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All in NY. Interested in: international arbitration (particularly investor state) and public intl law (to the extent the work exists); potentially going into academia/IGOs down the line; maybe rotating/working in Europe eventual (am EU citizen). Appreciate any thoughts!

Would you mind sharing when you got your white & case offer?

White & Case is a leader in the field in investor-state IA, although it’s the DC office where IA is really the bread and butter. Still, NY is meant to also have a good IA practice, so I would say go there

Speaking as someone who works in the field, Debevoise has an excellent international arbitration and PIL group. It is the only firm ranked band 1 for both international arbitration and Public International Law by Chambers: https://chambers.com/guide/global?publi ... onId=15649, https://chambers.com/guide/global?publi ... onId=15649. Its partners in New York are also all ranked by Chambers (including two Band 1 partners).

It has also been involved in a number of the trend setting and record breaking investor state awards, see e.g. https://www.debevoise.com/news/2019/07/ ... lion-icsid.

Unlike other firms, such as Freshfields and Cleary, Debevoise's practice is run from its NY office (White and Case is also run from the US, but is more run from DC, as the above poster noted). This is beneficial because it ensures that you can access the full range of international arbitration work from the NY office, as opposed to a firm run from another office, which may reserve some of its best work for individuals from the head office for arbitration, as opposed to NY. That being said, Debevoise also has a very strong London office which it works closely with on arbitration matters.

The Debevoise group is tight knit and small, which can mean better experience for juniors (this might be contrasted with firms like White and Case and Freshfields, which have much larger groups).

Overall, I think Debevoise is the clear choice for someone interested in Investor-State arbitration.

A someone with mild interest in the practice area, my understanding is that White & Case is the leader by far.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 21, 2021 10:40 pm

Would you mind sharing when you got your white & case offer?

+1, and when was the CB?