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It seems like Covington is the obvious choice given my goals, but I want to make sure I am not missing anything. I would like to be in DC (and certainly not in NY) long-term, and working for the government at some point is definitely a goal. I liked the people and culture at both firms. I am interested in lit and regulatory work; not at all in transactional. I plan to clerk and am pretty nerdy.

My main pause factors are whether S&C's name/prestige offers meaningful advantages in the long run and whether S&C's general litigation practice is better enough than Covington's to justify picking it over Covington. My sense is no to both--so Covington remains the no-brainer choice--but just checking.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 08, 2021 1:30 pm

It seems like Covington is the obvious choice given my goals, but I want to make sure I am not missing anything. I would like to be in DC (and certainly not in NY) long-term, and working for the government at some point is definitely a goal. I liked the people and culture at both firms. I am interested in lit and regulatory work; not at all in transactional. I plan to clerk and am pretty nerdy.

My main pause factors are whether S&C's name/prestige offers meaningful advantages in the long run and whether S&C's general litigation practice is better enough than Covington's to justify picking it over Covington. My sense is no to both--so Covington remains the no-brainer choice--but just checking.

I don't think that the S&C brand is going to have much more of a bump, if at all. While S&C is generally a more highly thought of firm, Covington DC will stick out more for the people who matter (i.e. government positions in DC). I would say take Covington DC, without hesitation.

S&C NY carries no more prestige to government than Covington DC.

OP. What about if I want to move into lit after my clerkship? Again, my sense is no difference, but just checking.

The advantage for S&C over Covington are pretty much entirely in the transactional field. It has a huge network of GCs and has much deeper ties to banks. So if you want to shift from regulatory to lit after clerking, Covington would still be the better bet.

S&C is a top name in NY and does have elite complex lit work but there's literally no reason to go if you want be in DC and go into gov when your other choice is Covington. You're all good.

Go to Covington and do regulatory work that interests you and you’ll have won the Biglaw lottery.

Elston Gunn wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 08, 2021 2:48 pm

Go to Covington and do regulatory work that interests you and you’ll have won the Biglaw lottery.

Could you elaborate? Is it something about fitting my interests or regulatory work specifically?

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 08, 2021 3:05 pm

Elston Gunn wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 08, 2021 2:48 pm

Go to Covington and do regulatory work that interests you and you’ll have won the Biglaw lottery.

Could you elaborate? Is it something about fitting my interests or regulatory work specifically?

Regulatory work at a top DC firm is the ultimate combination of relatively humane and predictable hours; genuinely substantive work that involves the kind of research, writing, and analytical skills that drew most people to law school in the first place; and the opportunity to develop real expertise that (for most practice areas at least) is highly sought after both in-house and government. You probably won’t make partner (or if you do you’ll make a lot less money than the gaudy PPP numbers you see for NY firms), but you also quickly have real skills that aren’t super easily replaced, so your job security is usually solid.

I don’t want to oversell it — it’s still Biglaw. But, as someone who has experienced both lit and regulatory, I think it’s way way better than the alternatives.

It seems that the poll is skewing heavily toward Covington, but if any of the S&C voters (or anyone else for the matter) wants to contribute their perspective, I am all ears!

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 08, 2021 6:08 pm

It seems that the poll is skewing heavily toward Covington, but if any of the S&C voters (or anyone else for the matter) wants to contribute their perspective, I am all ears!

They’re both excellent, very prestigious options and the choice depends entirely on your location and work goals. Because it sounds like you are DC focused then Covington makes more sense. If you wanted to be in NY and do more complex lit rather than regulatory/investigations work then S&C would be a great choice. If you are a corporate person then S&C is the right call as well. It’s sort of an apples and oranges comparison

Would still love to hear the perspective of one of the S&C supporters, although Covington remains the clear favorite poll-wise.

Some people voting in the polls are 2Ls who put way too much weight into vault rankings. Not saying that all the people who voted for S&C are in that boat, but it makes no sense to pick S&C over Covington DC given your goals (as most people have mentioned).

It’s starting to seem like you’ve already picked S&C and you’re trying to justify your choice. If that’s the case, you can’t go wrong going to S&C either.

2013 wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 08, 2021 11:27 pm

Some people voting in the polls are 2Ls who put way too much weight into vault rankings. Not saying that all the people who voted for S&C are in that boat, but it makes no sense to pick S&C over Covington DC given your goals (as most people have mentioned).

It’s starting to seem like you’ve already picked S&C and you’re trying to justify your choice. If that’s the case, you can’t go wrong going to S&C either.

OP. Actually, the opposite. I am essentially settled on Covington, I just wanted to make sure that non-DC Vault discrepancy/potential prestige boost of S&C was not something dispositive. And it does not sound like it is. I was just wondering whether that--or something else I missed--was driving the S&C votes since the responses have been unanimously for Covington, and those actually reflect my goals/interests.

"CovingTTTon" has a bit of a bad rap around these parts because they tried to keep DC from going to $190k

Is there any reason I should care about that? It seems like they have always actually paid market.

Frankly, I don't think it's close. If you want to be in D.C. and do anything close to regulatory or government work, it's hard to do much better than Covington.

The people at S&C are definitely weirder/more socially inept FWIW.

OP here. I still intend to take the Covington offer--thanks for the perspectives.