Best post-grad experience for plaintiff lawyer? Forum

[Tide030]

My goal is to do high-value plaintiff work (e.g., catastrophic injury, products liability, medmal, bad faith, class actions or commercial contingency cases). What's the best experience you would recommend?

A lot of lawyers tout federal clerkships saying they're the best training a trial lawyer can get. Others say they're less useful for plaintiff attorneys because (1) there are few civil trials so most work will be unrelated, and (2) plaintiff practices focus less on researching past cases and more on creatively arguing facts or the expansion of the law. In short, complex work, but no trial experience.

Many lawyers recommend criminal work to quickly get trial and courtroom experience. Others tell me there's little cross over because the rules, method of investigation, and legal topics are so different/unrelated. Trial experience, but not complex civil work.

Others say mid/biglaw defense work is the most beneficial because the practice area is the same and having insight from how the opponent operates and thinks is invaluable. Yet many argue they received little portable experience and had minimal responsibility so the only real benefit was prestige and money. Some exposure to trial and complex cases.

And of course others say no need to do any of the above, just find a well-regarded plaintiff firm. But many also seem to discourage this because trial experience is already so rare for civil cases and no one wants to trust a new attorney with no lit/trial experience by giving them valuable cases. So either complex work or trial experience with car wrecks/slip-and-falls.

Thoughts? How should these be ranked?

[LitBoutiqueAssociate]

Assuming you have offers at all types, I'd say definitely take a federal clerkship. Then I'd say well-regarded high-stakes plaintiff work, followed by trial boutiques that do civil litigation (many of the former category fall into this one, so this category is a catch-all), followed by biglaw, followed by midlaw, followed by criminal work.

The federal clerkship comes first because it makes it easier to get into the second and third categories.

[Anonymous User]

Anon cause this might out me otherwise. I work at a very high-end plaintiffs lit boutique.

Most of our attorneys are homegrown, i.e. summered. As with other plaintiffs boutiques, we have a rigorous summer program but don’t offer all our summers jobs post graduation. They work hard and we evaluate our hiring needs in relation to their reviews and work product.

We also have a number of former fed clerks who joined after their clerkship ended and could articulate strong reasons why they wanted a plaintiffs side firm. We occasionally hire ex-biglaw folks, myself included. There usually is extreme skepticism around ex-biglaw folks in trying to understand whether they really want to switch “sides”. We are staffed much leaner than biglaw firms, so we have first years meeting clients, writing substantive filings, etc. We can’t afford to have a ex-biglaw associate who only has done doc review or written pieces of motions.

We also occasionally get ex DOJ folks, but they usually come in as partners. So that can happen as well.

If you have a fed clerkship lined up, that would be probably your best bet now. You can make the switch from biglaw to a high-end plaintiffs boutique, but prepared to face skepticism.

Edit: the criminal law thing is ridiculous. Maybe at a lot boutique that focuses on white collar defense, but otherwise it’s not relevant at all to our practice, both on the class action side and the individual representation side. Sure trial experience is handy, but at my firm and others like it, they will get you trial experience very quickly anyway.

[Anonymous User]

Anon cause this might out me otherwise. I work at a very high-end plaintiffs lit boutique.

Most of our attorneys are homegrown, i.e. summered. As with other plaintiffs boutiques, we have a rigorous summer program but don’t offer all our summers jobs post graduation. They work hard and we evaluate our hiring needs in relation to their reviews and work product.

We also have a number of former fed clerks who joined after their clerkship ended and could articulate strong reasons why they wanted a plaintiffs side firm. We occasionally hire ex-biglaw folks, myself included. There usually is extreme skepticism around ex-biglaw folks in trying to understand whether they really want to switch “sides”. We are staffed much leaner than biglaw firms, so we have first years meeting clients, writing substantive filings, etc. We can’t afford to have a ex-biglaw associate who only has done doc review or written pieces of motions.

We also occasionally get ex DOJ folks, but they usually come in as partners. So that can happen as well.

If you have a fed clerkship lined up, that would be probably your best bet now. You can make the switch from biglaw to a high-end plaintiffs boutique, but prepared to face skepticism.

Edit: the criminal law thing is ridiculous. Maybe at a lot boutique that focuses on white collar defense, but otherwise it’s not relevant at all to our practice, both on the class action side and the individual representation side. Sure trial experience is handy, but at my firm and others like it, they will get you trial experience very quickly anyway.

What would you consider strong reasons to work plaintiff-side? I think it's cool to work for plaintiffs and would like the earlier experience that plaintiff-side firms seem to provide, but I'm not sure if those are strong enough reasons in an interview (considering applying post-clerkship eventually).

[Anonymous User]

Anon cause this might out me otherwise. I work at a very high-end plaintiffs lit boutique.

Most of our attorneys are homegrown, i.e. summered. As with other plaintiffs boutiques, we have a rigorous summer program but don’t offer all our summers jobs post graduation. They work hard and we evaluate our hiring needs in relation to their reviews and work product.

We also have a number of former fed clerks who joined after their clerkship ended and could articulate strong reasons why they wanted a plaintiffs side firm. We occasionally hire ex-biglaw folks, myself included. There usually is extreme skepticism around ex-biglaw folks in trying to understand whether they really want to switch “sides”. We are staffed much leaner than biglaw firms, so we have first years meeting clients, writing substantive filings, etc. We can’t afford to have a ex-biglaw associate who only has done doc review or written pieces of motions.

We also occasionally get ex DOJ folks, but they usually come in as partners. So that can happen as well.

If you have a fed clerkship lined up, that would be probably your best bet now. You can make the switch from biglaw to a high-end plaintiffs boutique, but prepared to face skepticism.

Edit: the criminal law thing is ridiculous. Maybe at a lot boutique that focuses on white collar defense, but otherwise it’s not relevant at all to our practice, both on the class action side and the individual representation side. Sure trial experience is handy, but at my firm and others like it, they will get you trial experience very quickly anyway.

Thanks for the insight. I have no desire to do biglaw so I'd much rather start with a plaintiff firm than make a switch down the road. What do plaintiff boutiques look for when hiring summers or new associates? Are the same biglaw values emphasized? (GPA > LR > Moot Court > Volunteer Work)