Top Law Schools

All New York; only interested in litigation. Where would you choose and why? Are there big differences in culture or lifestyle I should know about?

Not S&C. The people and culture there are not appealing to me personally. Probably between PW and GDC depending, in part, on what kind of litigation you most want to do. But I would maybe choose some other big law firms over these if they are options for you (Wilmer for example).

One thing to note is this summer Sullivan & Cromwell canceled their summer program and paid SAs about half their salary, much less than any of its peers. Personally I am not considering them for this reason. They're also known to work harder and tolerate screamers more than other firms although I have no way to verify this.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 23, 2020 1:36 pm

One thing to note is this summer Sullivan & Cromwell canceled their summer program and paid SAs about half their salary, much less than any of its peers. Personally I am not considering them for this reason. They're also known to work harder and tolerate screamers more than other firms although I have no way to verify this.

Yeah, S&C really screwed its summers last year for no reason and I would hesitate to go there versus any peer firm. Even without that I think this would be down to GDC vs. PW. (On the other hand, Latham, villain of the last recession, was great to its summers.)

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 23, 2020 1:36 pm

One thing to note is this summer Sullivan & Cromwell canceled their summer program and paid SAs about half their salary, much less than any of its peers. Personally I am not considering them for this reason. They're also known to work harder and tolerate screamers more than other firms although I have no way to verify this.

Having talked with associates who worked at S&C and left I would never go there. One associate told me she was asked to go to a foreign country to review paper documents for a week. A few days before the week ended she was asked to extend another week. Then she was told another two weeks. She ended up being in this foreign country for several months and 100% of her time was document review.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 23, 2020 12:20 pm

All New York; only interested in litigation. Where would you choose and why? Are there big differences in culture or lifestyle I should know about?

Top-line: these are all good firms, you're not making a mistake with any of these. My sense is that PW / S&C / GDC are a smidge ahead of K&E, but not enough to really make the difference unless you truly can't decide. (Anon suggesting Wilmer for an NYC lit generalist is ... strange to me. DC? Sure. NYC? Don't see them around much.)

Without recapitulating the perpetual TLS debates on what culture is (i.e. is it something that's firm-wide, something that depends on your practice group / partners and seniors you work with, or does it not actually exist?) I would say that I think the cultures at these firms (except PW) are relatively distinctive, and getting to know people would be really helpful. I think after visiting with all 4 you will be able to knock at least one out without a doubt. (You should pay attention to this stuff; you're about to be spending a lot of time with your co-workers and bosses for the next X years of your life.)

Other things I would consider:

Do you want to exit outside NYC? If so, GDC (CA) & KE (TX / Chicago) may be good choices depending on your interests. (This isn't to say that PW or S&C don't have other offices, but my sense was that they were both very NYC-centric.)

Do you want to do white collar? If so, I think the choice is PW or S&C with PW in first by a little bit.

Do you want a free-market or assignment system?

S&C cancelled their summer program but they also did COVID bonuses very early. Draw your own conclusions there.

I agree that PW/GDC > S&C/K&E. Lifestyles and culture are going to be similar at all of these shops.

S&C > P, W >> GDC > K&E for general litigation and prestige in NY. If appellate, then GDC should be ranked higher. K&E, like L&W, still lacks prestige in NY relative to the Wall Street shops and people will draw adverse inferences about your resume and grades if you start at K&E or GDC, which are not selective out of e.g., NYU or CLS (will hire median or often below).

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 26, 2020 9:02 pm

S&C > P, W >> GDC > K&E for general litigation and prestige in NY. If appellate, then GDC should be ranked higher. K&E, like L&W, still lacks prestige in NY relative to the Wall Street shops and people will draw adverse inferences about your resume and grades if you start at K&E or GDC, which are not selective out of e.g., NYU or CLS (will hire median or often below).

But can't prospective employers see the resume and grades directly for themselves? Why are there adverse inferences when people have all sorts of reasons for choosing their starting firm? Maybe the person was interested in a particular group or culture fit or whatever and then late in 3L or during their first year at the firm decided they wanted something different.

As a recent CLS alum, GDC / K&E basically didn't hire below median (especially GDC). Suggesting that someone will draw a negative inference from starting at NYC GDC is, IMO, a bananas take.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 26, 2020 9:02 pm

...people will draw adverse inferences about your resume and grades if you start at K&E or GDC, which are not selective out of e.g., NYU or CLS (will hire median or often below).

If you’re going to talk absolute nonsense, you should at least do it non-anon so folks can see who is full of it.

[quote="Anonymous User" post_id=10451039 time=1609030927 user_id=45852]
S&C > P, W >> GDC > K&E for general litigation and prestige in NY. If appellate, then GDC should be ranked higher. K&E, like L&W, still lacks prestige in NY relative to the Wall Street shops and people will draw adverse inferences about your resume and grades if you start at K&E or GDC, which are not selective out of e.g., NYU or CLS (will hire median or often below).
[/quote]

I generally agree re: prestige. But I am not sure if K&E or GDC “often” hire below median students from t6. Also, OP should just look at the Chambers rankings.

General lit: https://chambers.com/guide/usa?publicat ... onId=12806

Securities lit:
https://chambers.com/guide/usa?publicat ... onId=12806

White Collar:
https://chambers.com/guide/usa?publicat ... onId=12806

S&C and Paul, Weiss are in band 1 for all categories while Gibson and Kirkland are not. My opinion is that Kirkland litigation is not in the same league with the other three (at least in NYC).

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 26, 2020 9:02 pm

S&C > P, W >> GDC > K&E for general litigation and prestige in NY. If appellate, then GDC should be ranked higher. K&E, like L&W, still lacks prestige in NY relative to the Wall Street shops and people will draw adverse inferences about your resume and grades if you start at K&E or GDC, which are not selective out of e.g., NYU or CLS (will hire median or often below).

