Schulte Forum

[DougEvans789]

What’s the scoop on working there? Seems pretty remunerative for partners, but based on how little I hear about it, I’m guessing that associates don’t see it as really any different than any other V100

[Anonymous User]

Don’t recommend unless you want to do investment funds, tax or trusts and estates. If those are interesting and you’re certain to get into one of those areas, it seems more chill than most biglaw with solid comp

[Anonymous User]

Basically like any other PEP25 firm - feel pretty confident they will match any increase in comp. Hours requirement for bonus sucks but helps avoid situations where you are expected to bill way above 2000 hours. Culture being ever so slightly more chill than other firms.

Hedge fund and PE clients dominate the work in all corporate (and likely lit) practice groups. Usually work against same old same old V50 firms (i.e. KE is on every third deal)

[Anonymous User]

If you’re interested in funds I recommend it. Group staffs leanly so you’ll get real experience quickly. No real face time requirements pre covid. Partners are pretty nice overall. Not a lot of culture but people are really happy with the transparency from the firm during covid.

[Anonymous User]

Corporate teams seem to be trending the wrong way: https://www.law.com/americanlawyer/2021 ... t-milbank/

That article mentions they lost a handful of finance partners recently too. Not good when there’s less than 100 partners to start with. Lit team made a good pickup as it’s chair recently though

[Anonymous User]

Corporate teams seem to be trending the wrong way: https://www.law.com/americanlawyer/2021 ... t-milbank/

That article mentions they lost a handful of finance partners recently too. Not good when there’s less than 100 partners to start with. Lit team made a good pickup as it’s chair recently though

Rick Presutti and Fred Ragucci (from that finance group that left last year) were two of maybe four or five real rainmakers in the corporate groups. A ton of business, and people, left with them.

What's left of corporate is still as hot as ever though, as is the funds group (which is the only reason anyone cares about the firm).

[Anonymous User]

Corporate teams seem to be trending the wrong way: https://www.law.com/americanlawyer/2021 ... t-milbank/

That article mentions they lost a handful of finance partners recently too. Not good when there’s less than 100 partners to start with. Lit team made a good pickup as it’s chair recently though

The loss of the finance partners was a pretty big blow. They are adding partners elsewhere but other partners will always be secondary to funds partners and diversity of work is an issue. So they lose people to that.

[Anonymous User]

Ok I’ll bite. Do not work at SRZ. Their flagship funds practice is a cash cow but generally thought of in the industry as producing a lower quality product. Their large clients have begun to realize this and find other counsel. Their niche is smaller funds who don’t want to pay for good lawyers. It’s a good deal for smaller hedge funds who want an off the shelf set of docs from a firm that knows what it’s doing. What it isn’t though is a place that actually trains law students to be good funds lawyers, and their work product is evidence.

Speak to people in the industry — you’re better off at any other good GP funds practice, even WFG or Sidley or whoever else is at that tier just below STB, KE, etc. If you want to do hedge funds, go to Fried Frank or Sidley. you’ll end up actually learning something other than how to copy paste fund docs together.

Some of the other practices are fine as others have noted. And it’s probably better than an LP focused practice like MLB or DLA. But if you have other options at better firms, take one of them.

[Anonymous User]

Ok I’ll bite. Do not work at SRZ. Their flagship funds practice is a cash cow but generally thought of in the industry as producing a lower quality product. Their large clients have begun to realize this and find other counsel. Their niche is smaller funds who don’t want to pay for good lawyers.

Not in our funds group but our associate billing rates are basically the same as most V20 NYC firms so not sure how this makes any sense. Especially given our RPL is fairly high and we work slightly less hours than
V20 firms based on albeit unreliable average hour stats.

[Anonymous User]

Ok I’ll bite. Do not work at SRZ. Their flagship funds practice is a cash cow but generally thought of in the industry as producing a lower quality product. Their large clients have begun to realize this and find other counsel. Their niche is smaller funds who don’t want to pay for good lawyers.

Not in our funds group but our associate billing rates are basically the same as most V20 NYC firms so not sure how this makes any sense. Especially given our RPL is fairly high and we work slightly less hours than
V20 firms based on albeit unreliable average hour stats.

Quoted anon. I think you may have misread what I said. There’s plenty of work. If you’re a startup fund looking for an off the shelf product, SRZ is fine.

