If you could work in any Supreme Court/Appellate group at a firm in DC, what would it be? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Just kind of curious- I feel like there is competing wisdom on who does the most appellate cases, who argues in the Supreme Court the most, where the most opportunity is, etc., etc. Empirically, I don't trust Vault. Thoughts anyone? What would it be, and why?

[Anonymous User]

Vault's appellate ratings are embarrassing. Williams & Connolly should not be in the top ten, let alone #2, Wachtell and Cravath don't have appellate practices and are somehow in the top 25, Skadden just launched its this year but somehow has long been ranked, and Latham is way better than #18. Chambers is closer to roughly right from my understanding, though I'd put Jones Day in Band 1.

As a generic junior with a non-feeder COA clerkship, I'd probably choose GDC, where there's a ton of appellate work and you have a meaningful chance to get it with the free market system. But the nature of appellate, especially if by appellate you really want SCOTUS work, is that quality over quantity. Working in Paul Clement's group at Kirkland or Don Verilli's group at Munger would presumably be better than being a generic GDC appellate associate. (Also, I haven't worked at any of these places, so I might be talking out of my ass, but I have friends who have and summered in DC appellate.)

Of course, the best appellate gig in DC is obviously not at a firm, it's the Office of the Solicitor General.

[Anonymous User]

Vault's appellate ratings are embarrassing. Williams & Connolly should not be in the top ten, let alone #2, Wachtell and Cravath don't have appellate practices and are somehow in the top 25, Skadden just launched its this year but somehow has long been ranked, and Latham is way better than #18. Chambers is closer to roughly right from my understanding, though I'd put Jones Day in Band 1.

As a generic junior with a non-feeder COA clerkship, I'd probably choose GDC, where there's a ton of appellate work and you have a meaningful chance to get it with the free market system. But the nature of appellate, especially if by appellate you really want SCOTUS work, is that quality over quantity. Working in Paul Clement's group at Kirkland or Don Verilli's group at Munger would presumably be better than being a generic GDC appellate associate. (Also, I haven't worked at any of these places, so I might be talking out of my ass, but I have friends who have and summered in DC appellate.)

Of course, the best appellate gig in DC is obviously not at a firm, it's the Office of the Solicitor General.

Credited. Each SCOTUS practice has pros and cons.

If you already have a SCOTUS clerkship, the overall winner is probably Jones Day. It offers the best hours, the best compensation, and the best assurance of career advancement (basically guaranteed partnership). It also spreads out its work more evenly than most DC firms. The main con is oversaturation. The appeals group has something like 50 SCOTUS clerks by now. Good luck getting in without (at least) a top feeder clerkship.

Some firms appeal to very ideological applicants. Progressives seem to like O'Melveny, Jenner, and Munger. Conservatives seem to like Cooper & Kirk and Consovoy McCarthy. If you care a lot about being "right" these may be the firms for you.

If you just want access to lots of appellate work without an "omg" resume you can't go wrong with Wilmer Hale, Gibson Dunn, or Kirkland & Ellis. They have plenty of SCOTUS work for interested summers and they have partners all over the political field.

[hdr]

It's extremely difficult to go far in the DC appellate world without a SCOTUS clerkship. If I wanted to do appellate work I'd probably look for a firm that would let me pursue other areas as well, so that I'd have better path to partner and stronger exit options. Or I would look outside DC for a firm with a robust state appellate practice.

[Anonymous User]

It's extremely difficult to go far in the DC appellate world without a SCOTUS clerkship. If I wanted to do appellate work I'd probably look for a firm that would let me pursue other areas as well, so that I'd have better path to partner and stronger exit options. Or I would look outside DC for a firm with a robust state appellate practice.

Yeah, if you want to do appellate, and you're not a rock star SCOTUS clerk, eventually switching to government and/or leaving DC are likely to be good long-term career moves. The vast majority of appellate work, like the vast majority of litigation generally, isn't in biglaw or DC. And unlike in e.g. products liability lit, there is little to no economy of scale in appellate, so a lot of small practices (both inside and outside of DC) are nevertheless very sophisticated--even for SCOTUS work, there are ~5-15 attorney operations like Goldstein & Russell, Consovoy McCarthy, and many state SG offices that are significant players.

[Anonymous User]

My understanding is that Consovoy really doesn't do non-political work, especially since Michael Park (who did some complex/commercial and plaintiff's stuff) left, which makes it pretty different from firms like Jenner. If you want to work at the conservative equivalent of Perkins Coie's political law practice, though, I can't imagine there's anywhere better.

