Is Skadden as bad as everyone makes it out? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Hey all. I am fortunate to have an offer at Skadden and some other V10 and V20 firms. I'm interested in tax and/or transactional work. Skadden has a strong tax group obviously so I am considering accepting the offer, but I have heard the culture there is "fratty" and that they work you really hard (harder than other firms at least - they all work you hard).

The people I met at Skadden though were all really nice, so I am trying to figure out whether there is any truth to those rumors or that Skadden got a name for itself for whatever reason and it stuck.

Thanks!

[Anonymous User]

--current Skadden associate; anon bc you can easily narrow down who I am based on my prior posts--

I too had heard of Skadden's reputation when I was a law student so I actually bid them pretty low during oci ngl. But after interviews/callbacks/second looks/dinners/coffees with associates, everyone I met struck me as pretty dang nice as well (to mirror your experience). Obviously, the firm puts their best foot forward for recruiting, but my recruiting experience was pretty at odds with what I expected based on the general firm rep. So I decided to just trust my gut and chose Skadden over a lot of reputedly non-fratty/intense firms.

Fast forward to now—I think as a general rule, 95% of the people I've worked with are fantastic. Really nice and actually pretty reasonable despite generally being overworked. I think the specialist groups tend to be extra closely knit and people genuinely like to work with each other across practices. I will say that roughly 5% of the people I've work with are unpleasant (they'll generally be polite, but when shit hits the fan, all semblance of niceness flies out the window). I've been able to generally avoid these people for most of my time here so it hasn't been too much of an issue (and I think if you end up developing an excessively bad rep, no one wants to work with you so internal market forces tend to keep egregious unpleasantness at bay). I think as a junior, you cant really help what you get staffed on, but for those more senior, you have a lot more control on who you work for.

As to frattiness, I think that's def way overblown. I and a lot of my classmates don't really go out (due ot family obligations etc.), and I've had no problem fitting in (and I can't think of anyone who hasn't). I will say that imo people here tend to be more outgoing/social than at most other peer firms, which I think is generally a positive. This trickles down to the admin folks as well, who tend to be really friendly and chatty (in a good way). As a more quiet/introspective type of person, I've had no issues whatsoever.

Also, yea, the tax group is dang fantastic. Obviously biased but I'd say our tax group is comfortably the best in the country. We lost a really beloved tax partner a few years back to a tragic accident, but the group's been thriving and hasn't lost a step. RIP Stu.

[Anonymous User]

It probably differs by office

[Anonymous User]

Fair point! Full disclosure—I'm in NY

[Anonymous User]

I spent a few years at Skadden at a non-NY office and eventually lateraled. Culture is a real thing at firms, that is to say even though all firms operate in a similar way based on a similar model, culture isn't completely a myth, but I do think as a law student it tends to be treated too seriously as both an existing phenomenon and a consideration when considering where to work.

My team at Skadden was awful. From the partners to the associates, from the most senior to the most junior. I made lots of good friends while there, so it's not as if everyone in the firm was bad, but the people I worked with really just became accustomed to lots of inappropriate behavior that went the gamut from insensitive and inconsiderate to abusive. Privately, my peers at the firm agreed with me. It was bad enough that I started to feel like I wasn't a good lawyer and I was the problem. After lateraling, my hours didn't go down, but my ability to do them improved because my working environment improved.

All that's to say I wouldn't consider Skadden negatively due to "culture," but I also wouldn't consider other firms positively. As the other poster described, it's about trying to manage who you work with once you get the lay of the land, and pure luck of the draw. It's the same at all firms.

Good luck!

[Anonymous User]

[deleted, double post]

[Anonymous User]

I spent a few years at Skadden at a non-NY office and eventually lateraled. Culture is a real thing at firms, that is to say even though all firms operate in a similar way based on a similar model, culture isn't completely a myth, but I do think as a law student it tends to be treated too seriously as both an existing phenomenon and a consideration when considering where to work.

My team at Skadden was awful. From the partners to the associates, from the most senior to the most junior. I made lots of good friends while there, so it's not as if everyone in the firm was bad, but the people I worked with really just became accustomed to lots of inappropriate behavior that went the gamut from insensitive and inconsiderate to abusive. Privately, my peers at the firm agreed with me. It was bad enough that I started to feel like I wasn't a good lawyer and I was the problem. After lateraling, my hours didn't go down, but my ability to do them improved because my working environment improved.

All that's to say I wouldn't consider Skadden negatively due to "culture," but I also wouldn't consider other firms positively. As the other poster described, it's about trying to manage who you work with once you get the lay of the land, and pure luck of the draw. It's the same at all firms.

Good luck!

This is my very similar to my experience at Skadden. I was staffed pretty heavily with a partner who was a rainmaker but infamous in the office and the group for being terrible to work for. And terrible it was. Had I not been trapped with this guy (and trust me I tried to avoid him) I probably would have lasted much longer.

All I have to add is that it’s a large, large firm. Although I agree with the quoted poster in that their experience matched mine, YMMV based on who you’re with. Try to narrow down, to the extent possible, what the Tax Group in your office is like, as opposed to the firm overall. That probably means talking to alumni or the people that interviewed you some more.

In my limited experience working with the Tax folks in my non-NY office, they all seemed super smart, and to be working on cool stuff (as far as tax goes anyway), and their retention rate appeared to me to be better than most other groups (but that’s anecdotal). I also got the impression they were very busy all the time.

[Anonymous User]

Can someone explain to me what "fratty" even means? During recruiting my only datapoints were that firms were either (a) normal, sociable, etc. or (b) reserved to the point of being passive aggressive. Aside from WLRK, Skadden was the only v10 that dinged me so they're interesting to me for all the wrong reasons.

[Anonymous User]

Can someone explain to me what "fratty" even means? During recruiting my only datapoints were that firms were either (a) normal, sociable, etc. or (b) reserved to the point of being passive aggressive. Aside from WLRK, Skadden was the only v10 that dinged me so they're interesting to me for all the wrong reasons.

Well, in my OCI round the Skadden interviewers openly talked (to themselves, with me sitting there in my chair) about which bars they were looking forward to visit at the end of their day in the city, so there's that.

[HIREMEPLZ]

I don't work at Skadden, but just as a general observation, I've seen a massive disconnect between the reputation of my firm and what I've actually experienced there. This has taught me that you need to seek opinions from actual attorneys at the firm (or even better, FORMER attorneys who you can trust not to give you PR spin). The opinions of random law students, or people at other firms are basically useless (unless they used to work at the firm or personally have friends that do). There's a lot of negative recruiting out there.

Also, I've been to three different offices of my firm, and met people from several additional offices. They all had different personalities and office vibes; some of them were dicks, others were chill. So even if you do pay attention to rumors about culture, you need to triple check that those rumors are valid for your particular office and not some other office.

This is true for positive rumors too. I summered at a different firm than the one I ended up at. It has a very positive reputation, and my experience was wonderful... but I spoke to a girl that had summered in a different office of the same firm who hated it and told stories of partners screaming and making her cry.