Biglaw Tax Odds? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Hey good people. Eventhough everyone's journey is different, I'm curious if anyone has similar stats as mine and was successful at securing a position at a tax practice in biglaw in the Northeast market.

Education: JD from CCN and then straight into the NYU Tax LLM program.
Work experience: Internships have mostly been gov't litigation. I don't have substantive work experience in tax, just one internship was tax related, nothing transactional.

Eventhough, I am eager to get into a tax practice in biglaw, I'm not opposed to Big 4, given my lack of work experience in tax.

[Sackboy]

If you have CCN + a NYU Tax LLM, you'd have to be the worst interviewer, networker, and job applicant in history to not land a tax gig. You should have no problem landing one out of just CCN if you know you want tax up front. The vast majority of practitioners I know with an LLM got it while they were already in a tax practice, practiced a few years in some random area of law from some non-T14 school, or came from a below T14 school and couldn't get a tax job but didn't want to start practicing anything else.

[Anonymous User]

If you have CCN + a NYU Tax LLM, you'd have to be the worst interviewer, networker, and job applicant in history to not land a tax gig. You should have no problem landing one out of just CCN if you know you want tax up front. The vast majority of practitioners I know with an LLM got it while they were already in a tax practice, practiced a few years in some random area of law from some non-T14 school, or came from a below T14 school and couldn't get a tax job but didn't want to start practicing anything else.

Thanks for your response Sackboy.

[Anonymous User]

Agree with Sackboy. CCN alone would (almost) definitely get you into a biglaw firm, but not 100% certainly tax (depending on the market/firms applied to, levels of interest of other candidates, your background, department need, rapport with the partners, etc.). The NYU tax LLM is essentially a lock.

Not sure where you’re at now, but if you were to skip doing the LLM first, taking every tax course you can at law school (plus some basic accounting) and making fully clear that you want tax in your interviews/summer/etc. would be the way to do it without the LLM. Worth noting that many biglaw firms will pay for your tax LLM if you are already in their tax department, which would save you a significant chunk of change.

[Anonymous User]

Echoing the above.

In my year at NYU, we had one or two T14 grads. They were flooded with biglaw offers. Even people from WashU, BU, Vandy, etc. had no problem landing biglaw.

[Anonymous User]

Echoing the above.

In my year at NYU, we had one or two T14 grads. They were flooded with biglaw offers. Even people from WashU, BU, Vandy, etc. had no problem landing biglaw.

How far back did you attend NYU? Also in a similar position as OP, but I'll be applying to NYU's tax LLM next year.

[Anonymous User]

Echoing the above.

In my year at NYU, we had one or two T14 grads. They were flooded with biglaw offers. Even people from WashU, BU, Vandy, etc. had no problem landing biglaw.

How far back did you attend NYU? Also in a similar position as OP, but I'll be applying to NYU's tax LLM next year.

OP here, currently in the Tax LLM program.

[northwesternlaw2022]

OP, can you PM me? I’d love to ask you a few questions about your experience.

Thank you!

[Anonymous User]

Echoing the above.

In my year at NYU, we had one or two T14 grads. They were flooded with biglaw offers. Even people from WashU, BU, Vandy, etc. had no problem landing biglaw.

How far back did you attend NYU? Also in a similar position as OP, but I'll be applying to NYU's tax LLM next year.

Quoted anon. I graduated 3 years ago.

[Anonymous User]

2020 NYU LLM grad here.

Tbf, there are only a handful of general tax big law jobs available (or at least that's how it was for us) and the rest of the big law jobs (the vast majority) are exec comp. I think it would still be competitive for the general tax jobs, but for sure you'd have a huge advantage over the rest of your class since you'd likely be the only one or one of maybe two or three from CCN caliber school (and those kids might have jobs already coming in). I imagine you would still have to do well first semester and interview well since you will be competing with kids at or near the top of the class (independent of where they did their JD) and T20/30ish kids who did well. You'd almost assuredly have a Big 4 job first day of class (if you wanted) and exec comp should also be very attainable. Hope this helps.

[jotarokujo]

not in tax so could be wrong

my understanding is that without an LLM, tax is harder to get than general corporate, at least as difficult as general litigation. that is because grades in tax actually matter. if you go to CCN and get an LLM, it becomes easy, easier than NY corporate even out of CCN probably.