Vinson & Elkins (NY) v. Fried Frank (NY) Forum

[Anonymous User]

Interested in corporate work. I'm leaning towards M&A/PE and funds but also open to try other areas. Any advice/help would be greatly appreciated!!!

[Anonymous User]

Interested in corporate work. I'm leaning towards M&A/PE and funds but also open to try other areas. Any advice/help would be greatly appreciated!!!

I was making a similar choice (V&E versus peer firm of Fried Frank), and ultimately went with the Fried Frank equivalent. If you were really interested in energy work, then V&E is the clear choice. For pretty much everything else, Fried Frank has better work, has a better reputation in NY, and is known for a relatively good culture.

[Anonymous User]

Interested in corporate work. I'm leaning towards M&A/PE and funds but also open to try other areas. Any advice/help would be greatly appreciated!!!

I was making a similar choice (V&E versus peer firm of Fried Frank), and ultimately went with the Fried Frank equivalent. If you were really interested in energy work, then V&E is the clear choice. For pretty much everything else, Fried Frank has better work, has a better reputation in NY, and is known for a relatively good culture.

Thank you!! And congratulations on your offers to both!!

[Anonymous User]

You too, friend. Both are great places at the end of the day, so can't lose either way.

[Anonymous User]

It's anecdotal but I've had really ugly interactions with a couple of Fried Frank associates when I was doing my informational interviews, to the extent where I didn't even bid them. I know one first year at V&E who's a great all around guy FWIW.

[Anonymous User]

This was several years ago now, but V&E NY as well as FF NY were two of the firms I had offers from and was seriously considering. I really liked the people I met at V&E; they seemed especially down to earth and appeared to have lives outside of work. It's a smaller office and I interacted primarily with finance folks. The vibe in the FF office was appreciably more tense/a little flat (although not necessarily a bad vibe, this was just comparatively speaking).

I don't think you can go wrong.

[Anonymous User]

The screening interviewer for FF I drew during OCI was a complete jackass; he was by far the worst interviewer I've ever had - no joke. So if he's representative of the rest of the firm, I wouldn't even consider working there. That said, I wasn't offered a callback or a chance to meet any other attorneys there, so make of the comment what you will.

[Anonymous User]

This was several years ago now, but V&E NY as well as FF NY were two of the firms I had offers from and was seriously considering. I really liked the people I met at V&E; they seemed especially down to earth and appeared to have lives outside of work. It's a smaller office and I interacted primarily with finance folks. The vibe in the FF office was appreciably more tense/a little flat (although not necessarily a bad vibe, this was just comparatively speaking).

I don't think you can go wrong.

Thank you!! That's actually how I feel about the two firms too. I'm leaning towards Fried Frank now mainly because of the work they do and their seemingly better prestige in the NY market. Do you by any chance still remember what Fried Frank's office was like? I went to fidi to check out that area but wasn't able to actually visit the office. Gotta say fidi feels pretty dead so I would really want good lighting and layout in the office.

[Anonymous User]

FiDi is actually pretty cool during working hours, but it's very dead at night and on weekends.

[Anonymous User]

I am also deciding between V&E NY and another firm. I really enjoyed meeting with the V&E folks. I've talked to past summers from my school who had great things to say about the people. A couple of things that were important to me - the leverage is fairly low at V&E (2.5ish associates to 1 partner) and one classmate of mine who summered (1L) there said attorneys would generally leave for home at 8ish which was definitely not true for the V10 they summered with their 2L year.