Summer Classes 2021 Edition Forum

[Anonymous User]

What is the standard amount firms offer as an advance before SA? (NYC, if it is office-dependent)

I got 15k at a V50.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

Wow.. A 23% decline in profits... Does anyone know what's going on at Shearman?

Leverage on the higher side, and never having all that high a profit margin in the first place (34% in 2019) makes you particularly vulnerable to slowdowns in your money-making areas. A 33% profit margin gets entirely wiped out by a 25% decline in revenue (very plausible in a downturn) unless you cut expenses. For one example re: Shearman, 2020 in particular was a terrible time to be connected to energy, especially oil/gas. They're not really in a lot of the boom areas where other firms were cleaning up (and have been cleaning up for the past decade). Maybe the poster child for the group of firms who never really recovered from 2008. Looks like for whatever reason (Texas expansion?) they didn't wind up actually cutting expenses on the year.

I don't know the particulars of why they've lost so much business over the years; an insider could presumably fill you in there.

[Anonymous User]

Interested in the large NY classes ... anybody have: Cravath, SullCrom, STB, Cleary, Skadden, Debevoise, etc.?

bump to solicit these

[blair.waldorf]

What is the standard amount firms offer as an advance before SA? (NYC, if it is office-dependent)

Firms offer advances before SA programs? I've never heard of this.

[Anonymous User]

Somewhat related, but at least last summer (due to covid) some firms paid summers before they started after truncating the program. Did firms offer advances then, too?

[Anonymous User]

S&C offered a 2500 advance if you wanted it for this yr's summers. No school list yet.

[Anonymous User]

Ropes offered a 2k advance last summer and offered it again for this summer

[Anonymous User]

Wow.. A 23% decline in profits... Does anyone know what's going on at Shearman?

Leverage on the higher side, and never having all that high a profit margin in the first place (34% in 2019) makes you particularly vulnerable to slowdowns in your money-making areas. A 33% profit margin gets entirely wiped out by a 25% decline in revenue (very plausible in a downturn) unless you cut expenses. For one example re: Shearman, 2020 in particular was a terrible time to be connected to energy, especially oil/gas. They're not really in a lot of the boom areas where other firms were cleaning up (and have been cleaning up for the past decade). Maybe the poster child for the group of firms who never really recovered from 2008. Looks like for whatever reason (Texas expansion?) they didn't wind up actually cutting expenses on the year.

I don't know the particulars of why they've lost so much business over the years; an insider could presumably fill you in there.

Thank you for your insight, Monochromatic Oeuvre.

[Anonymous User]

Leverage on the higher side, and never having all that high a profit margin in the first place (34% in 2019) makes you particularly vulnerable to slowdowns in your money-making areas.

This may be a dumb law student question, but would you mind explaining what leverage means in this context?

[cheaptilts]

Leverage on the higher side, and never having all that high a profit margin in the first place (34% in 2019) makes you particularly vulnerable to slowdowns in your money-making areas.

This may be a dumb law student question, but would you mind explaining what leverage means in this context?

Associates per equity partner. More associates billing per partner (more bodies on a transaction, more hands on a brief) is $$$$$$ during a boom economy. But the associates liabilities (relatively speaking) when the work dries up.

High leverage in NYC would be like 5+ associates per partner in my book (where most firms are leveraged pretty high to begin with). Some firms can handle it well because they will always have work to go around. Others can’t.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

Leverage on the higher side, and never having all that high a profit margin in the first place (34% in 2019) makes you particularly vulnerable to slowdowns in your money-making areas.

This may be a dumb law student question, but would you mind explaining what leverage means in this context?

Leverage is how many people each equity partner is paying for, or mathematically, the ratio of all lawyers who aren't equity partners to equity partners. So if you have 500 lawyers in your firm with 100 equity partners, your leverage is 4 to 1. I would say anything more than 5 to 1 is considered high by Biglaw standards, but I see firms go up to 9 to 1.

As in finance, leverage magnifies both the ups and downs of a law firm's business. In boom times, more associates generating revenue with fewer partners sharing the pie is great for PPP. But when business slows down and associates become unprofitable, more associates mean more losses. One of the weaknesses of PPP as a metric is that a firm with a very weak financial profile can achieve a high PPP simply by being very levered. All else being equal (key phrase here!), an associate should prefer low leverage, as it means a firm will be more amenable to associate compensation increases and promotion of new partners than high-leverage firms.

[Anonymous User]

Associates per equity partner. More associates billing per partner (more bodies on a transaction, more hands on a brief) is $$$$$$ during a boom economy. But the associates liabilities (relatively speaking) when the work dries up.

