NYC White-Collar Boutiques Forum

[Anonymous User]

Anyone have insight on the small NYC white-collar boutiques? In particular, interested about the hours, reputation, type of work, and experiences at firms like:

Krieger Kim & Lewin
Perrillo & Klein
Walden Macht & Haran
Levine Lee

And what are the cons and pros to going to (1) one of the above; (2) a more mid-sized boutique like Morvillo or (3) practicing white-collar defense at the biglaw firms?

[Anonymous User]

AFAIK the big difference between white-collar specialist boutiques and biglaw white-collar is that the former will more often rep individuals, like execs and witnesses, who are more likely to go to trial and might actually go to prison, whereas the latter will more often rep the company. (In white collar, the corporation will have a firm, and then each target individual will have a different firm for conflicts reasons, so you can have like ten firms defending a big case at once.) Biglaw also generally has more internal investigations work versus true criminal defense.

I’ve worked at a white-collar boutique but only as a summer, so I might not have all the details perfect.

Fwiw I have heard good things about Krieger Kim.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone have insight on the small NYC white-collar boutiques? In particular, interested about the hours, reputation, type of work, and experiences at firms like:

Krieger Kim & Lewin
Perrillo & Klein
Walden Macht & Haran
Levine Lee

And what are the cons and pros to going to (1) one of the above; (2) a more mid-sized boutique like Morvillo or (3) practicing white-collar defense at the biglaw firms?

White collar work at a boutique is substantially different from white collar work at a firm. As people have said, at a firm you will be doing a lot of massive investigations (and the doc review that comes with it) for big companies whereas at boutiques you will be working with individual clients. For me that's a pretty obvious con for biglaw, though client management can be tough when you're defending someone who faces serious financial consequences and/or threats to their liberty. Pro for biglaw is the money: some white collar boutiques pay market salary but not bonus and I have heard there is compression after like year 6 or so. As for the smaller places, I have heard nice things about Walden Macht & Haran but am not familiar with the others, though have heard nothing bad about them. I think the advantage of a bigger player (Lankler, Morvillo, etc.) over the smaller places is that you get the benefit of a long history with the USAO and other agencies if you want to make the transition to government (and most white collar people seem to want that). The smaller a place is, the more I'd want to be sure there weren't any toxic partners too because it would be much more difficult to avoid them.

[Anonymous User]

I know the founding partners of Krieger Kim and Lewin and Levine Lee and am familiar with Walden Macht. All great places, great people and friendly. I can't speak to the hours but all the partners there are very very good and you can learn a lot from them.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks, everyone! Any idea how competitive it is to be hired by one of these smaller firms when compared to Biglaw or the mid-sized boutiques? I assume at least one prior clerkship is a requirement.

[Anonymous User]

I’ve heard Seth Levine is a nasty person, but that’s second hand.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks, everyone! Any idea how competitive it is to be hired by one of these smaller firms when compared to Biglaw or the mid-sized boutiques? I assume at least one prior clerkship is a requirement.

I think it goes big law is easier than mid-sized which is easier than smaller firms. A lot of this is just a function of how many people each is looking to/able to hire. A clerkship is not strictly necessary at any level but exceedingly helpful (maybe different at super competitive boutiques), though this is true all the way around. A lateral from a big firm with some relevant white collar experience would likely get at least a look at a smaller firm, though, depending on your other credentials.

[Anonymous User]

Bumping this post for two questions: (1) is it even worth applying if I haven’t clerked and (2) is the work/life balance any better at the small firms than biglaw? I would assume it’s even more intense hours and no one to delegate work to.

[Anonymous User]

Bumping this post for two questions: (1) is it even worth applying if I haven’t clerked and (2) is the work/life balance any better at the small firms than biglaw? I would assume it’s even more intense hours and no one to delegate work to.

Depends on the boutique probably, but in my experience yes and yes. Plenty of associates don't have clerkships -- if you go to the websites of the firms and count it up I think you'll see that while clerking is common it's not required. As for work/life balance, I have found it to be significantly better. Maybe a function of the kinds of cases boutiques take (not many with insane amounts of doc review and where those cases come in, the doc review is often done by the biglaw firm representing the company who then send you the curated set of docs for the individual you represent) and the lack of hierarchy (I found that the hierarchy created a lot of inefficiencies in biglaw with multiple layers of review, etc.). When things get crazy it's true that there's no army of juniors to delegate to, but fire drills seem to happen way less.

[Anonymous User]

Bumping this post—have people who made the move from Biglaw to one of the small boutiques found the pay cut worth it?