ECVC @ Covington? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Anyone have insights into the ECVC group at Covington? TBH I had no idea they had a ECVC practice at the firm.

Hours? Culture? Deal flow (i.e., how many true company/investor side deals versus getting staffed on other corporate transactions)?

[Anonymous User]

Which office are you looking at? SF/SV or NY?

[Anonymous User]

NY but happy to learn about the other office if that's where your insights are.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone have insights into the ECVC group at Covington? TBH I had no idea they had a ECVC practice at the firm.

Hours? Culture? Deal flow (i.e., how many true company/investor side deals versus getting staffed on other corporate transactions)?

EC/VC mid at a top SV shop and I've never seen them on a deal. Plenty of deals opposite NY-based funds and NY-based counsel too.

From a quick perusal of their website looks like they have a small handful of partners that do it and given that the firm's not present on most league tables, would expect the practice to be very small and you probably have to do significant double duty on the M&A or cap markets side of things (which, to be fair, you have to do even at top SV shops since your clients will have exits but you can principally focus your practice on EC/VC whereas I don't know if that would be the case here).

If you have no other choices for EC/VC, then sure, go ahead and then lateral after a year or so since Covington will give you the name recognition and heft to do so but I wouldn't pick them as a top choice to target EC/VC.

[Anonymous User]

NY but happy to learn about the other office if that's where your insights are.

If it’s NY, you won’t just do EC/VC (you’ll split with other corporate work). That’s not all bad but you won’t be EC/VC first and foremost, especially right when you start (if you’re not a lateral). The team in NY is small (just two people really driving the practice up top at the partner/senior counsel level, SF/PA have more but they’ll staff most of their deals out of the California offices). Joe Gangitano is really, really great.

There’s some tech work but also a lot of biotech work, given Covington’s dominance in the life sciences space (in terms of regulatory work and life sciences licensing/collaboration agreements).

It’s not a bad choice if you want to do corporate work but mix in some EC/VC on the side (aka a minority of your practice). I wouldn’t go to Cov NY if you know that EC/VC is all you’re interested in, though.