Norton Rose, Fried Frank, or Schulte? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Hi everyone, I could really use some help deciding and gaining some intel on what would be the best route for my career. I know I am very lucky to be in the position to have options to choose from.

I may be more interested in litigation, but in general I am not sure. A family member keeps lamenting to me that they regret litigation in terms of having in-house exit options- so I definitely want to try corporate out over the summer.

Other than that, I have an international relations background, so I thought I would want to work for a firm that has an international presence and does international work, but I have seen some opinions on here that international work at these firms is not all that it's cracked up to be, so I wonder if I should not emphasize that so much in my decision.

As far as long-term plans go, I doubt I would want to stay at a firm forever (same family member has emphasized repeatedly to me how awful it is). I think I would like to do government work down the road. I also wonder about keeping my international relations options open with a state department job for instance. I am also interested in clerking, although I would probably need to raise my grades a bit.

Anyway, any help would be appreciated. It's been really hard differentiating these firms. Everyone always talks about how much they love the people and blah blah so I have not gotten a good sense of culture- although Schulte did stand out as being more laid back, which was really nice, but they seem very specialized in what they do, and I think because I don't know what I want to do, I would prefer somewhere where the work is more varied (but what does this even mean in big law, if anything?). I have maybe heard some things about NRF from here that may suggest instability, but am not sure.

Please help! Thanks!