Fenwick SF Forum

[Anonymous User]

Anyone have insight on Fenwick and their SF office? Culture, work/life balance, in-house exit opportunities? Thinking about lateraling. Thanks!

[attorney589753]

Feel free to PM me

[yowzabobawza]

Feel free to PM me

Have a CB with Fenwick and would be interested to hear about it, but TLS won't let me PM you. Would you mind reaching out? Thanks!

[yowzabobawza]

Feel free to PM me

Have a CB with Fenwick and would be interested to hear about it, but TLS won't let me PM you. Would you mind reaching out? Thanks!

Thanks for PMing me. TLS won't let me PM you back so I put my questions below. Can you PM me your answers? Feel free to answer as many as you want. Thank you!

1. How is the lit dept for people without a science background? It seems like the main split is between IP/LS and securities.
2. How is the culture/organization of the firm? Do associates feel like partners treat them as fungible? How much of an emphasis does the firm place on training/investing in associates?
3. Do you feel like you and you colleagues have a life outside of the firm?
4. How does the firm look at people without a strong CA connection who want to live in SF?
5. Any quirks of the firm (good or bad) that wouldn't be apparent by online research/talking to people?

[Anonymous User]

Feel free to PM me

Have a CB with Fenwick and would be interested to hear about it, but TLS won't let me PM you. Would you mind reaching out? Thanks!

Thanks for PMing me. TLS won't let me PM you back so I put my questions below. Can you PM me your answers? Feel free to answer as many as you want. Thank you!

1. How is the lit dept for people without a science background? It seems like the main split is between IP/LS and securities.
2. How is the culture/organization of the firm? Do associates feel like partners treat them as fungible? How much of an emphasis does the firm place on training/investing in associates?
3. Do you feel like you and you colleagues have a life outside of the firm?
4. How does the firm look at people without a strong CA connection who want to live in SF?
5. Any quirks of the firm (good or bad) that wouldn't be apparent by online research/talking to people?

Not other guy but also a SF Fenwick attorney (and I'm lit).

1. We have way more patent lit and I like the patent work/patent litigators more. We have securities, employment, IPC, and antitrust too as other options. You can do patent lit without a science background with 0 repercussions if you are up for it and our lit group is extremely underrated there. Other stuff is fine and we do some cool work but again I prefer the patent group.

2. It is free market. The partners I have worked for are mostly very nice though depending on the team you are in you can end up working more with associatez because the partners are too busy to be involved in the day to day. In terms of training, honestly you learn mostly by doing but you can get substantive experience very quickly and I did quite a lot even as a first year (including attending trial though this is extremely rare). It will depend on who you work with though and some are better than others.

3. The patent lit group bills the most. Juniors generally have it easier. I rarely work weekends and people are generally nice/understanding as long as everything that needs to get done is. Filings are occasionally tough but that is a general lot thing and timelines are predictable.

4. I don't think we care at all about ties. I had none to SF specifically though I did other parts of CA and people seem pretty flexible about office swapping.

5. Nothing that I can think of aside from lit (especially patent) rankings being misleading. We do some top tier work there and ironically our biggest rainmakers are in lit despite the ECVC focus of the firm