This is certifiable. GDC NYC is about as selective as Wachtell at Chicago, significantly more selective than S&C, which goes almost to median (and which many students here, esp for lit, generally try to avoid). Generally "who has the students with the highest grades at my school" is probably not the best way to choose a law firm in any case.

Are we sure it’s GDC NYC? They are notoriously unselective at Manhattan law schools amongst top firms — median is totally enough, though I would imagine they require higher than that for litigation (also true at P, W). GDC LA or GDC DC are completely different kettles of fish — they look for much better resumes since GDC has greater selectivity and market placement in those markets.

GDC NYC meanwhile has all kinds of unprestigious resumes — look, for example, at their bankruptcy practice. Really appalling.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 27, 2020 12:44 am

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 26, 2020 9:02 pm

S&C > P, W >> GDC > K&E for general litigation and prestige in NY. If appellate, then GDC should be ranked higher. K&E, like L&W, still lacks prestige in NY relative to the Wall Street shops and people will draw adverse inferences about your resume and grades if you start at K&E or GDC, which are not selective out of e.g., NYU or CLS (will hire median or often below).

This is certifiable. GDC NYC is about as selective as Wachtell at Chicago, significantly more selective than S&C, which goes almost to median (and which many students here, esp for lit, generally try to avoid). Generally "who has the students with the highest grades at my school" is probably not the best way to choose a law firm in any case.

At least at my T10, S&C NY is among the most selective firms while Gibson NY goes to slightly above median, or right around median. Are you sure you are not talking about Gibson DC? Also, to your second point, for NYC lit, no one really tries to avoid S&C here. Obviously, people will choose DC lit firms over S&C NY, but I think OP is specifically asking about NYC.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 27, 2020 12:44 am

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 26, 2020 9:02 pm

S&C > P, W >> GDC > K&E for general litigation and prestige in NY. If appellate, then GDC should be ranked higher. K&E, like L&W, still lacks prestige in NY relative to the Wall Street shops and people will draw adverse inferences about your resume and grades if you start at K&E or GDC, which are not selective out of e.g., NYU or CLS (will hire median or often below).

This is certifiable. GDC NYC is about as selective as Wachtell at Chicago, significantly more selective than S&C, which goes almost to median (and which many students here, esp for lit, generally try to avoid). Generally "who has the students with the highest grades at my school" is probably not the best way to choose a law firm in any case.

What?? Nobody in Big Law is as selective as WLRK. The only firms that approach that level of selectivity are smaller boutiques. GDC is not in the same league as WLRK, whether it's GDC Chicago, LA, DC, or whatever. Agree with that last sentence, though.

To save this from going off-topic (hopefully): every time this discussion happens, people end it by saying:

• They only really have access to their school's data for the years they were there, which isn't enough to come to any real conclusions.
• The results from any one year are heavily skewed by factors unrelated to grades (were the candidates interviewing good or bad in the room? Was the interviewing partner at OCI that year particularly harsh or generous?)
• Hiring is very dependent on year (i.e. how many seats does a firm want to fill in 2006 vs 2009?) and selectivity follows this closely.
• Firms can be more or less selective at peer schools and nobody really knows why. (It's possible that GDC NY is very selective at Chicago but not selective at NYU, for example).
• Firms can be more or less selective at non-peer schools and this leads to really skewed results. (Firm A takes anyone in the top 1/3rd at any T14, Firm B takes anyone at HYS and only top 10% at Duke. Hard to say who's "more" selective, but Duke / HYS students will have very different views of Firms A & B.)

Anyways the consensus of this thread seems to be that GDC NYC lit is a very good outcome and wouldn't send a negative signal.

Assuming GDC is a T14 medianish firm and S&C is higher, is there any evidence that for litigators in NYC that matters at all? Will a poor performer at S&C have better prospects than a high performer at Gibson? I get the sense that these minute distinctions don't really matter but I would be interested to be proven wrong.

FWIW at my midwestern T14 GDC has a median offer GPA while S&C ofers only top quarter or so. However, S&C has a bad reputation and very few people accept the offers they do get, preferring peer NYC or DC firms.

Joachim2017 wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 29, 2020 10:14 am

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 27, 2020 12:44 am

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Sat Dec 26, 2020 9:02 pm

S&C > P, W >> GDC > K&E for general litigation and prestige in NY. If appellate, then GDC should be ranked higher. K&E, like L&W, still lacks prestige in NY relative to the Wall Street shops and people will draw adverse inferences about your resume and grades if you start at K&E or GDC, which are not selective out of e.g., NYU or CLS (will hire median or often below).

This is certifiable. GDC NYC is about as selective as Wachtell at Chicago, significantly more selective than S&C, which goes almost to median (and which many students here, esp for lit, generally try to avoid). Generally "who has the students with the highest grades at my school" is probably not the best way to choose a law firm in any case.

What?? Nobody in Big Law is as selective as WLRK. The only firms that approach that level of selectivity are smaller boutiques. GDC is not in the same league as WLRK, whether it's GDC Chicago, LA, DC, or whatever. Agree with that last sentence, though.

I have four years of data at Chicago. As shocking as it is apparently, Wachtell is not especially selective at Chicago within the tier of very selective firms. That includes Gibson NY. But just in DC, Covington, Gibson, Jenner, Kirkland, Latham, Jones Day, W&C, Wilmer are all at least roughly as selective as Wachtell. Irell, MTO, Susman, W&C are all significantly more selective than Wachtell.

But yes, as the other poster said, this probably partially reflects the idiosyncrasies of Chicago, most notably that a lot of students with good grades self-select out of the NY market. But anyway yeah Gibson NY is a very good outcome here.