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Anyone have thoughts on being a young associate at Boies Schiller, given their latest round of bad press? From being an actual named defendant in a lawsuit by Dershowitz to today's New York Times story about David Boies's most recent antics described below, I'm worried about both association with the firm and cutbacks to associate bonus driven by clients being scared away.

I mean, let's be fair, if I was looking to hire a firm for a complex action and I read this stuff, I'd say BSF can't get away from their press and are more trouble than they are worth! Or at least, they have their own interests and agendas. The worry is that this has got to be a drag on any potential business. Thoughts? Anyone been hearing anything from within the firm?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/30/busi ... e=Homepage

(Anon for obvious reasons)

Dunno about clients, but more immediate problems for them are gonna be associate recruiting/retention. If you have an offer from another elite NY lit shop, why pick Boies? Not a name I'd be dying to have on my resume.

LBJ's Hair wrote:Dunno about clients, but more immediate problems for them are gonna be associate recruiting/retention. If you have an offer from another elite NY lit shop, why pick Boies? Not a name I'd be dying to have on my resume.

My thoughts are (a) there aren't THAT many elite lit shops in NY (Susman, Selendy, maybe Quinn? not sure if there are many others in NY quite at that level); and (b) the way to address potential recruiting concerns is by showing that you pay associates handsomely. So it comes down to nabbing clients --> building business --> paying associates.

Many graduates would kill to start their career at a small firm like Boies and pull down $200-300k right out of law school (or whatever their hours-based above-market bonuses are at this point.)

The reputation and the “BSF” name will have an impact on how much business they can drum up—but they have been getting “bad” press for years without slowing down.

dvlthndr wrote:Many graduates would kill to start their career at a small firm like Boies and pull down $200-300k right out of law school (or whatever their hours-based above-market bonuses are at this point.)

The reputation and the “BSF” name will have an impact on how much business they can drum up—but they have been getting “bad” press for years without slowing down.

Sure, the average T14 grad would probably hold their nose and take a BSF offer, but most people who get BSF offers have other attractive options on the table. To the extent recent bad press (which is undoubtedly worse than their past PR issues) has a marginal effect on this fairly small population, it's a big negative for the firm. They could counter this by decreasing selectivity, but I'd imagine that'd have a long-run impact on their ability to continue paying above market.

(N=1, but I turned down BSF in law school and picked a different above market firm in part because of BSF's poor reputation, and this was before the most recent revelations.)

Anonymous User wrote:

LBJ's Hair wrote:Dunno about clients, but more immediate problems for them are gonna be associate recruiting/retention. If you have an offer from another elite NY lit shop, why pick Boies? Not a name I'd be dying to have on my resume.

My thoughts are (a) there aren't THAT many elite lit shops in NY (Susman, Selendy, maybe Quinn? not sure if there are many others in NY quite at that level); and (b) the way to address potential recruiting concerns is by showing that you pay associates handsomely. So it comes down to nabbing clients --> building business --> paying associates.

There are a ton of elite litigation firms in NY. Kobre & Kim, Morvillo Abramowitz, MoloLamken, McKool Smith, and the list goes on. A lot of these firms don't get a lot of buzz with law students, but that doesn't mean they aren't great firms with top tier litigators.

Boies has plenty of competition, but I'm not sure at all how the recent press will impact them.

Anonymous User wrote:

LBJ's Hair wrote:Dunno about clients, but more immediate problems for them are gonna be associate recruiting/retention. If you have an offer from another elite NY lit shop, why pick Boies? Not a name I'd be dying to have on my resume.

My thoughts are (a) there aren't THAT many elite lit shops in NY (Susman, Selendy, maybe Quinn? not sure if there are many others in NY quite at that level); and (b) the way to address potential recruiting concerns is by showing that you pay associates handsomely. So it comes down to nabbing clients --> building business --> paying associates.

I mean also Mololamken, Holwell, Kobre & Kim, Morvillo, Kaplan, off the top of my head...plus the numerous traditional BigLaw firms that have strong litigation practices...

Obvi BSF isn't gonna *shut down*. But I think it's gonna be harder to attract the same talent they've traditionally been able to pull. Color me skeptical that a magna HLS CA2 clerk is dying to work at a sweatshop whose name partner is tied up in the Epstein and Weinstein fiascos when she could go to Molo. Or even S&C?

