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I am a 2L at Fordham with multiple
summer offers. My experience is
technology. two of my offers are at
Fenwick and WSGR NY. I also have
Skadden, Simpson, and Gibson.. 1
Am I crazy to pass up on a top 10 law
firm out of Fordham to take a less
"prestigious" firm? I think I want to do
tech startup work, but what if I don't
and I end up having difficulty
lateraling in the future? Also if I decide
to go with the tech route, Wilson
Sonsini seems small but is ranked
higher. Is Fenwick better in NY? FYI I am corporate not litigation.

I feel like someone who knows more about the NY startup scene needs to weigh in here.

If you were dead set on ECVC and these were the CA offices I’d 100% tell you to go to Fenwick or Wilson Sonsini.

I think the NY offices/unsure of group you want makes this trickier.

My vague understanding is that Gunderson has a bigger NY presence and that LW does some NY start up stuff. Assume you don’t have an offer from either?

I also could be way off here and Fenwick or WS could be relevant players in the NY market, but that’s not my relatively uninformed impression.

I’m almost tempted to tell you to take Skadden or STB here and then try for a different firm 3L if you decide you want to do ECVC but that could also be difficult to know if you’ve never tried the work before.

Also are you dead set on NY or is that just where you managed to land offers?

I'm basically in this situation too but in SoCal and I'm T14. Somewhat agree with existentialcrisis because Simpson and Skadden are way worse there although Gibson is better there. I'm probably gonna go the tech firm route because I really do want to try ECVC and they're mostly mutually exclusive. The people matter a bit too, and also whether you already have work experience (Fordham ways a bit more towards you needing the presteeeeej but you also might already have work experience, if so what you do now is slightly less important).

STB is going to be pretty opposite of ECVC though to be fair because they do mostly PE. PE and ECVC are more different than one another; public companies are probably closer to ECVC than PE is.

Good luck!

In NY, WSGR isn't strong for EC/VC work. Fenwick is. Go Fenwick if that's what you want. That being said, I would start at Skadden/Simpson (really just Simpson) and plan to lateral down rather than starting at Fenwick since you're unsure.