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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.

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.