Firms with the most normal or weird people? Another firm culture thread Forum

[Anonymous User]

"TLS posters stop revealing yourself as yield-metric-and-prestige-obsessed weirdos, while posting in a thread about avoiding weird people" challenge [IMPOSSIBLE]

[Anonymous User]

Sometimes I wish I had chosen NYC just so I could partake in these conversations…

As some midwestern guy at a KE*, New Yorkers look insane when they start having these conversations. But I'm just a corn fed midwesterner so I'll go back to my trailer now.

To at least contribute: pretty much every big firm in Chicago is full of nice and sociable people (sans Vedder Price). So that my use of anon is justified, I'll tell you that the difference between KE Chicago and KE NY is night and day. We look at NY associates like they are insane.

In Chicago, we show up at 9, leave at 6, log back on at 8. In NY, they show up at 10-11, do almost no work until 3, go to dinner at 6, go back to the office until midnight, then brag about they were up all night working until 4 AM. The culture is just completely different there.

All that to say, KE Chicago is overall pleasant. It is less pleasant than other Chicago firms but that's mostly because of the cultural expectations to bill 2800/yr (2000 is the starting point at KE). The people themselves are actually fairly normal. KE NY honestly seems like a tough place to work, where a bunch of Columbia kids that couldn't land Cravath go with a giant chip on their shoulder to make partner. By contrast, folks at KE Chicago already landed the top firm in the city, so it's more chill.

As a bonus - some practice group culture breakdowns:

KE Real Estate: Extremely toxic, avoid - everyone's leaving.

KE Restructuring: Work hard/play hard. The people are the most fun in the firm by a mile but that's because their lives are a chaotic mess of 3000/yr billables and travel. The group is very, very, very tightly knit so if you fit into the culture it'll be amazing but if you don't it'll suck.

KE Litigation: smartest people in the firm, very proud of their reputation so the hardest group to break into. They gatekeep very hard and only take top students (in Chicago at least). Definitely the most "academic" group of people, very thoughtful. Always seem to be pretty stressed and focused on work to the detriment of socialization. Working with litigators in Rx reminded me daily that I'm a fake lawyer, seems like a really tough job but with some serious all-stars.

KE Corporate: Trick question, no culture to speak of, completely dependent on your group. M&A has like a 70% 3 year turnover rate so it's a churn and burn with pretty much not cohesiveness. I did some M&A stuff while Rx was slow and they were extremely chaotic to work with. Funds are the "bros" of the firm but it's actually a sneakily good work-life-balance group. They seem to bill their 1800-2100 and get by just fine. Highest concentration of functional adults with families in my experience. Funds work appears to be the closest thing to 9-5 other than tax. Tax group were, hilariously, actually legitimate nerds but they're amazing at their job. Seemed like good wlb as well. Debt Finance seem like good people, but their balance isn't good. They're a service group to M&A so they get dragged into the chaotic fray there. Somewhat more cohesive culture than M&A but still a victim of significant turnover.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone have a sense of the cultural differences between the SF/SV shops? Specifically Cooley, Goodwin, and Fenwick.

[Anonymous User]

"TLS posters stop revealing yourself as yield-metric-and-prestige-obsessed weirdos, while posting in a thread about avoiding weird people" challenge [IMPOSSIBLE]

Wisdom of the crowd tells you the firms that have the most weirdos

[Anonymous User]

"TLS posters stop revealing yourself as yield-metric-and-prestige-obsessed weirdos, while posting in a thread about avoiding weird people" challenge [IMPOSSIBLE]

Wisdom of the crowd tells you the firms that have the most weirdos

Except when you are polling a weirdo sub-set of the crowd

[Anonymous User]

"TLS posters stop revealing yourself as yield-metric-and-prestige-obsessed weirdos, while posting in a thread about avoiding weird people" challenge [IMPOSSIBLE]

Wisdom of the crowd tells you the firms that have the most weirdos

Except when you are polling a weirdo sub-set of the crowd

You're not getting my point. The whole point of having a crowd is that you get a bunch of weirdos going in different directions and they'll cancel out each other's errors

[Anonymous User]

Can anyone speak to DC firms?

[Anonymous User]

Can anyone speak to DC firms?

Some have liberal whack jobs. Some have conservative whack jobs. Some have both.

[Anonymous User]

STB is people who don’t speak at your law school that got better grades than you. And resent you.

Guess that depends what school you went to. At the top schools STB is for people whose grades are too soft for CSM/DPW.

