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Curious if any of you have experience in firms in tertiary markets that hire regularly from the T14 and/or biglaw laterals. It seems that most tertiary markets in my region have at least one firm like that, often paying close to biglaw salary for associates once you adjust for cost of living. Do smaller cases and deals and fewer attorneys really mean better substantive experience? Will that offset for the (presumable) lack of formal training? Are the hours much better if they're still packed with biglaw alums? Anyone make this kind of move and regret it? I assume nobody is hiring right now, and I have a good biglaw offer and a clerkship lined up so it's not necessarily pressing, but I'm curious for the future.

RBH (Charlotte) and Smith Anderson (Raleigh) come to mind. Gunster (Miami) and Bilzin (Miami) as well.

Never worked at any of them but I know people at all four.

This is definitely a phenomenon, but I also don't know much about it. Belin McCormick in Des Moines, Foley & Lardner in Madison, and Hilgers Graben in Lincoln are all examples in the Midwest. I know the first two are around cost of living-adjusted BL market and the third probably is as well. Hilgers Graben seems pretty unique in that (a) it's mostly Chicago Law grads and basically 100% ex-BL in their lit group and (b) they don't seem to have much of a local client base (e.g. it's not ranked on Chambers) because they claim to specialize in "geographic arbitrage," but they have a big e-discovery practice. I'd be curious to hear what that's like.

I've never worked any of these places, but I know people here.

Bilzin (Miami) is a pretty interesting firm. I have a friend there, and I was surprised to look up and see that they had a PPP $1.5M in 2018. They seem to do some major real estate deals and are supposedly a pretty good employer as far as biglaw + boutiques go.

Belin McCormick (Des Moines) definitely qualifies here. The almost exclusively higher T14 or order of the coif from Iowa/Drake, and they'll hire at most one new grad a year, but it's generally zero. It's only 4.5 years until partnership, and I think that means equity, but it's somewhere on the EWYK spectrum so young partners are unlikely to make $$$$.

Maslon (Minneapolis) does some pretty major work for the Vikings (NFL), Target, etc. It starts at ~$140k and partnership seems pretty guaranteed. Know some folks there who say they have a good work life balance.

Reinhart (Milwaukee) (they're also in 5 other small markets, 2 medium ones, and 1 big one) starts at ~$135k-$140k I believe and is the same deal as Maslon re: partnership + client quality.

Belin McCormick was one of the inspirations for the post. I know two people with Susman-level credentials who want to end up there and it no-offered a student from HYSCCN recently, which is crazy for a firm in Des Moines. Hard ties are a must though it seems. Biglaw-esque work in a Miami boutique seems like a lifestyle I could get used to haha.

Modrall Sperling (full service) and Peifer, Hanson, Mullins, & Baker (lit boutique) in Albuquerque are both filled with attorneys from T14 schools as well. There might be other New Mexico firms like that, from the New Mexicans I know it seems like the sort of place that would draw a lot of natives back home.

Anyone aware of any firms that fit this bill in Detroit market? (I’m aware of Bodman and honigman, but not sure if those fit in same category of the firms discussed above).

Anonymous User wrote:Anyone aware of any firms that fit this bill in Detroit market? (I’m aware of Bodman and honigman, but not sure if those fit in same category of the firms discussed above).

Apart from the usual Detroit firms (Honigman, Dickinson, Dykema, etc.), Bush Seyferth Page is a smaller shop -- Judge Kethledge (CA 6) used to be a name partner and it now has many of his former clerks working there, as well as other former district and circuit court clerks.

ribbit16 wrote:Curious if any of you have experience in firms in tertiary markets that hire regularly from the T14 and/or biglaw laterals. It seems that most tertiary markets in my region have at least one firm like that, often paying close to biglaw salary for associates once you adjust for cost of living. Do smaller cases and deals and fewer attorneys really mean better substantive experience? Will that offset for the (presumable) lack of formal training? Are the hours much better if they're still packed with biglaw alums? Anyone make this kind of move and regret it? I assume nobody is hiring right now, and I have a good biglaw offer and a clerkship lined up so it's not necessarily pressing, but I'm curious for the future.