High leverage in NYC would be like 5+ associates per partner in my book (where most firms are leveraged pretty high to begin with). Some firms can handle it well because they will always have work to go around. Others can’t.

Leverage is how many people each equity partner is paying for, or mathematically, the ratio of all lawyers who aren't equity partners to equity partners. So if you have 500 lawyers in your firm with 100 equity partners, your leverage is 4 to 1. I would say anything more than 5 to 1 is considered high by Biglaw standards, but I see firms go up to 9 to 1.

As in finance, leverage magnifies both the ups and downs of a law firm's business. In boom times, more associates generating revenue with fewer partners sharing the pie is great for PPP. But when business slows down and associates become unprofitable, more associates mean more losses. One of the weaknesses of PPP as a metric is that a firm with a very weak financial profile can achieve a high PPP simply by being very levered. All else being equal (key phrase here!), an associate should prefer low leverage, as it means a firm will be more amenable to associate compensation increases and promotion of new partners than high-leverage firms.

Thank you both very much.

[Anonymous User]

LW just published its summer class across all offices in the US + London (5 ppl), they didn't categorize it via office and it's in random order so I didn't spend the time to count for each office:

Latham Watkins 240 total
Antonin Scalia law school - 1
BC - 2
BU - 6
Brooklyn law school - 1
CLS - 9
Cornell - 8
Duke - 8
Emory - 1
Fordham - 10
GWU - 3
GULC - 18
Harvard - 27
Howard - 4
Reuben Clark - 1
NYU - 8
Northwestern - 10
Notre Dame - 4
St. Johns - 1
SLS - 11
UC Berkeley - 17
UC Hastings - 2
UCI - 1
UCLA - 12
U Chicago - 11
U Houston - 4
U Maryland - 1
U Michigan - 12
UNC - 1
U Penn - 13
USD - 4
U Texas - 4
U Toronto - 1
UVA - 4
USC - 6
vandy - 3
wake forest - 2
Washington and Lee - 1
WUSTL - 4
YLS - 4

[Anonymous User]

Latham Watkins 240 total
Antonin Scalia law school - 1
BC - 2
BU - 6
Brooklyn law school - 1
CLS - 9
Cornell - 8
Duke - 8
Emory - 1
Fordham - 10
GWU - 3
GULC - 18
Harvard - 27
Howard - 4
Reuben Clark - 1
NYU - 8
Northwestern - 10
Notre Dame - 4
St. Johns - 1
SLS - 11
UC Berkeley - 17
UC Hastings - 2
UCI - 1
UCLA - 12
U Chicago - 11
U Houston - 4
U Maryland - 1
U Michigan - 12
UNC - 1
U Penn - 13
USD - 4
U Texas - 4
U Toronto - 1
UVA - 4
USC - 6
vandy - 3
wake forest - 2
Washington and Lee - 1
WUSTL - 4
YLS - 4

Does anyone know what GULC, Cal, and Harvard are so overrepresented? Especially (for Harvard) in comparison to the rest of the T6 schools? Is there an office that appeals to those graduates in particular or something?

[Anonymous User]

Does anyone know what GULC, Cal, and Harvard are so overrepresented? Especially (for Harvard) in comparison to the rest of the T6 schools? Is there an office that appeals to those graduates in particular or something?

Just an ignorant 2L but in Harvard’s case it probably has something to do with LW’s Boston’s office? I bet if you looked only at LW NYC, Harvard’s numbers would look more similar to NYU & CLS (and more in line with DPW and P,W posted earlier in thread).

Or alternatively there’s some special HLS to Latham pipeline I’ve never heard of.

[Anonymous User]

Just an ignorant 2L but in Harvard’s case it probably has something to do with LW’s Boston’s office? I bet if you looked only at LW NYC, Harvard’s numbers would look more similar to NYU & CLS (and more in line with DPW and P,W posted earlier in thread).

Or alternatively there’s some special HLS to Latham pipeline I’ve never heard of.

OP. Thanks--I assumed it was a Boston/nearby office but wasn't sure.

[Anonymous User]

The big gains in summer class size make sense when you consider the insanely profitable year most firms had in 2020...

Honestly, I am somewhat surprised by Cravath's meh performance this year. Barely eeking out inflation in a year where peer firms had 15-40% increases in PPEP and 10%+ increases in RPL.

Is this a result of the whole "we don't hire laterals" shtick coming around to bite them?