This simply isnt true. A very large majority of my classmates that chose STB had offers from one or both of CSM/DPW

Which law school is this? CSM just doesn't hand out a lot of offers so the assertion that people who got STB offers also got CSM offers is already suspect
Also, don't forget the fact that STB needs to hand a lot more offers to fill the same number of seats as CSM.

At HLS last year Cravath had had a 44:23 ratio of offer:acceptance. STB had 63:9. Skadden was 42:13. Debevoise was 42:8.

Also notable is Milbank with a 16:7 ratio, one of the higher percentages actually. Curious to see where they end up this coming season after the Vault bump.

Do you have the ratios for S&C, DPW, PW, Latham, Cleary?

All except PW (which is a bit lower) are between 25-35% - assuming you meant NYC for all

I know STB has been talked about a lot recently but 14% offer:acceptance is considerably lower compared to 25%-35%. What happened here?

[Anonymous User]

Guess that depends what school you went to. At the top schools STB is for people whose grades are too soft for CSM/DPW.

This simply isnt true. A very large majority of my classmates that chose STB had offers from one or both of CSM/DPW

Which law school is this? CSM just doesn't hand out a lot of offers so the assertion that people who got STB offers also got CSM offers is already suspect
Also, don't forget the fact that STB needs to hand a lot more offers to fill the same number of seats as CSM.

At HLS last year Cravath had had a 44:23 ratio of offer:acceptance. STB had 63:9. Skadden was 42:13. Debevoise was 42:8.

Also notable is Milbank with a 16:7 ratio, one of the higher percentages actually. Curious to see where they end up this coming season after the Vault bump.

Do you have the ratios for S&C, DPW, PW, Latham, Cleary?

All except PW (which is a bit lower) are between 25-35% - assuming you meant NYC for all

I know STB has been talked about a lot recently but 14% offer:acceptance is considerably lower compared to 25%-35%. What happened here?

It really isn't when we're talking about one year with a small sample size.

[Anonymous User]

This simply isnt true. A very large majority of my classmates that chose STB had offers from one or both of CSM/DPW

Which law school is this? CSM just doesn't hand out a lot of offers so the assertion that people who got STB offers also got CSM offers is already suspect
Also, don't forget the fact that STB needs to hand a lot more offers to fill the same number of seats as CSM.

At HLS last year Cravath had had a 44:23 ratio of offer:acceptance. STB had 63:9. Skadden was 42:13. Debevoise was 42:8.

Also notable is Milbank with a 16:7 ratio, one of the higher percentages actually. Curious to see where they end up this coming season after the Vault bump.

Do you have the ratios for S&C, DPW, PW, Latham, Cleary?

All except PW (which is a bit lower) are between 25-35% - assuming you meant NYC for all

I know STB has been talked about a lot recently but 14% offer:acceptance is considerably lower compared to 25%-35%. What happened here?

It really isn't when we're talking about one year with a small sample size.

Past threads seem to show a similar trend, though.

[Anonymous User]

Interviewees we’re pretty weird this cycle.

[Anonymous User]

*deleted

[Anonymous User]

Can anyone speak to DC firms?

Covington has generally chill but introverted people. QE is more outgoing, informal, and casual in dress.

[Anonymous User]

Interviewees we’re pretty weird this cycle.

Does that have to do with zoom?

[Anonymous User]

Anyone have a sense of the cultural differences between the SF/SV shops? Specifically Cooley, Goodwin, and Fenwick.

Midlevel here at a peer firm in SF. I know people at all these firms. Cooley and Fenwick are generally good. To add to your list, Gunderson, Orrick, Sidley, Ropes, Latham have good cultures. Goodwin, Paul Hastings, Gibson, MoFo, WSGR I've heard mixed things. Stay away from K&E SF and especially STB PA.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone have a sense of the cultural differences between the SF/SV shops? Specifically Cooley, Goodwin, and Fenwick.

Senior here at a peer firm in SF. I know people at all these firms. Latham and Sidley are generally good. To add to your list, Fenwick, WSGR, STB, Orrick, and Paul Hastings have good cultures. Sheppard Mullin, K&E, Gunderson, Gibson, I've heard mixed things. Stay away from MoFo SF and especially Cooley PA.

[BrowsingTLS]

Anyone have a sense of the cultural differences between the SF/SV shops? Specifically Cooley, Goodwin, and Fenwick.

