Ropes vs. Sidley for NY Corporate Forum

[Anonymous User]

So I have offers from both Ropes and Gray and Sidley Austin for next summer, both in New York, and I'm focusing on corporate work.

They seem very comparable but I'm having a tough time deciding so if anyone has an opinion and wants to enable my overthinking, please feel free to share.

[Anonymous User]

What kind of corporate? If you're thinking of private equity deal work, then I think R&G is on the rise and they're making a concerted effort to increase their presence in aiding private equity M&A transactions. Maybe my observation is wrong there, but I think generally R&G's PE work is a step above Sidley's.

But if you're thinking just about any other corporate practice -- debt/credit/finance, securities, public general corporate, Sidley might be the better option. Not that R&G's is bad, but I think the amount and diversity of cap markets, securities, bond placements and debt work with Sidley is probably greater.

I think in the past people would have said Sidley across the board, but I think in recent years R&G's PE work has really eaten (in other words, they've poached) into it's peer firms, particularly in New York.

If you're a 3L, one other thing to consider is practice group movement. I think R&G generally puts their first years into "buckets" that allow them to explore a couple of corporate practice groups within the given "bucket" whereas Sidley usually places their first years into a specific group and they usually don't allow movement out of that group. But I'm a few years out now, things could have changed.

[Anonymous User]

For M&A, Ropes is better.

[Anonymous User]

What kind of corporate? If you're thinking of private equity deal work, then I think R&G is on the rise and they're making a concerted effort to increase their presence in aiding private equity M&A transactions. Maybe my observation is wrong there, but I think generally R&G's PE work is a step above Sidley's.

But if you're thinking just about any other corporate practice -- debt/credit/finance, securities, public general corporate, Sidley might be the better option. Not that R&G's is bad, but I think the amount and diversity of cap markets, securities, bond placements and debt work with Sidley is probably greater.

I think in the past people would have said Sidley across the board, but I think in recent years R&G's PE work has really eaten (in other words, they've poached) into it's peer firms, particularly in New York.

If you're a 3L, one other thing to consider is practice group movement. I think R&G generally puts their first years into "buckets" that allow them to explore a couple of corporate practice groups within the given "bucket" whereas Sidley usually places their first years into a specific group and they usually don't allow movement out of that group. But I'm a few years out now, things could have changed.

Hard to say, it's actually for next summer after I finish 2L so part of the summer will be figuring out which groups to favour. PE/M&A is definitely a top candidate, but so is cap markets, I'd really have to try both