I never said the billing rates were low or the group wasn’t profitable, obviously that’s not the case. All I said was that some sophisticated clients are leaving because they’re not getting good work and if you’re a junior associate choosing a funds practice, there are better practices. I work in the industry.

If your choice is between SRZ or MLB choose the former. If it’s between SRZ or WFG/other decent GP practice, no one should choose SRZ, even though they’re “ranked” higher. No one is choosing SRZ over STB or KE or FF but I’m talking to people who are looking at that second or third tier.

This is stuff no one told me so I feel like it’s important to share this insight.

[Anonymous User]

Ok I’ll bite. Do not work at SRZ. Their flagship funds practice is a cash cow but generally thought of in the industry as producing a lower quality product. Their large clients have begun to realize this and find other counsel. Their niche is smaller funds who don’t want to pay for good lawyers.

Not in our funds group but our associate billing rates are basically the same as most V20 NYC firms so not sure how this makes any sense. Especially given our RPL is fairly high and we work slightly less hours than
V20 firms based on albeit unreliable average hour stats.

Not the anon you're responding to, but it would not be a contradiction to say the firm has high rates (it absolutely does, though admittedly a tier below K&E/STB who, by the way, generally do not do the same kind of work) and it's also simultaneously losing larger clients, or clients with more complex work, to other firms who were not major players in the hedge fund world even 5-10 years ago. FWIW, I don't think SRZ is actually losing fund clients on net--it's just that the total volume has grown and other firms have significantly grown their practices, so I think the market share is down.

That may leave SRZ with a client base of smaller funds with more cookie-cutter work (whether it's entertaining or instructive enough is up to you), but there are a lot of those funds and the group is constantly busy enough to blow through people. Hence the quip that you become a senior associate in the group as a third year.

[Anonymous User]

Not the anon you're responding to, but it would not be a contradiction to say the firm has high rates (it absolutely does, though admittedly a tier below K&E/STB who, by the way, generally do not do the same kind of work) and it's also simultaneously losing larger clients, or clients with more complex work, to other firms who were not major players in the hedge fund world even 5-10 years ago. FWIW, I don't think SRZ is actually losing fund clients on net--it's just that the total volume has grown and other firms have significantly grown their practices, so I think the market share is down.

That may leave SRZ with a client base of smaller funds with more cookie-cutter work (whether it's entertaining or instructive enough is up to you), but there are a lot of those funds and the group is constantly busy enough to blow through people. Hence the quip that you become a senior associate in the group as a third year.

I have no idea about complexity of work for our funds group -- I work outside of our funds group and the vast majority of my clients have been and remain the larger institutional fund clients. However saying our funds team's niche is "smaller funds who don’t want to pay for good lawyers" simply doesn't make sense given what we charge clients per hour.

[Anonymous User]

Hmmm....midlevel at SRZ here, not in the Funds group. While I have my fair share of gripes with the Firm, not working with "larger clients" isn't one of them.

The majority of matters I get staffed on (now and for the previous ~5 years I've been here) are for the biggest names in the HF industry.....so not quite sure where the "smaller funds", "cookie cutter" broadsides are coming from.

In fact, K&E, STB etc. have been aggressively trying (somewhat successfully) to poach our Funds associates with generous signing bonuses for years.....and I doubt it's because they're looking for third-tier associates, as some have implied above.

[Anonymous User]

A lot of what is said in here is right, with a few caveats. SRZ has lost some large funds clients to other firms and isn’t a PE powerhouse like STB, FF or KE. I do think the traditional knock on SRZ is that they’ve been doing it for so long that the docs are off the shelf.

That said, as someone who has been in the industry for years (and who has asked this question of several fund GCs), there is no sense among in-house departments that lawyers from SRZ are worse than lawyers from peer or higher ranked firms with prominent funds practices.

I’ll also add that big, institutional clients are frequently the worst clients to learn on and involve the most administrative work at a junior level. Sure, they are more prestigious. But the real learning happens when you are a 3rd year negotiating side letters for $2-3 billion funds and working directly with a partner.

I’ve also heard some pretty bad things about the culture at FF, STB and Sidley in the funds groups. SRZ culture is pretty ok.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

Just looking at the partner list since it's not a big firm--does the firm literally have one POC partner?

I was under the impression any organization that white was legally required to incorporate as a Whole Foods.

