Least Competitive Practice Areas at Top Firms Forum

[Anonymous User]

I've heard corporate is almost always less competitive than litigation, including crazy things like that DPW only takes the top 15-20% of Columbia and NYU for lit, but then won't release grade breakdowns. How competitive is white collar defense, and what's more and less competitive within corporate? I'm guessing M&A is the hardest corporate group?

[Anonymous User]

That doesn’t make much sense. At the end of the summer you rank your choices and everyone gets their pick of lit vs corp

[Anonymous User]

In general lit is always going to be more competitive. The majority of the summers will likely put lit first and maybe half will get it. (I don't think grades are used as a cut off once your in the program, but partners get a say and will generally default to summers from better schools.)

After that, depends a lot. Both size and perceived strength of a practice group will impact how tough it is to get. Practice group retention may also be a factor. And it can honestly change year over year at a firm - best bet is to ask some juniors and midlevels at your firm.

But since you asked specifically about WC, I will say that's probably the most competitive practice group to get into at my firm but I realllyyyy don't think that is the case at all firms.

[Anonymous User]

That doesn’t make much sense. At the end of the summer you rank your choices and everyone gets their pick of lit vs corp

OP here, it does make sense because while your answer presupposes the person is already summering at the firm, firms ask candidates to rank practice groups before they'll even give them interviews/as they set them up with particular interviewers. It seems that especially for early interviews, firms use your practice group rankings to see whether they'd even like to screen you. Then some firms don't have rotational summer programs, or at least will give you the lion's share of the work in the groups that interviewed, originally accepted, and hope to retain you.

[Sackboy]

Things like Debt Finance, Executive Compensation & Employee Benefits, and other niche groups are going to be less selective, because less people want to do them/know about them.

[Anonymous User]

What firm is White Collar hard to get at?

Also, what firms would put a wannabe litigator into corporate?

[2013]

Things like Debt Finance, Executive Compensation & Employee Benefits, and other niche groups are going to be less selective, because less people want to do them/know about them.

This. But don’t do these practices unless you want to. You may get pigeonholed, nada lot of these niche practices aren’t really “easy.”

[Anonymous User]

At Skadden, most competitive in the typical year are white collar, antitrust, and international arbitration; least competitive are probably exec comp, banking, and financial institutions (and sometimes restructuring as well).

[Anonymous User]

At Skadden, most competitive in the typical year are white collar, antitrust, and international arbitration; least competitive are probably exec comp, banking, and financial institutions (and sometimes restructuring as well).

I've never understood why restructuring gets the best of the best in finance, but seems to be an easier grab in law. Is it just that elite law students are so afraid of risk that they aren't willing to touch the flaming dumpster fires even if there's wayyyy more money to be made?

Edit: also anecdotally, at the firm I'm currently at finance & restructuring seems to have the students from the lowest ranked schools with litigation/labor & employment tied for first. Granted we're talking an AmLaw 200 firm in a city of about 2 million and everyone I'm talking about went to a T20 or lower, but that seems to be the split.

[Anonymous User]

At Skadden, most competitive in the typical year are white collar, antitrust, and international arbitration; least competitive are probably exec comp, banking, and financial institutions (and sometimes restructuring as well).

I've never understood why restructuring gets the best of the best in finance, but seems to be an easier grab in law. Is it just that elite law students are so afraid of risk that they aren't willing to touch the flaming dumpster fires even if there's wayyyy more money to be made?

Edit: also anecdotally, at the firm I'm currently at finance & restructuring seems to have the students from the lowest ranked schools with litigation/labor & employment tied for first. Granted we're talking an AmLaw 200 firm in a city of about 2 million and everyone I'm talking about went to a T20 or lower, but that seems to be the split.

My $0.02. Not to get all sociological & historical, but RX still has some residual 'stink' on it from the mid-20th century. The firms that first excelled at RX (and hostile takeovers) were non-WASP non-white-shoe firms like Skadden and Weil. In part because the Cravaths and SullCroms of the world wouldn't touch RX with a ten-foot pole — why would IBM (or substitute in whatever blue chip corporate client) need bankruptcy advice? So if you go back a few decades, RX was seen as somewhat disreputable. Of course, some of that's old history, and a broader array of firms have since realized there's lots of money to be made, and so nowadays you have white shoes like DPW and Milbank with a major presence in RX.

The foregoing applies to law *firms*, but closer to your point, to law *schools* as well. HLS and CLS have traditionally been oriented around supplying Cravath and SullCrom (etc.) with a steady crop of associates. So there was no reason for schools like that to develop a robust RX curriculum, since their graduates were going to do M&A and litigation. Meanwhile, graduates from schools like St. John's were outright excluded from the white shoe firms, so why not train them to enter a field like RX? IMO, the field today remains 'credential light' but 'talent heavy' in that there's less of an emphasis on coming from a top school with top grades, and more recognition that star talent can basically emerge from anywhere.