[Anonymous User]

Just an ignorant 2L but in Harvard’s case it probably has something to do with LW’s Boston’s office? I bet if you looked only at LW NYC, Harvard’s numbers would look more similar to NYU & CLS (and more in line with DPW and P,W posted earlier in thread).

Or alternatively there’s some special HLS to Latham pipeline I’ve never heard of.

OP. Thanks--I assumed it was a Boston/nearby office but wasn't sure.

only 3 out of 27 are headed to Boston office; most HLSers are in NYC/Cali/DC office. GULC and HLS are well represented bc they are also the largest law schools among t14s.

[Anonymous User]

LW just published its summer class across all offices in the US + London (5 ppl), they didn't categorize it via office and it's in random order so I didn't spend the time to count for each office:

Fixed

Latham & Watkins (240, all offices)

Harvard - 27
Georgetown - 18
Berkeley - 17
Penn - 13
Michigan - 12
UCLA - 12
Stanford - 11
Chicago - 11
Northwestern - 10
Fordham - 10
Columbia - 9
NYU - 8
Duke - 8
Cornell - 8
USC - 6
BU - 6
Yale - 4
Virginia - 4
Texas - 4
WUSTL - 4
Notre Dame - 4
Howard - 4
Houston - 4
USD - 4
Vanderbilt - 3
GWU - 3
UC Hastings - 2
Wake Forest - 2
BC - 2
Toronto - 1
Washington and Lee - 1
BYU - 1
UNC - 1
George Mason - 1
Emory - 1
UCI - 1
Maryland - 1
St. Johns - 1
Brooklyn - 1

[Anonymous User]

Does anyone know what GULC, Cal, and Harvard are so overrepresented? Especially (for Harvard) in comparison to the rest of the T6 schools? Is there an office that appeals to those graduates in particular or something?

Berkeley likely because Latham has a stronger presence in CA compared to its peer firms.

For HLS and GULC, I imagine class size is a non-minor factor. According to 2019 ABA 509 Report, there are 564 people in HLS '22 and 518 (full-time) in GULC '22. Compare to:

YLS 212 / SLS 180 / UChi 197 / CLS 364 / NYU 427 / 249 Penn / 335 UVA / 327 Berkeley / 318 Michigan / 125 (full-time) Duke / 243 NU / 113 Cornell

[Anonymous User]

Does anyone know what GULC, Cal, and Harvard are so overrepresented? Especially (for Harvard) in comparison to the rest of the T6 schools? Is there an office that appeals to those graduates in particular or something?

Berkeley likely because Latham has a stronger presence in CA compared to its peer firms.

For HLS and GULC, I imagine class size is a non-minor factor. According to 2019 ABA 509 Report, there are 564 people in HLS '22 and 518 (full-time) in GULC '22. Compare to:

YLS 212 / SLS 180 / UChi 197 / CLS 364 / NYU 427 / 249 Penn / 335 UVA / 327 Berkeley / 318 Michigan / 125 (full-time) Duke / 243 NU / 113 Cornell

Class size is playing some role, but it's not driving the outcome here. I mean, if class size were the major factor, you'd expect HLS and GULC to dominate other biglaw classes in a similar way. Instead, you see distributions like:

Davis Polk
**2Ls (incl. possible touchbacks) and 1Ls**

New York (157)
NYU (23)
Columbia (20)
Harvard (18) [+2 D.C.]
...
GULC (3) [+1 D.C.]

Paul Weiss
*New York (1L/2L) NY SA*

NYU (13)
Columbia (12)
...
Harvard (8)
...
GULC (5)

It's more likely instead that LW offices match up better with HLS and GULC student preferences on geography, and LW doesn't have the same favoritism for NYU and CLS in its NYC office that the NYC-centric firms do. (And it's not just coming from the firm's end: fairly or unfairly, the student perception of LW at my CCN is a tad weaker than comparable firms like KE, Skadden, etc. I am not sure whether that's true of the student perceptions at HLS and GULC.)

[publius365]

Does anyone know what GULC, Cal, and Harvard are so overrepresented? Especially (for Harvard) in comparison to the rest of the T6 schools? Is there an office that appeals to those graduates in particular or something?

Berkeley likely because Latham has a stronger presence in CA compared to its peer firms.