I work in a pretty small market that has a few V100 firms and it has been really good for me. I left NYC and moved here on a whim since my SO is from the area and we wanted to get out of NYC. It ended up being a great decision, though I feel like I did get lucky, since I've seen other laterals to my firm and others not have the same experience. I switched practice areas and got thrown in the deep end really fast, which was stressful, but I learned a lot. Also, again, maybe I got lucky, but my partners are just different here, way more like normal, hard-working people. Even though I grew up around NYC and definitely feel at home there, I found the work culture sociopathic and found most "successful people" to be weird and transactional.

Now, I actually bill more in my new market. It definitely has to do with my being thought of positively, which is why after only 2.5 years in my practice here, I essentially am the client point of contact for a majority of my deals. So while the training isn't as good and there are less capable bodies to help with things like schedules and diligence, you get really good "real-world" experience that builds up your knowledge base fast (it has to, or else you burnout or mess up something that causes trust to wane with your bosses). Despite billing more, I am home for dinner 90% of the time. I can afford to buy a house with a yard for my dog to run around. The restaurant scene is actually pretty dam good and I eat amazing meals for 1/3 the price I would in NY.

Definitely recommend, even if for a bit of a reset from the insanity of big-city/biglaw living. Only advice is to make sure you will like the people you'll work with. I actually got an offer from a more prestigious and higher paying firm in my current city, but turned it down because I clicked with the people more. In smaller cities, attorneys stay at the same firm for a long time so culture is pretty baked in and easy to see, unlike in NY, where practice groups can have 45 people in the same office, so make sure you feel out the culture pretty hard during interviews.

Anonymous User wrote:

ribbit16 wrote:Curious if any of you have experience in firms in tertiary markets that hire regularly from the T14 and/or biglaw laterals. It seems that most tertiary markets in my region have at least one firm like that, often paying close to biglaw salary for associates once you adjust for cost of living. Do smaller cases and deals and fewer attorneys really mean better substantive experience? Will that offset for the (presumable) lack of formal training? Are the hours much better if they're still packed with biglaw alums? Anyone make this kind of move and regret it? I assume nobody is hiring right now, and I have a good biglaw offer and a clerkship lined up so it's not necessarily pressing, but I'm curious for the future.

I work in a pretty small market that has a few V100 firms and it has been really good for me. I left NYC and moved here on a whim since my SO is from the area and we wanted to get out of NYC. It ended up being a great decision, though I feel like I did get lucky, since I've seen other laterals to my firm and others not have the same experience. I switched practice areas and got thrown in the deep end really fast, which was stressful, but I learned a lot. Also, again, maybe I got lucky, but my partners are just different here, way more like normal, hard-working people. Even though I grew up around NYC and definitely feel at home there, I found the work culture sociopathic and found most "successful people" to be weird and transactional.

Now, I actually bill more in my new market. It definitely has to do with my being thought of positively, which is why after only 2.5 years in my practice here, I essentially am the client point of contact for a majority of my deals. So while the training isn't as good and there are less capable bodies to help with things like schedules and diligence, you get really good "real-world" experience that builds up your knowledge base fast (it has to, or else you burnout or mess up something that causes trust to wane with your bosses). Despite billing more, I am home for dinner 90% of the time. I can afford to buy a house with a yard for my dog to run around. The restaurant scene is actually pretty dam good and I eat amazing meals for 1/3 the price I would in NY.

Definitely recommend, even if for a bit of a reset from the insanity of big-city/biglaw living. Only advice is to make sure you will like the people you'll work with. I actually got an offer from a more prestigious and higher paying firm in my current city, but turned it down because I clicked with the people more. In smaller cities, attorneys stay at the same firm for a long time so culture is pretty baked in and easy to see, unlike in NY, where practice groups can have 45 people in the same office, so make sure you feel out the culture pretty hard during interviews.

Thanks for the helpful response! Can you speak at all to the experiences of the laterals you mentioned who didn't get so lucky? Do you think there's a benefit to starting out in biglaw even if you want to end up at a firm like yours, or is it better to go there directly after school to start gaining experience and building a network?

Edit: accidental anon, this is OP