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I'm currently weighing offers between Kirkland (restructuring - not necessarily my desired practice area), Sidley, and Skadden Chicago. My interest is transactional work and was planning on using the summer to discover my particular interest. My main reservation with Kirkland is that it's a very particular practice area and I don't want to get stuck in it if I don't like it. Really liked my interviews with Sidley and Skadden. How would you advise me?

Kirkland Chi is really a league of its own in Chicago. Without massive reservations, it’s really the best pick.

For public M&A, you would be fine choosing based on fit. If completely undecided between transactional practice groups, Sidley and Kirkland may be the better choice because quality of the work on your desk will be similar at all three and you will be able to try out work in more practice groups. Skadden Chi is very strong in public M&A and has a small but busy banking practice, but it won't give you as much depth in a variety of transactional practice groups as the larger Chicago based firms.

If deciding between the two larger Chicago based offices, Kirkland definitely has the more recognized name in Chicago but I doubt exits would be terribly different in quality between the places and are more likely tied to the clients you'd work for at each place (Kirkland tends to rep large PE clients while Sidley Chicago does more midwest public M&A if I understand correctly). If you want to leave Chicago eventually, Skadden probably has the best rep outside the city but you can't really go wrong IMO