Firm Choice: Responsibility vs. Prestige Forum

[Anonymous User]

I'm graduating this year from a T15-18, top 5-10%, and going straight into a district court clerkship in a big city with a smaller legal market. I have a return offer from my SA firm (V50-70) in my preferred market, and I'm trying to decide how aggressive I should be in my post-clerkship job hunt. I want to litigate, so this is all geared towards litigation shops.

I've been viewing BigLaw as a tool towards an end: My preference has been towards finding a firm where teams are lean enough that I get larger responsibilities earlier on, because I want to amass as much experience as I can, before leaving 2-3 years in. My sense is that I would get this at my firm. If I'm going to be a cog in a machine, I'd rather be a larger cog on a smaller team, than a smaller cog on a larger team. (I deliberately chose to summer at this V50-70 over offers from V10-30s, thinking along these lines.)

My question for y'all is: Am I approaching this the wrong way? I'm curious to hear contrary opinions, i.e. why I might want to shoot for a relatively more "prestigious" firm in my preferred market (larger than the market I'm clerking in), even if it's a place with a reputation for bigger teams / associates stuck doing relatively more menial tasks for longer stretches of their careers.

[Anonymous User]

I'm graduating this year from a T15-18, top 5-10%, and going straight into a district court clerkship in a big city with a smaller legal market. I have a return offer from my SA firm (V50-70) in my preferred market, and I'm trying to decide how aggressive I should be in my post-clerkship job hunt. I want to litigate, so this is all geared towards litigation shops.

I've been viewing BigLaw as a tool towards an end: My preference has been towards finding a firm where teams are lean enough that I get larger responsibilities earlier on, because I want to amass as much experience as I can, before leaving 2-3 years in. My sense is that I would get this at my firm. If I'm going to be a cog in a machine, I'd rather be a larger cog on a smaller team, than a smaller cog on a larger team. (I deliberately chose to summer at this V50-70 over offers from V10-30s, thinking along these lines.)

My question for y'all is: Am I approaching this the wrong way? I'm curious to hear contrary opinions, i.e. why I might want to shoot for a relatively more "prestigious" firm in my preferred market (larger than the market I'm clerking in), even if it's a place with a reputation for bigger teams / associates stuck doing relatively more menial tasks for longer stretches of their careers.

There's no absolute answer to this question.

That said, I agree with your approach and recently chose a smaller, but still highly-regarded firm over several others because it's good at getting post-judicial clerks as much substantive experience as they're ready for. Maybe I will regret not going to the highest V firm I could later on for the exit options etc., but right now I'm focused on making the best possible transition from clerk to advocate and that comes from training and experience.

I would put a lot of factors before prestige when selecting a firm -- the ever nebulous firm "culture," pay, hours expectations, benefits/perks and on and on. Prestige isn't going to do you much good if you're truly miserable in six months.

[Anonymous User]

I agree with your approach. Being at a V10 won't mean much if all you're doing is doc review and caselaw research for 3-4 years.

Another thing to consider if you're really trying to get the most experience possible as quickly as possible, is the DOJ honors program. Since you're graduting and going straight into a clerkship, you'll still be eligible for the DOJ honors program when you finish your clerkship.

[papercutter]

What do you want to do after your 2-3 years at a firm?

[ConfusedNYer]

The first reply is right - there is no absolute answer.

[Note: all the below is really from a lit perspective, which I assume is where you are coming from. My understanding is that the calculus is often different from a transactional perspective.]

I was in a similar position, I intentionally took an offer for a lower ranked firm for my summer because they tended to have leaner teams, I then accepted an offer from a well regarded but not huge name boutique to get more experience rather than returning to biglaw after my clerkship.

I do think by and large I get better experience than the majority of my class year peers at biglaw. I've independently lead meet and confers during discovery, have been responsible for primary drafting on important filings, am generally on all my cases major calls so I understand what is happening at all levels of the case and don't get excluded from calls with opposing counsel (often the most junior lawyers on the calls with opposing counsel are significantly senior to me), and I'll start taking depositions next year as a third year.