[Anonymous User]

What do people think about Hogan's appellate group? I feel like getting to work with Neal Katyal in any capacity would be great training. Do they take non-SCOTUS clerks? What is their reputation?

[Anonymous User]

As a conservative non-SCOTUS clerk with an otherwise strong appellate resume, the DC biglaw firms that interested me were (in alphabetical order) Gibson Dunn, Jones Day, Kirkland, Paul Weiss, Sidley, and Williams & Connolly. There are some pros and cons with different firms, but a couple important metrics seem important when thinking about which firm is the best for you. Some have figurehead models with one or two big names that a small practice revolves around (e.g., Kirkland and Paul Weiss) and others are more distributed and bigger (e.g., Jones Day and Gibson Dunn). Some have more closed practice groups (e.g., Jones Day) and others are much more open (e.g., Gibson Dunn). So it's worth thinking about the risks of either not getting along with one big partner or having that partner leave versus the risk of getting lost through the cracks in a bigger and more distributed and bigger practice, and also whether you want the ability to do appellate stuff and other stuff versus appellate stuff only or non-appellate stuff only. It's also worth thinking about what firms will even let you touch the appellate work (it's much easier at, say, Gibson than it is at Jones Day).

[Anonymous User]

What do people think about Hogan's appellate group? I feel like getting to work with Neal Katyal in any capacity would be great training. Do they take non-SCOTUS clerks? What is their reputation?

It's a midsized appellate group, well-regarded, they also have Cate Stetson who's a major SCOTUS practitioner (and maybe a potential Biden SG? we'll see). From their website its appellate associates seem to be mostly SCOTUS or feeder clerks with a few exceptions. Sean Marotta of Twitter fame just made partner and wasn't even a federal clerk or T14 student (though he was #1 at W&M), but he's a special snowflake.

[Anonymous User]

As a conservative non-SCOTUS clerk with an otherwise strong appellate resume, the DC biglaw firms that interested me were (in alphabetical order) Gibson Dunn, Jones Day, Kirkland, Paul Weiss, Sidley, and Williams & Connolly. There are some pros and cons with different firms, but a couple important metrics seem important when thinking about which firm is the best for you. Some have figurehead models with one or two big names that a small practice revolves around (e.g., Kirkland and Paul Weiss) and others are more distributed and bigger (e.g., Jones Day and Gibson Dunn). Some have more closed practice groups (e.g., Jones Day) and others are much more open (e.g., Gibson Dunn). So it's worth thinking about the risks of either not getting along with one big partner or having that partner leave versus the risk of getting lost through the cracks in a bigger and more distributed and bigger practice, and also whether you want the ability to do appellate stuff and other stuff versus appellate stuff only or non-appellate stuff only. It's also worth thinking about what firms will even let you touch the appellate work (it's much easier at, say, Gibson than it is at Jones Day).

What about for liberal people in feeder clerkships? What's the best liberal appellate firm?

[Anonymous User]

Most of the top appellate groups mentioned are fairly apolitical. Jenner, Munger, Kellogg Hansen, Latham, and O’Melveny are liberalish practices to varying extents. Jenner and Munger DC, which don’t really have Republicans as far as I know, are probably the farthest left of the biglaw firms. The farthest left significant appellate practice period is Gupta Wessler, which mostly does public interest, consumer plaintiff, etc. stuff.

[Anonymous User]

What do people think about Hogan's appellate group? I feel like getting to work with Neal Katyal in any capacity would be great training. Do they take non-SCOTUS clerks? What is their reputation?

Fwiw I have multiple friends at Hogan who've worked with Neal (typically by being brought on to projects from their groups), and they all say he personally is a credentials snob, although the practice itself is good. Hogan the firm is also excellent.

[Anonymous User]

Vault's appellate ratings are embarrassing. Williams & Connolly should not be in the top ten, let alone #2...

Working in Paul Clement's group at Kirkland or Don Verilli's group at Munger would presumably be better than being a generic GDC appellate associate.

These two sentences seem in stark tension to me considering Lisa Blatt is now in charge of W&C's SCOTUS practice. If you have a sparkling resume and your goal is to get in a group with one of the top SCOTUS practitioners, W&C should be right there with Kirkland, Munger, Paul Weiss (Shanmugam), etc. for that reason.

