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Band 2 Emerging Companies Work

Post by Anonymous User » Wed Nov 25, 2020 4:13 pm

I'm a midlevel M&A associate at a V10 firm in New York looking to make the switch to an emerging companies practice here. Goal is to stay in biglaw for another 2-3 years and then move in-house to either a promising start-up or big tech company. I have an offer from the NY office of a CA band 2 VC practice (Goodwin/Latham/Orrick) but haven't heard back from Cooley/WSGR/Gunderson/Fenwick yet. Two questions as I think about the next move to make:
    • Cooley and Gunderson seem to be considered the best practices for New York start-up work, though many threads discussing this are at least a few years old. Are the other practices still that far behind?
    • Let's assume I don't hear back from the top VC shops. Given my goals, do you think it would be better to accept one of the offers I have or pass, stick with M&A a bit longer, and then try to make a move in-house directly? Put another way, will the experience of doing biglaw start-up work at Goodwin/Latham/Orrick better position me for a move in-house than continuing my practice at a top M&A shop?
    FWIW I'm not feeling burnt out from M&A yet (but getting there), so could stick it out a bit longer if that's the best option. Would appreciate any insight from someone in one of these practices or who has made a similar move.

    Anonymous User
    Posts: 432521
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    Re: Band 2 Emerging Companies Work

    Post by Anonymous User » Wed Nov 25, 2020 5:04 pm

    At one of the places you list as "top" shops. Just FYI that the EC lawyers at the "band 2" group are also excellent in my experience, plenty capable/good at EC work. So I would say go for it. Doing that work would definitely make you more competitive for a future lateral biglaw move and likely set you up better for EC-type in-house moves. Speculative: I would imagine one difference is between the "top four" you mentioned and next tier is the degree their entire firm revolves around EC -- or are their NY offices doing a lot of non-EC work that you could get roped back into M&A stuff. I don't know one way or the other.

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