That being said, I think there are two major things I overlooked that I would consider more thoroughly if I could go back:

1) Brand recognition / connections are very real. Even in lit. Getting my next job, particularly a competitive job like an AUSA position, will likely be more difficult even leveraging my additional experience. There aren't multiple partners who spent time in the gov't who can get my resume to the top of the pile and my firm name doesn't immediately scream "quality" to everyone who looks at my resume. I kind of understood this risk when I made my decision, but its honestly a bigger factor than I originally appreciated. That being said, partnership prospects are much better at a boutique (probably closer to 30-50% than like 10% at my firm) - so getting your next job may be less important. (Though that requires you to want to be a partner, which is a whole separate discussion).

2) You can 100% get good, substantive experience as a junior in biglaw, it is just not guaranteed. I have friends who have done many of the substantive tasks I've done and often times their experience has been much more meaningful than I would have guessed as a law student just reading TLS. Its not a guarantee, but if you can stand out from the pack you will have an opportunity to get real substantive experience in biglaw. On huge, sprawling litigation, even if you are a small cog on the case overall you can still be a big cog within an important subset of a case. I do think overall I am generally more looped in to case strategy compared to my peers though.

I still think I made the right choice, biglaw was probably never going to be a great place for me for a lot of reasons, but I wanted to provide a little more color based on what I've seen.

[Anonymous User]

What do you want to do after your 2-3 years at a firm?

OP here. Ideally, hop across the "v" and join one of the plaintiff-side shops that litigates MDLs / class actions, or go into a government litigation shop that does affirmative litigation. But I'm pretty broadly interested in going to government.

[Elston Gunn]

Your thinking makes sense, but how sure are you that the lower ranked firm really has leaner teams and/or a meaningfully different approach? You may have good insight, but that kind of thing doesn’t correlate that much with ranking or prestige level.

That’s not to say you should go with the highest V you can, but depending on how competitive your credentials are, you should look into high end boutiques that hire a lot of clerks if you haven’t already. That seems closer to a guarantee that you’ll get the experience you’re looking for. (Though work demands can sometimes be even higher.)

[Iowahawk]

Stating the obvious that you've probably considered here, but Vault does not necessarily correlate with prestige or exit options very much outside of NY. Even in Chicago, which is a really big market, there's not much difference between the prestige of Jenner and Kirkland for lit despite the 54-rank Vault difference. Check Chambers and there's no substitute for actually talking to people in the market.

[Anonymous User]

That being said, I think there are two major things I overlooked that I would consider more thoroughly if I could go back:

1) Brand recognition / connections are very real. Even in lit. Getting my next job, particularly a competitive job like an AUSA position, will likely be more difficult even leveraging my additional experience. There aren't multiple partners who spent time in the gov't who can get my resume to the top of the pile and my firm name doesn't immediately scream "quality" to everyone who looks at my resume. I kind of understood this risk when I made my decision, but its honestly a bigger factor than I originally appreciated. That being said, partnership prospects are much better at a boutique (probably closer to 30-50% than like 10% at my firm) - so getting your next job may be less important. (Though that requires you to want to be a partner, which is a whole separate discussion).

2) You can 100% get good, substantive experience as a junior in biglaw, it is just not guaranteed. I have friends who have done many of the substantive tasks I've done and often times their experience has been much more meaningful than I would have guessed as a law student just reading TLS. Its not a guarantee, but if you can stand out from the pack you will have an opportunity to get real substantive experience in biglaw. On huge, sprawling litigation, even if you are a small cog on the case overall you can still be a big cog within an important subset of a case. I do think overall I am generally more looped in to case strategy compared to my peers though.

I still think I made the right choice, biglaw was probably never going to be a great place for me for a lot of reasons, but I wanted to provide a little more color based on what I've seen.

Thank you for your thoughts on this. That makes perfect sense as something to consider. I don't entirely know what sorts of exit opportunities I'm looking for yet, but I am leaning towards hopping across the "V" and doing either plaintiff-side complex litigation or affirmative government litigation (i.e. consumer protection enforcement, etc). I need to better understand how prestige would play into either of those pathways, and probably ought to find some practitioners in my market to talk with.