Junior here at a peer firm in SF. I know people at all these firms. Gryffindor is generally good. To add to your list, Hufflepuff has good culture. Ravenclaw I've heard mixed things. Stay away from Slytherin and especially Dracoy. He's a screamer.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone have a sense of the cultural differences between the SF/SV shops? Specifically Cooley, Goodwin, and Fenwick.

Junior here at a peer firm in SF. I know people at all these firms. Gryffindor is generally good. To add to your list, Hufflepuff has good culture. Ravenclaw I've heard mixed things. Stay away from Slytherin and especially Dracoy. He's a screamer.

Assistant paralegal here at an almost-peer firm in Walnut Creek. I know people at some of these firms. Kylie is generally good. To add to your list, Kim has good culture. Khloe I've heard mixed things. Stay away from Kris and especially Kendall. She can't cut a cucumber.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone have a sense of the cultural differences between the SF/SV shops? Specifically Cooley, Goodwin, and Fenwick.

Junior here at a peer firm in SF. I know people at all these firms. Gryffindor is generally good. To add to your list, Hufflepuff has good culture. Ravenclaw I've heard mixed things. Stay away from Slytherin and especially Dracoy. He's a screamer.

Wouldn't the stereotype be Gryffindor good culture, Ravenclaw sweatshop, Slytherin screamers, Hufflepuff midlaw.

[The Lsat Airbender]

"TLS posters stop revealing yourself as yield-metric-and-prestige-obsessed weirdos, while posting in a thread about avoiding weird people" challenge [IMPOSSIBLE]

Wisdom of the crowd tells you the firms that have the most weirdos

Except when you are polling a weirdo sub-set of the crowd

You're not getting my point. The whole point of having a crowd is that you get a bunch of weirdos going in different directions and they'll cancel out each other's errors

Most mathematically astute TLS poster

[Anonymous User]

Anyone have a sense of the cultural differences between the SF/SV shops? Specifically Cooley, Goodwin, and Fenwick.

Junior here at a peer firm in SF. I know people at all these firms. Gryffindor is generally good. To add to your list, Hufflepuff has good culture. Ravenclaw I've heard mixed things. Stay away from Slytherin and especially Dracoy. He's a screamer.

Wouldn't the stereotype be Gryffindor good culture, Ravenclaw sweatshop, Slytherin screamers, Hufflepuff midlaw.

They’re all Slytherin, with some breathlessly arguing that because their firm would rather take median NYUers over top 10% BU grads, their firm is Ravenclaw.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone have a sense of the cultural differences between the SF/SV shops? Specifically Cooley, Goodwin, and Fenwick.

Midlevel here at a peer firm in SF. I know people at all these firms. Cooley and Fenwick are generally good. To add to your list, Gunderson, Orrick, Sidley, Ropes, Latham have good cultures. Goodwin, Paul Hastings, Gibson, MoFo, WSGR I've heard mixed things. Stay away from K&E SF and especially STB PA.

I have actually heard bad things about Goodwin, Latham, and Ropes. K&E, MoFo, and Cooley I have heard good things about. Orrick is also OK.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone have a sense of the cultural differences between the SF/SV shops? Specifically Cooley, Goodwin, and Fenwick.

Senior here at a peer firm in SF. I know people at all these firms. Latham and Sidley are generally good. To add to your list, Fenwick, WSGR, STB, Orrick, and Paul Hastings have good cultures. Sheppard Mullin, K&E, Gunderson, Gibson, I've heard mixed things. Stay away from MoFo SF and especially Cooley PA.

what's wrong with MoFo SF and Cooley PA?

[Anonymous User]

Of course corp is a bit of a sideshow at PW, and big time litigation is their bread and butter.

there are a lot of dumb posts on this board recently but this one stands out for not engendering some justified vitriol.

I'll be starting there in corporate later this year and am curious to know exactly more about this. Are you referring to the fact that corporate at PW has grown steadily in recent years?

I'm not one of the earlier posters, but I lateraled out of PW corporate. Corporate is not a sideshow at PW and my impression is that the firm sees the corporate department as its growth engine and is allocating resources accordingly. The lateral partners that have been brought in recently are all corporate partners, there are more corporate than lit associates in incoming classes, and 7-8 lit first-years were put into a corporate rotation. That said, I think PW's lit department is among the best in its class whereas corporate tends to lag behind the others in the V10 on many metrics, though it is still very lucrative.

However, PW corporate can be a rough place because there's no cohesive culture (lots of lateral partners and associates) and they tolerate bad behavior. There are good people too, but it's luck of the draw. But this is probably true of most V10 firms.