For HLS and GULC, I imagine class size is a non-minor factor. According to 2019 ABA 509 Report, there are 564 people in HLS '22 and 518 (full-time) in GULC '22. Compare to:

YLS 212 / SLS 180 / UChi 197 / CLS 364 / NYU 427 / 249 Penn / 335 UVA / 327 Berkeley / 318 Michigan / 125 (full-time) Duke / 243 NU / 113 Cornell

Class size is playing some role, but it's not driving the outcome here. I mean, if class size were the major factor, you'd expect HLS and GULC to dominate other biglaw classes in a similar way. Instead, you see distributions like:

Davis Polk
**2Ls (incl. possible touchbacks) and 1Ls**

New York (157)
NYU (23)
Columbia (20)
Harvard (18) [+2 D.C.]
...
GULC (3) [+1 D.C.]

Paul Weiss
*New York (1L/2L) NY SA*

NYU (13)
Columbia (12)
...
Harvard (8)
...
GULC (5)

It's more likely instead that LW offices match up better with HLS and GULC student preferences on geography, and LW doesn't have the same favoritism for NYU and CLS in its NYC office that the NYC-centric firms do. (And it's not just coming from the firm's end: fairly or unfairly, the student perception of LW at my CCN is a tad weaker than comparable firms like KE, Skadden, etc. I am not sure whether that's true of the student perceptions at HLS and GULC.)

You're comparing Latham (all offices) with Davis Polk (New York) and Paul Weiss (New York). Why are we surprised that Davis Polk and Paul Weiss have a large number of NYU and CLS students in their New York offices?

[Anonymous User]

Latham DC hired a ton of GULC grads last year, it probably did this year too. It seemed to have a larger preference for local schools than other DC offices. Maybe because it's big on transactional and probably fewer people from outside of the area target DC for M&A or PE.

[Anonymous User]

[/quote]
It's more likely instead that LW offices match up better with HLS and GULC student preferences on geography, and LW doesn't have the same favoritism for NYU and CLS in its NYC office that the NYC-centric firms do. (And it's not just coming from the firm's end: fairly or unfairly, the student perception of LW at my CCN is a tad weaker than comparable firms like KE, Skadden, etc. I am not sure whether that's true of the student perceptions at HLS and GULC.)
[/quote]

ya i think this is fair - also latham has smaller ny office than most of the peer firms, and almost half the size of PW, and 2/3 the size of DPW in new york (firms that are truly deep rooted in ny). KE and skadden is also a lot larger in new york. But i do think that skadden and ke also have strong national focus, so maybe the class list composition for those two firms would be similar

[Anonymous User]

Does anyone know what GULC, Cal, and Harvard are so overrepresented? Especially (for Harvard) in comparison to the rest of the T6 schools? Is there an office that appeals to those graduates in particular or something?

Berkeley likely because Latham has a stronger presence in CA compared to its peer firms.

For HLS and GULC, I imagine class size is a non-minor factor. According to 2019 ABA 509 Report, there are 564 people in HLS '22 and 518 (full-time) in GULC '22. Compare to:

YLS 212 / SLS 180 / UChi 197 / CLS 364 / NYU 427 / 249 Penn / 335 UVA / 327 Berkeley / 318 Michigan / 125 (full-time) Duke / 243 NU / 113 Cornell

Class size is playing some role, but it's not driving the outcome here. I mean, if class size were the major factor, you'd expect HLS and GULC to dominate other biglaw classes in a similar way. Instead, you see distributions like:

Davis Polk
**2Ls (incl. possible touchbacks) and 1Ls**

New York (157)
NYU (23)
Columbia (20)
Harvard (18) [+2 D.C.]
...
GULC (3) [+1 D.C.]

Paul Weiss
*New York (1L/2L) NY SA*

NYU (13)
Columbia (12)
...
Harvard (8)
...
GULC (5)

It's more likely instead that LW offices match up better with HLS and GULC student preferences on geography, and LW doesn't have the same favoritism for NYU and CLS in its NYC office that the NYC-centric firms do. (And it's not just coming from the firm's end: fairly or unfairly, the student perception of LW at my CCN is a tad weaker than comparable firms like KE, Skadden, etc. I am not sure whether that's true of the student perceptions at HLS and GULC.)

You're comparing Latham (all offices) with Davis Polk (New York) and Paul Weiss (New York). Why are we surprised that Davis Polk and Paul Weiss have a large number of NYU and CLS students in their New York offices?

Totally agree - many ppl who attend NYU and CLS, based on my experience attending one of these two schools, is pretty NY-centric, so naturally favors firms with deeper roots in NY market. PW and DPW also have significantly larger NY SA class (DPW is >90% larger than LW, and PW is >50% larger), so more nyu/cls students makes total sense. Even for LW, all the NYU students this summer are at the nyc office, and most of the CLS students at nyc office as well. I think it's more about geographic flexibility than anything else