All speculation and anecdata though, we'll see

Anyone thinking about these firms needs to think hard about what they actually want to do, not just look at what firms are "elite" based on size, so that there's one list for large firms (e.g., high-ranked Vault firms) and one list for small firms ("elite boutiques"). For example, a few people above named Kobre & Kim an elite boutique, but what they do is totally different than what shops like Susman, MoloLamken, and even BSF do. Kobre & Kim did some MBS-based lit back when they first started, but now they predominantly do cross-border judgment enforcement/defense, with a sprinkling of investigations.

So if you were thinking about BSF because you wanted to do elite-level lit in NY, but are turned off by their bad press, you're not going to want to turn to Kobre & Kim. It's just a different animal, despite the seemingly comparable size/appearance.

FWIW, I do think BSF's press problems are real, and can't just be dismissed by David Boies when he gives his next interview in his Armonk vineyard to Vanity Fair or whatever.

How does the prestige of BSF NY compare to their DC office? Despite the bad press, given their above-market bonuses, would it be reasonable to still pick BSF DC over traditional top DC firms? (Like Hogan/Wilmer/A&P etc.)

Anonymous User wrote:How does the prestige of BSF NY compare to their DC office? Despite the bad press, given their above-market bonuses, would it be reasonable to still pick BSF DC over traditional top DC firms? (Like Hogan/Wilmer/A&P etc.)

It would be reasonable, but also more risky: greater upside (above-market bonus) as well as greater downside (firm instability, less reliable work streams, bad press/reputation, and ultimately, clients being driven away). Just today the Times published a follow-up to their Nov. 30th story on David Boies ("David Boies, a Star Lawyer, Faces Fresh Questions Over Ethics"). And the Dershovitz litigation against both Boies and the firm isn't going away.


The traditional top DC firms will be less controversial but also more predictable and routinized, in terms of day-to-day work.

Joachim2017 wrote:Anyone thinking about these firms needs to think hard about what they actually want to do, not just look at what firms are "elite" based on size, so that there's one list for large firms (e.g., high-ranked Vault firms) and one list for small firms ("elite boutiques"). For example, a few people above named Kobre & Kim an elite boutique, but what they do is totally different than what shops like Susman, MoloLamken, and even BSF do. Kobre & Kim did some MBS-based lit back when they first started, but now they predominantly do cross-border judgment enforcement/defense, with a sprinkling of investigations.

So if you were thinking about BSF because you wanted to do elite-level lit in NY, but are turned off by their bad press, you're not going to want to turn to Kobre & Kim. It's just a different animal, despite the seemingly comparable size/appearance.

That's true, but I guess I don't think it's weird to have a like, fairly unformed view of what *sort* of litigation you want to do 1-2 years out of law school, select for reptutation/compensation/leverage/relative shittiness of hours/location, and then figure out practice preference as a midlevel.

Joachim2017 wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:How does the prestige of BSF NY compare to their DC office? Despite the bad press, given their above-market bonuses, would it be reasonable to still pick BSF DC over traditional top DC firms? (Like Hogan/Wilmer/A&P etc.)

It would be reasonable, but also more risky: greater upside (above-market bonus) as well as greater downside (firm instability, less reliable work streams, bad press/reputation, and ultimately, clients being driven away). Just today the Times published a follow-up to their Nov. 30th story on David Boies ("David Boies, a Star Lawyer, Faces Fresh Questions Over Ethics"). And the Dershovitz litigation against both Boies and the firm isn't going away.


The traditional top DC firms will be less controversial but also more predictable and routinized, in terms of day-to-day work.

"Less reliable work streams"—so associates billing 2200 rather than 2400–2800?

BlackAndOrange84 wrote:

Joachim2017 wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:How does the prestige of BSF NY compare to their DC office? Despite the bad press, given their above-market bonuses, would it be reasonable to still pick BSF DC over traditional top DC firms? (Like Hogan/Wilmer/A&P etc.)

It would be reasonable, but also more risky: greater upside (above-market bonus) as well as greater downside (firm instability, less reliable work streams, bad press/reputation, and ultimately, clients being driven away). Just today the Times published a follow-up to their Nov. 30th story on David Boies ("David Boies, a Star Lawyer, Faces Fresh Questions Over Ethics"). And the Dershovitz litigation against both Boies and the firm isn't going away.


