WSGR or Fenwick (SV, Corporate) Forum

[Anonymous User]

Hey TLS,

I'm trying to decide between WSGR (SV) and Fenwick (SV) for corporate. I'll be joining as a first-year associate.

I'm interested in doing EC/VC work, but also open to doing other corporate work (e.g., M&A, public company rep.). Besides the culture and team (which will be hard to assess), I care about the following factors:

(1) Which firm provides better exit opportunities in SV?

(2) I heard there may be a slowing down at some SV firms. Although I don't like being crushed with work, I prefer to be extremely busy as opposed to doing nothing. Which firm appears more healthy in terms of incoming work?

(3) I care about being able to sample work from different corporate groups, and I hear WSGR's launch is good for this. Any insight on how effective WSGR's launch is, and whether Fenwick has a similar system?

Thanks.
J

[Anonymous User]

Hey TLS,

I'm trying to decide between WSGR (SV) and Fenwick (SV) for corporate. I'll be joining as a first-year associate.

I'm interested in doing EC/VC work, but also open to doing other corporate work (e.g., M&A, public company rep.). Besides the culture and team (which will be hard to assess), I care about the following factors:

(1) Which firm provides better exit opportunities in SV?

(2) I heard there may be a slowing down at some SV firms. Although I don't like being crushed with work, I prefer to be extremely busy as opposed to doing nothing. Which firm appears more healthy in terms of incoming work?

(3) I care about being able to sample work from different corporate groups, and I hear WSGR's launch is good for this. Any insight on how effective WSGR's launch is, and whether Fenwick has a similar system?

Thanks.
J

I'm a WSGR associate (anon for obvious reasons) that went through Launch. I think the exit opportunities for FW and WSGR would be basically exactly the same, but open to someone more senior than me telling me otherwise. WSGR has pretty strong ties with Google/Alphabet, so a lot of associates end up there, but others I know have gone in house to all types of different places from funds to start ups to pubcos in sectors from tech to sports to media. WSGR also has a huge amount of biotech/life sciences stuff if that's of any interest to you (FW might too, I just don't know).

I think it would be hard for anyone to weigh in on (2) since no one would be working at both FW and WSGR. As mentioned above, they're serving similar markets and clients, so if one slows down I'd imagine the other does too? I've "slowed down" since last year, but am still billing around 40 hours a week. No one seems worried that things will stay slow permanently.

I think Launch would be good for what you describe as your interests. You definitely get to interface with a wide range of associates and partners in Launch and get exposure to a lot of different corporate practices from tech trans to debt to cap markets to startups (importantly, not M&A -- M&A is its own team and isn't in Launch). The only downside is that for good associates you can end up trapped on too many things (e.g. you do a discrete project for one team but they keep you on the client because you did a good job).

Ultimately you can't go wrong here -- I know TLS may light me up, but given the similarity in work and exit opps here, I think you should decide based on who you like and who you can see yourself growing the most working for. Ask for second looks if you want a wider range of attorneys/opinions too, but don't stress tremendously since both of these firms will set you up really well and cater to your goals.

[attorney589753]

I agree with the above that both provide nearly identical exit options and subject to nearly identical market forces. These two firms are about as concentrated in EC/VC as possible (add Gunderson and Cooley to that list). On a really thin margin, I think WSGR might have a higher portion of their clients as late stage or public while Fenwick might have a higher portion at early and mid stage. Fenwick is free market so you will be free to try out many different groups (in fact some partners split practice groups). I agree with previous poster that both firms are great setups for your career goals and you will do. I think there are slight cultural differences between the firms so I would spend time trying to assess that.

[Inhousefuture]

How hard is to get a job in the Seattle Offices of Perkins, WSGR or Cooley from:

1. University of Washington, Seattle?

2. As a lateral from any firms that someone from University of Washington could easily get into?

Thanks

[Anonymous User]

Got stealthed from WSGR in the past 6 months. I'm fine with it though, toxic culture. Fenwick is much more life balanced, all else equal.

[Anonymous User]

Got stealthed from WSGR in the past 6 months. I'm fine with it though, toxic culture. Fenwick is much more life balanced, all else equal.

Can you tell us more about that?

[Anonymous User]

At least in my experience, it is very siloed. Like originally I went in thinking otherwise, but no, you gotta like who you are working for. Along with that comes the likelihood that this partner, in my case, even just one, can say, "its not working, move on." That's it. Done. Good luck, out the door. The culture felt very bro-y and kiss-assy. Like over the top. Very much eat what you kill and not a lot of room for growth. Nobody was willing to train anyone else. Overall, I should of taken other offers or listened to the Goodwin partner when he said, "whatever you do, even if you don't choose us, don't go to WSGR." My mistake. Thankfully won't make it again!!

[Anonymous User]

At least in my experience, it is very siloed. Like originally I went in thinking otherwise, but no, you gotta like who you are working for. Along with that comes the likelihood that this partner, in my case, even just one, can say, "its not working, move on." That's it. Done. Good luck, out the door. The culture felt very bro-y and kiss-assy. Like over the top. Very much eat what you kill and not a lot of room for growth. Nobody was willing to train anyone else. Overall, I should of taken other offers or listened to the Goodwin partner when he said, "whatever you do, even if you don't choose us, don't go to WSGR." My mistake. Thankfully won't make it again!!

Thanks, this is good info. What about the stealthing? What else have you heard about WSGR?

[Anonymous User]

Senior EC/VC associate at a peer firm in SV. If you want EC/VC, I'd easily do Fenwick. The attrition of WSGR's early-to-mid stage practice over the years to focus on late stage company work is real and there's definitely a noticeable difference being opposite Fenwick as versus on WSGR on deals. Also agreed with the above that if you want to pair EC/VC with either M&A or cap markets as a sub-specialty, you'll be able to do so at Fenwick much more easily.

[Anonymous User]

How hard is to get a job in the Seattle Offices of Perkins, WSGR or Cooley from:

1. University of Washington, Seattle?

2. As a lateral from any firms that someone from University of Washington could easily get into?

Thanks

Pretty hard to say in a vacuum.

Also the offices of WSGR/Cooley are relatively small up there to the point where it would be hard to guess what their needs are at any given time, and they can probably afford to be fairly selective. That being said, UW is the only notable law school/undergrad up there so I'm sure there are a fair amount of alum at those offices from UW, so I can't imagine it would be insanely hard if you check all the other boxes (good grades, good interviewer, good story for why you want to work in ECVC or tech, etc.).

I know little about Perkins but assume since they're headquartered up there its going to be a bit easier to get in the door, just given that their headcount is higher.

As to your second question about lateralling specifically, I tend to think people don't care a ton about your school (as long as you didn't go to some random T3 school or something) when lateralling, but a lot of it is dependent on how good the market is looking. A year or two ago, firms like Cooley and WSGR were hiring anyone with a decent biglaw background and a pulse (exaggeration, but you get the idea) because there was so much work to go around. Now, I think lateral hiring has slowed down a lot.