think the shortened partnership track and relatively good odds of partnership are unambiguous good things. It depends on your goals.

[derekne]

If you want to preserve geographic flexibility, answer is pretty clearly GDC. That's probably how I'd make my decision, since both firms are excellent and your career aspirations seem largely unformed (appellate but also USAO but also maybe firm partner) and GDC is like, a good-to-excellent option for all of those things? (FWIW I know nothing about the relative partnership prospects at GDC vs MTO but suspect many/most of the posters here don't either.) Know people at GDC who have moved offices; if were in DC one year then got engaged and needed to move to LA, would be a pretty painless process.

But you can't go wrong obviously, both great firms/offices

Agree with the above, though I think MTO definitely wins on partnership prospects. Their associate:partner ratio is incredibly close to 1:1,which is absurdly low for BigLaw and the best you can hope for if you’re gunning to make partner.

yeah the leverage is favorable obviously, I just have no clue how these decisions get made, how many they make a year vs how many MTO associates are staying on til they get pushed out vis-a-vis GDC, etc

Agreed. The actual elevation process is opaque everywhere, and for most firms it’s hard to actually say whether or not people have better partnership prospects vis a vis another firm. But the incredibly low leverage makes me think an MTO guy has far better odds making partner than someone in a prominent satellite office of a more highly levered firm.