[cavalier1138]

What firm is White Collar hard to get at?

Also, what firms would put a wannabe litigator into corporate?

Covington, Gibson Dunn, Williams & Connolly... Basically, if a firm is known for investigations, it's going to be a competitive practice group.

And are you serious with the second question? Most big NY firms will put wannabe litigators into corporate if they need bodies. This forum is full of stories from juniors who got pushed into corporate.

[Sackboy]

Things like Debt Finance, Executive Compensation & Employee Benefits, and other niche groups are going to be less selective, because less people want to do them/know about them.

This. But don’t do these practices unless you want to. You may get pigeonholed, nada lot of these niche practices aren’t really “easy.”

Agreed. Not hours are created equal. A specialist working 8 hours is probably more mentally taxing than a corporate associate working 8 hours, on average.

[Anonymous User]

At Skadden, most competitive in the typical year are white collar, antitrust, and international arbitration; least competitive are probably exec comp, banking, and financial institutions (and sometimes restructuring as well).

I've never understood why restructuring gets the best of the best in finance, but seems to be an easier grab in law. Is it just that elite law students are so afraid of risk that they aren't willing to touch the flaming dumpster fires even if there's wayyyy more money to be made?

Edit: also anecdotally, at the firm I'm currently at finance & restructuring seems to have the students from the lowest ranked schools with litigation/labor & employment tied for first. Granted we're talking an AmLaw 200 firm in a city of about 2 million and everyone I'm talking about went to a T20 or lower, but that seems to be the split.

Most lawyers end up big law lawyers because they don't actually know what they're interested in or what they want to do. Law school doesn't help them figure it out. Thus, they constantly hedge with their careers and pick practice areas that are portable and have good exit opportunities.

With respect to restructuring, you're not really a corporate lawyer nor are you really a litigator. You exist in no man's land, and the only exit opportunity is to go to distressed debt fund. Naturally, it's not a good hedge practice area, so many lawyers don't choose it.

On the finance side, the people in restructuring know that they want to work in that field and are not hedging. Also, on the finance side, the skills in distressed debt are much much more portable to other finance fields than being a bankruptcy lawyer is to other legal fields.

[Anonymous User]

On RX often not being highly desired, it also has a reputation (maybe at times inaccurate) for:

1) hectic, fast-paced schedules;
2) difficult personalities; and
3) not great exit options.

Which is not a great combo for attracting new associates.

[Anonymous User]

So RX is very-high-risk (and potentially very-high-reward if you can exit to a distressed fund). Lawyers aren't exactly the biggest risk takers in the world, makes sense why it's less competitive.

[Anonymous User]

For RX it depends on where. I agree that it attracts less people due to exit options but the work you do in RX seems more challenging than the work you would do in any transactional practice. Also a question of where. The RX partners and associates at Kirkland and Weil are pretty bright. I don't think there's much of a divide in selectivity between transactional and RX. Obviously lit is where the brightest students go.

[Anonymous User]

For RX it depends on where. I agree that it attracts less people due to exit options but the work you do in RX seems more challenging than the work you would do in any transactional practice. Also a question of where. The RX partners and associates at Kirkland and Weil are pretty bright. I don't think there's much of a divide in selectivity between transactional and RX. Obviously lit is where the brightest students go.

This is another point that is overlooked. Creditor work sucks and no one wants to do it. There are only 2 maybe 3 major debtor side firms (K&E, Weil, maybe JD). Rx is competitive at those firms, just not at the creditor shops.

[Anonymous User]

Finance and Rx also involve math. Not a lot of math but that probably explains why so many law students shy away from these areas. Also they are known for worse schedule + exits than M&A type stuff, within the general corporate/transactional umbrella.

I'll also push back on Rx as an easier practice bc of the credentials. A lot of the ppl from lower ranked schools got into biglaw via bk clerkships. They are smart and hardworking but just didn't have access to the same recruiting in law school. Because that pipeline exists, you're gonna see those people in biglaw Rx.

Also generally, lit is harder to get bc of simple supply and demand, not because they are more selective. Many students have the idea that litigation is being a "real" lawyer and so want to do that. Nobody goes to law school to work on a merger of a pharmaceutical company with another pharmaceutical company. But lit isn't as profitable. The demand is for corporate.

[Anonymous User]

For RX it depends on where. I agree that it attracts less people due to exit options but the work you do in RX seems more challenging than the work you would do in any transactional practice. Also a question of where. The RX partners and associates at Kirkland and Weil are pretty bright. I don't think there's much of a divide in selectivity between transactional and RX. Obviously lit is where the brightest students go.

This is another point that is overlooked. Creditor work sucks and no one wants to do it. There are only 2 maybe 3 major debtor side firms (K&E, Weil, maybe JD). Rx is competitive at those firms, just not at the creditor shops.

This.