[Anonymous User]

SRZ's lawyers are perfectly fine, and as someone who works across them, they're generally easier to deal with and far less likely to engage in some of the nonsense I've consistently seen from some of the firms people on this board constantly regard as "prestigious". The departure of the finance team is a big blow but the clients seem to have stayed for the most part.

[2013]

Does SRZ really bill the same as Kirkland and STB?

[Anonymous User]

If your choice is between SRZ or MLB choose the former. If it’s between SRZ or WFG/other decent GP practice, no one should choose SRZ, even though they’re “ranked” higher. No one is choosing SRZ over STB or KE or FF but I’m talking to people who are looking at that second or third tier.

This person seems to speak very confidently so wanted to offer yet another perspective.

As someone mentioned earlier, funds associates routinely get offered signing bonuses to jump ship to K&E. While some do, many don't (mostly for quality of life purposes, I believe).

Culture at SRZ is laid-back. There is not much snobbishness, prestige whoring or academic navel-gazing. It is definitely a business but the atmosphere is forgiving and I never had to worry about tripping over a partner's ego and getting fired. The funds group is not particularly fratty (other groups may be, I'm not sure).

Funds work is not astrophysics (whether at K&E or at SRZ) but you are given a lot of responsibility early and are taught to think on your feet and manage clients in a commercial way. While SRZ does run large PE fund launches, it is not the majority of the work so you do not spend a ton of time as a junior and midlevel managing closings and updating checklists.

[Anonymous User]

Does SRZ really bill the same as Kirkland and STB?

No, my understanding from colleagues who have lateralled is that hours are more reasonable at SRZ.

[Anonymous User]

Does SRZ really bill the same as Kirkland and STB?

No, my understanding from colleagues who have lateralled is that hours are more reasonable at SRZ.

Saw law.com articles mentioning KE and Weil associate rates topping $1.1k which we just about match. I'm sure our rates are slightly lower than KE but I doubt by much.

We definitely work less than KE associates. No one is hitting 3k here and 2.5k is way above average and comes with $40k extra bonus.

[Anonymous User]

If your choice is between SRZ or MLB choose the former. If it’s between SRZ or WFG/other decent GP practice, no one should choose SRZ, even though they’re “ranked” higher. No one is choosing SRZ over STB or KE or FF but I’m talking to people who are looking at that second or third tier.

This person seems to speak very confidently so wanted to offer yet another perspective.

As someone mentioned earlier, funds associates routinely get offered signing bonuses to jump ship to K&E. While some do, many don't (mostly for quality of life purposes, I believe).

Culture at SRZ is laid-back. There is not much snobbishness, prestige whoring or academic navel-gazing. It is definitely a business but the atmosphere is forgiving and I never had to worry about tripping over a partner's ego and getting fired. The funds group is not particularly fratty (other groups may be, I'm not sure).

Funds work is not astrophysics (whether at K&E or at SRZ) but you are given a lot of responsibility early and are taught to think on your feet and manage clients in a commercial way. While SRZ does run large PE fund launches, it is not the majority of the work so you do not spend a ton of time as a junior and midlevel managing closings and updating checklists.

Quoted anon again. There’s a lot of defensiveness and straw mans in these responses (not just the above). I’m simply providing my opinion based on my experience working with clients and former clients of SRZs funds practice, alumni of SRZ and having friends who are also in the industry. No one rationally thinks that every SRZ lawyer is a bad lawyer or that every STB lawyer is a genius. The question for a young lawyer is what firm on average will provide a wide diversity of matters and will allow them to grow and learn and teach them to give considered advice. All I’m saying is that if you have a choice between SRZ and other options I mentioned, if I was in your shoes I would choose another. SRZ might be perfect for you, which is great. But on an anonymous board, I’m speaking to the average (which most of us are).

[Anonymous User]

The best way to gauge the reputation of SRZ's fund practice is talk to your recruiter, especially if s/he has decent experience placing candidates in investment management groups or with asset managers. From my personal experience talking to IM group recruiters and fund-side legal, SRZ remains a go-to firm. Especially since jrs and mid-levels are given more responsibility than your typical biglaw associate. But as others have mentioned, KE, STB and Sidley are also well versed in this area. They may also benefit from a better name recognition and strength in PE-related areas such as M&A.