The traditional top DC firms will be less controversial but also more predictable and routinized, in terms of day-to-day work.

"Less reliable work streams"—so associates billing 2200 rather than 2400–2800?

2200 isn't good when it's a mix of 50 and 300 hour months (which is what "less reliable work streams" often means in practice).

LBJ's Hair wrote:

Joachim2017 wrote:Anyone thinking about these firms needs to think hard about what they actually want to do, not just look at what firms are "elite" based on size, so that there's one list for large firms (e.g., high-ranked Vault firms) and one list for small firms ("elite boutiques"). For example, a few people above named Kobre & Kim an elite boutique, but what they do is totally different than what shops like Susman, MoloLamken, and even BSF do. Kobre & Kim did some MBS-based lit back when they first started, but now they predominantly do cross-border judgment enforcement/defense, with a sprinkling of investigations.

So if you were thinking about BSF because you wanted to do elite-level lit in NY, but are turned off by their bad press, you're not going to want to turn to Kobre & Kim. It's just a different animal, despite the seemingly comparable size/appearance.

That's true, but I guess I don't think it's weird to have a like, fairly unformed view of what *sort* of litigation you want to do 1-2 years out of law school, select for reptutation/compensation/leverage/relative shittiness of hours/location, and then figure out practice preference as a midlevel.

For what it's worth, and this is getting to be a bit of a side show, Kobre Kim doesn't hire entry level attorneys or even clerks, just laterals with lit experience: https://kobrekim.com/careers/lawyers/. And unlike (maybe) Molo, I don't think anyone really talks about Kobre Kim (or many of these other shops) in the same breath as places like Susman and BSF.

hlsperson1111 wrote:

BlackAndOrange84 wrote:

Joachim2017 wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:How does the prestige of BSF NY compare to their DC office? Despite the bad press, given their above-market bonuses, would it be reasonable to still pick BSF DC over traditional top DC firms? (Like Hogan/Wilmer/A&P etc.)

It would be reasonable, but also more risky: greater upside (above-market bonus) as well as greater downside (firm instability, less reliable work streams, bad press/reputation, and ultimately, clients being driven away). Just today the Times published a follow-up to their Nov. 30th story on David Boies ("David Boies, a Star Lawyer, Faces Fresh Questions Over Ethics"). And the Dershovitz litigation against both Boies and the firm isn't going away.


The traditional top DC firms will be less controversial but also more predictable and routinized, in terms of day-to-day work.

"Less reliable work streams"—so associates billing 2200 rather than 2400–2800?

2200 isn't good when it's a mix of 50 and 300 hour months (which is what "less reliable work streams" often means in practice).

I've never worked at a firm with a slow litigation practice, but I don't think that's how it would work at a lit boutique like BSF. They'd just go from steady 200–225 hour months plus spikes for trial and other periods of intense activity to a more reasonable ~180 plus spikes. The kind of less reliable work streams you're talking about seems more common in deal work than at a lit boutique where you're one of just a small number of associates on some number of cases.

BlackAndOrange84 wrote:

LBJ's Hair wrote:

Joachim2017 wrote:Anyone thinking about these firms needs to think hard about what they actually want to do, not just look at what firms are "elite" based on size, so that there's one list for large firms (e.g., high-ranked Vault firms) and one list for small firms ("elite boutiques"). For example, a few people above named Kobre & Kim an elite boutique, but what they do is totally different than what shops like Susman, MoloLamken, and even BSF do. Kobre & Kim did some MBS-based lit back when they first started, but now they predominantly do cross-border judgment enforcement/defense, with a sprinkling of investigations.

So if you were thinking about BSF because you wanted to do elite-level lit in NY, but are turned off by their bad press, you're not going to want to turn to Kobre & Kim. It's just a different animal, despite the seemingly comparable size/appearance.

That's true, but I guess I don't think it's weird to have a like, fairly unformed view of what *sort* of litigation you want to do 1-2 years out of law school, select for reptutation/compensation/leverage/relative shittiness of hours/location, and then figure out practice preference as a midlevel.

For what it's worth, and this is getting to be a bit of a side show, Kobre Kim doesn't hire entry level attorneys or even clerks, just laterals with lit experience: https://kobrekim.com/careers/lawyers/. And unlike (maybe) Molo, I don't think anyone really talks about Kobre Kim (or many of these other shops) in the same breath as places like [ ] BSF.