Other people have other goals of course, and as the post I am quoting suggests, a place like Gibson that does a larger volume of appellate work, with more partners and plenty of federal appeals court work, could be a better fit for them.

[Anonymous User]

Vault's appellate ratings are embarrassing. Williams & Connolly should not be in the top ten, let alone #2...

Working in Paul Clement's group at Kirkland or Don Verilli's group at Munger would presumably be better than being a generic GDC appellate associate.

These two sentences seem in stark tension to me considering Lisa Blatt is now in charge of W&C's SCOTUS practice. If you have a sparkling resume and your goal is to get in a group with one of the top SCOTUS practitioners, W&C should be right there with Kirkland, Munger, Paul Weiss (Shanmugam), etc. for that reason.

Other people have other goals of course, and as the post I am quoting suggests, a place like Gibson that does a larger volume of appellate work, with more partners and plenty of federal appeals court work, could be a better fit for them.

Well rankings are generally for strength of practice, not strength of individual lawyers. W&C appellate has always been a one-partner operation. That one partner is really really good, but I don’t think you can argue it’s a stronger practice than GDC, JD, WH, Latham, O’Melveny, Sidley, Kirkland... that have whole appellate practice groups, often multi-office, with multiple top advocates, some of whom (Paul Clement, Greg Garre, Carter Phillips, Miguel Estrada, Seth Waxman, Michael Dreeben...) are at least as strong as Lisa Blatt at SCOTUS.

Career-wise, I think that makes it also an odd choice for someone who wants to be an appellate specialist, especially if you’re not a SCOTUS clerk who has assurances that you’ll actually work for Lisa Blatt. (Fwiw I would say the same about Paul Weiss and Munger DC, at least for now.)

Also, Lisa Blatt’s only at W&C because Shanmugam left and took the firm’s book with him. That’s another sort of risk you run with a one-partner operation.

[Anonymous User]

I guess a lot of this really depends on what you’re looking for

If you aren’t a scotus clerk or feeder clerk you aren’t going to be working regularly with the big name SCOTUS practitioners at JD, Gibson, Hogan, Kirkland, etc. obviously there’s plenty of other appellate work in the COAs at all of these firms but that work is a lot more run-of-the-mill appeals in commercial disputes

It’s a little surprising that people have not mentioned the “smaller” practices with big names who regularly practice before SCOTUS, albeit not as often as JD/Gibson/Kirkland/ etc
(eg Rosenkranz/Loeb at Orrick, Pincus at Mayer Brown, etc). A lot more opportunity at practices like that to work on high profile appellate lit if that’s what you’re looking for (based on the mention of SCOTUS in OPs post, I assume it is)

[Anonymous User]

Vault's appellate ratings are embarrassing. Williams & Connolly should not be in the top ten, let alone #2...

Working in Paul Clement's group at Kirkland or Don Verilli's group at Munger would presumably be better than being a generic GDC appellate associate.

These two sentences seem in stark tension to me considering Lisa Blatt is now in charge of W&C's SCOTUS practice. If you have a sparkling resume and your goal is to get in a group with one of the top SCOTUS practitioners, W&C should be right there with Kirkland, Munger, Paul Weiss (Shanmugam), etc. for that reason.

Other people have other goals of course, and as the post I am quoting suggests, a place like Gibson that does a larger volume of appellate work, with more partners and plenty of federal appeals court work, could be a better fit for them.

Well rankings are generally for strength of practice, not strength of individual lawyers. W&C appellate has always been a one-partner operation. That one partner is really really good, but I don’t think you can argue it’s a stronger practice than GDC, JD, WH, Latham, O’Melveny, Sidley, Kirkland... that have whole appellate practice groups, often multi-office, with multiple top advocates, some of whom (Paul Clement, Greg Garre, Carter Phillips, Miguel Estrada, Seth Waxman, Michael Dreeben...) are at least as strong as Lisa Blatt at SCOTUS.

Career-wise, I think that makes it also an odd choice for someone who wants to be an appellate specialist, especially if you’re not a SCOTUS clerk who has assurances that you’ll actually work for Lisa Blatt. (Fwiw I would say the same about Paul Weiss and Munger DC, at least for now.)

Also, Lisa Blatt’s only at W&C because Shanmugam left and took the firm’s book with him. That’s another sort of risk you run with a one-partner operation.

This is all correct, but I would suggest one edit: Munger DC also has Ginger Anders. W&C really is the Lisa Blatt show.