And re: (2), I definitely see your point. That is the sort of role that I would like to have. Based on the conversations I had at my firm with partners and senior associates last summer, I have reason to believe that if I put my back into the work, I stand a chance of developing a reputation that lends itself to receiving those sorts of opportunities. But of course, nothing is guaranteed, and I don't plan to make my choices based on aspirational hypotheticals.

Thanks for the suggestion re: boutiques as well. Definitely a market segment I haven't investigated as much for an immediate post-clerkship gig. I assumed that boutiques were mostly a jumping-off point for biglaw refugees.

[Sackboy]

Your thinking makes sense, but how sure are you that the lower ranked firm really has leaner teams and/or a meaningfully different approach?

This is my main concern. The premise of this choice seems odd. Responsibility and prestige are not necessarily diametrically opposed. You can, in fact, find very prestigious shops that give you a lot of responsibility early on. It's going to have to be a case-by-case examination.

[Usernameavailable]

Your thinking makes sense, but how sure are you that the lower ranked firm really has leaner teams and/or a meaningfully different approach?

This is my main concern. The premise of this choice seems odd. Responsibility and prestige are not necessarily diametrically opposed. You can, in fact, find very prestigious shops that give you a lot of responsibility early on. It's going to have to be a case-by-case examination.

Even within a firm, it is honestly a "case by case" difference. I'm on one team where I'm one of like 10 associates and do a lot of doc review (but also a good bit of substantive work). On the other hand I'm on 2 different teams where I'm one of 2 associates and have done a ton of stuff typically reserved for mid levels on my bigger teams. In my experience, if you want to seek out the substantive experience, you have some control over it. Fwiw I'm at a "prestigious" firm.

[LBJ's Hair]

like others I reject the premise of your question. there's plenty of tedious process work at V100s, and a lot of the most "prestigious" lit-focused firms are attractive precisely bc of their low leverage ratios + doing stuff other than Big Investigations Where You Never Actually Litigate.

(tbf I'm sure there's interesting investigations work FWW)

[Anonymous User]

Your thinking makes sense, but how sure are you that the lower ranked firm really has leaner teams and/or a meaningfully different approach?

This is my main concern. The premise of this choice seems odd. Responsibility and prestige are not necessarily diametrically opposed. You can, in fact, find very prestigious shops that give you a lot of responsibility early on. It's going to have to be a case-by-case examination.

Even within a firm, it is honestly a "case by case" difference. I'm on one team where I'm one of like 10 associates and do a lot of doc review (but also a good bit of substantive work). On the other hand I'm on 2 different teams where I'm one of 2 associates and have done a ton of stuff typically reserved for mid levels on my bigger teams. In my experience, if you want to seek out the substantive experience, you have some control over it. Fwiw I'm at a "prestigious" firm.

OP here. Thank you all for your perspectives. This is very useful to know, and why I started this thread.

In terms of conducting the case-by-case examination, I'd imagine the best way is to talk to current associates, and ask them about the types of work they get, etc?

[Elston Gunn]

Your thinking makes sense, but how sure are you that the lower ranked firm really has leaner teams and/or a meaningfully different approach?

This is my main concern. The premise of this choice seems odd. Responsibility and prestige are not necessarily diametrically opposed. You can, in fact, find very prestigious shops that give you a lot of responsibility early on. It's going to have to be a case-by-case examination.

Even within a firm, it is honestly a "case by case" difference. I'm on one team where I'm one of like 10 associates and do a lot of doc review (but also a good bit of substantive work). On the other hand I'm on 2 different teams where I'm one of 2 associates and have done a ton of stuff typically reserved for mid levels on my bigger teams. In my experience, if you want to seek out the substantive experience, you have some control over it. Fwiw I'm at a "prestigious" firm.

OP here. Thank you all for your perspectives. This is very useful to know, and why I started this thread.

In terms of conducting the case-by-case examination, I'd imagine the best way is to talk to current associates, and ask them about the types of work they get, etc?

Yes, ideally outside any formal interview/second look process where the associate will be (consciously or unconsciously) in more of a mindset to sell the firm.