That's kind of the central debate of this thread, right? In 2019, I'd happily take a job at every single lit boutique named in this thread, and at least a dozen more traditional BigLaw firms, before I'd agree to work at BSF. An extra $50K a year post-tax(tops?) for tying my professional reputation to David Boies's? Reasonable people can disagree, but for me, no thanks.

Hard to believe that a couple news stories about David Boies would have an appreciable impact on an associate, the value of working at BSF, etc. The news stories are not bombshells (nor have they ever been), it's more like some reporter is saying "there's an arguable ethical issue in this gray area related to attorney ethics." As a general rule, stories in the media are out of proportion to reality. They consist of a reporter advancing an implicit argument. E.g., in the most recent story it would appear that Boies' partner (who is not actually a partner at the firm) is the one who has committed a wrong, to the extent that anyone has committed a wrong. The guy running a sting is bizarre himself and has suspect motives. I mean tbh Boies' actions in relation to Weinstein and the Israeli PI company are probably the most suspect, but even there it's not a "bombshell" because Boies was not directly involved, it was more so him signing off on some document without looking into the matter in detail.

Alive97 wrote:Hard to believe that a couple news stories about David Boies would have an appreciable impact on an associate, the value of working at BSF, etc. The news stories are not bombshells (nor have they ever been), it's more like some reporter is saying "there's an arguable ethical issue in this gray area related to attorney ethics." As a general rule, stories in the media are out of proportion to reality. They consist of a reporter advancing an implicit argument. E.g., in the most recent story it would appear that Boies' partner (who is not actually a partner at the firm) is the one who has committed a wrong, to the extent that anyone has committed a wrong. The guy running a sting is bizarre himself and has suspect motives. I mean tbh Boies' actions in relation to Weinstein and the Israeli PI company are probably the most suspect, but even there it's not a "bombshell" because Boies was not directly involved, it was more so him signing off on some document without looking into the matter in detail.

I think you're missing the point. It's not about whether someone -- a prospective BSF client or even incoming associate -- who carefully and closely reads the article(s) will think hard about whether the conduct is ultimately justifiable. The point is that most people will read / skim this sort of stuff quickly and form an impression. When you have good options, you have to make decisions on narrower grounds. This isn't about justification. It's about optics.

Joachim2017 wrote:

Alive97 wrote:Hard to believe that a couple news stories about David Boies would have an appreciable impact on an associate, the value of working at BSF, etc. The news stories are not bombshells (nor have they ever been), it's more like some reporter is saying "there's an arguable ethical issue in this gray area related to attorney ethics." As a general rule, stories in the media are out of proportion to reality. They consist of a reporter advancing an implicit argument. E.g., in the most recent story it would appear that Boies' partner (who is not actually a partner at the firm) is the one who has committed a wrong, to the extent that anyone has committed a wrong. The guy running a sting is bizarre himself and has suspect motives. I mean tbh Boies' actions in relation to Weinstein and the Israeli PI company are probably the most suspect, but even there it's not a "bombshell" because Boies was not directly involved, it was more so him signing off on some document without looking into the matter in detail.

I think you're missing the point. It's not about whether someone -- a prospective BSF client or even incoming associate -- who carefully and closely reads the article(s) will think hard about whether the conduct is ultimately justifiable. The point is that most people will read / skim this sort of stuff quickly and form an impression. When you have good options, you have to make decisions on narrower grounds. This isn't about justification. It's about optics.

To the extent that random media stories automatically create optics issues, that's unfortunate, because the media is in the business of exaggerating and people should really just assume that to be the case. But I still find it hard to believe that there's anything more than a negligible impact, unless it's a true bombshell that is recognized as such. Especially for an incoming associate, this isn't going to damage their career. Choose BSF for the pay and autonomy/responsibility you get. These media stories are negligible factors.

Alive97 wrote:To the extent that random media stories automatically create optics issues, that's unfortunate, because the media is in the business of exaggerating and people should really just assume that to be the case. But I still find it hard to believe that there's anything more than a negligible impact, unless it's a true bombshell that is recognized as such. Especially for an incoming associate, this isn't going to damage their career. Choose BSF for the pay and autonomy/responsibility you get. These media stories are negligible factors.

Agree. Further, I'd even say that I don't really think there is much of an "optics issue" vis-a-vis BSF, at least not in the parts of the legal world where potential BSF associates operate. Sure, the man on the street may now have an unflattering impression of Boies, or even BSF, but here on TLS we've long counseled folks not to make decisions based on what the man on the street thinks. The man on the street ain't gonna be hiring a BSF alum.

QContinuum wrote:

Alive97 wrote:To the extent that random media stories automatically create optics issues, that's unfortunate, because the media is in the business of exaggerating and people should really just assume that to be the case. But I still find it hard to believe that there's anything more than a negligible impact, unless it's a true bombshell that is recognized as such. Especially for an incoming associate, this isn't going to damage their career. Choose BSF for the pay and autonomy/responsibility you get. These media stories are negligible factors.

Agree. Further, I'd even say that I don't really think there is much of an "optics issue" vis-a-vis BSF, at least not in the parts of the legal world where potential BSF associates operate. Sure, the man on the street may now have an unflattering impression of Boies, or even BSF, but here on TLS we've long counseled folks not to make decisions based on what the man on the street thinks. The man on the street ain't gonna be hiring a BSF alum.

Totally, I understand this argument in theory, but don't the concerns voiced by people in this very thread disprove the claim that there "isn't an optics issue in the parts of the legal world where potential BSF associates operate"? Some of us *are* those people. Or have friends who are, who have expressed serious concerns about Boies's behavior, said they wouldn't work there, etc.

Maybe we're a super-minority, but I'm not particularly left-wing and neither were the half-dozen or so people I've chatted about it with---we're not quick to condemn.

Perhaps this comes down to how much "better" you think BSF is than other NY lit shops, whatever "better" means.

LBJ's Hair wrote:Totally, I understand this argument in theory, but don't the concerns voiced by people in this very thread disprove the claim that there "isn't an optics issue in the parts of the legal world where potential BSF associates operate"? Some of us *are* those people. Or have friends who are, who have expressed serious concerns about Boies's behavior, said they wouldn't work there, etc.

I don't think expressing concern on TLS necessarily translates into any concrete real-world action. I have plenty of bleeding-heart friends who nonetheless joined BigLaw instead of doing PI. Others were horrified after 2016 but are now nevertheless working in Trump's DoJ. Etc.

Fair, but there's no way to make $190k without biglaw, and there's no other DoJ one can work for besides Trump's. Likewise, the vast majority of people with an opportunity to clerk for Kavanaugh don't have another option for getting into SCOTUS.

Almost everyone with a BSF offer has comparable alternatives they could choose instead. There's not as much of a "hold your nose for an irreplaceable opportunity" excuse there.

(FWIW, I also don't think this is a huge career killer, but I wouldn't work there personally in a current 2L's shoes.)

The thing is David Boies does not have a good reputation in the legal world. He's obviously a tremendously talented lawyer but there is a reason for the "Why shouldn't I work at Boies Schiller? Because you'd work for David Boies" joke.

It's not my world but they always get brought up as one of the worst firms to be on the other side of (sandbagging motions on purpose, etc.). I guess it's good if your a client, but if you care about "prestige" or whatever its not like other Biglaw associates are impressed you work there over any of the other good/specialized lit firms.

At the end of the day most of the really successful named partners are usually not the best people, so if they are going to pay you more than somewhere else it is what it is.

Winter is Coming wrote:The thing is David Boies does not have a good reputation in the legal world. He's obviously a tremendously talented lawyer but there is a reason for the "Why shouldn't I work at Boies Schiller? Because you'd work for David Boies" joke.

It's not my world but they always get brought up as one of the worst firms to be on the other side of (sandbagging motions on purpose, etc.). I guess it's good if your a client, but if you care about "prestige" or whatever its not like other Biglaw associates are impressed you work there over any of the other good/specialized lit firms.

At the end of the day most of the really successful named partners are usually not the best people, so if they are going to pay you more than somewhere else it is what it is.

This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. If anything, Boies (both the firm and the man) have a comparatively good rep in the legal world and a bad rep outside it, not the other way around. Lawyers (especially partners) understand what's actually going on. It's the trigger-happy folks outside it who quickly skim bad press and draw conclusions they're already predisposed to. (And that may include GCs.)

But the thing is, both groups are important. The poster who referred to "the man in the street" misses the fact that lawyers' families, friends, colleagues, etc are "the man in the street." So their opinions matter when making life decisions, too. Nothing is ever a silo anymore.