Is debtor side restructuring a more difficult practice than most corporate groups? Forum

[Anonymous User]

I'm not asking about which practice is more demanding in terms of hours. Curious about whether restructuring work would be more difficult than corporate work. I've heard people say corporate work is not difficult and most of the time is mind-numbing work. Wondering how restructuring compares.

Context: I'm going to a firm next semester with a large debtor side restructuring shop and am trying to choose between corporate and restructuring.

[existentialcrisis]

I'm not asking about which practice is more demanding in terms of hours. Curious about whether restructuring work would be more difficult than corporate work. I've heard people say corporate work is not difficult and most of the time is mind-numbing work. Wondering how restructuring compares.

Context: I'm going to a firm next semester with a large debtor side restructuring shop and am trying to choose between corporate and restructuring.

Honestly, I feel like the not difficult thing is mostly TLS nonsense pertaining to the most junior level work.

Like it’s definitely not rocket science or anything but that mostly just feels like standard lawyer self deprecating crap.

Like for instance there are a ton of people at firms who probably aren’t total idiots who are just straight up bad at it.

All that being said, BK definitely does require you to grasp a wider variety of substantive areas as it’s more of a hybrid practice group.

Once again though, I’m inserting my standard disclaimer about how any prospective BK associates should do their DD re: this groups very limited exit options.

[Buglaw]

They are very very different practices. One of the funny things about bankruptcy is they draft all kinds of documents, frequently from scratch under crazy tight timelines. This results in a lot of their documents being poorly drafted. Which is fine for a practice where they just need to get a document signed so the company can make payroll. But, that sort of drafting and sloppiness would not fly in most corporate departments where timing is crazy, but the company is not going to run out of cash if the deal slips a week or two or a month or whatever.

I’d say bankruptcy is more intellectually interesting than corporate work, but so is litigation. I don’t know that I would say it’s necessarily harder. I would say I interviewed tons of bankruptcy folks looking to switch to corporate. I doubt there is much movement in the other direction.

[Anonymous User]

They are very very different practices. One of the funny things about bankruptcy is they draft all kinds of documents, frequently from scratch under crazy tight timelines. This results in a lot of their documents being poorly drafted. Which is fine for a practice where they just need to get a document signed so the company can make payroll. But, that sort of drafting and sloppiness would not fly in most corporate departments where timing is crazy, but the company is not going to run out of cash if the deal slips a week or two or a month or whatever.

I’d say bankruptcy is more intellectually interesting than corporate work, but so is litigation. I don’t know that I would say it’s necessarily harder. I would say I interviewed tons of bankruptcy folks looking to switch to corporate. I doubt there is much movement in the other direction.

Was at Weil/K&E. I agree with most of the above. You will draft motions/objections/replies/agreements for all kinds of small non-vanilla deals/settlements/fights made under the broader restructuring/chapter 11 deal, which means you may have little-to-none precedents to rely on. It improves your "creative legal writing" but also the intense timeframe doesn't give you time to hone and refine your writing. If a document makes the points and protects important interests, it is good to file.

It is very intellectually interesting and to some extend harder than corporate. Not because how hard and abstract the concepts are compared to other practices, but more because of a broad range of knowledge you have to pick up: bankruptcy codes, local rules, valuation, corporate finance, debt and sometimes equity instruments, DCM concepts, credit docs provisions, M&A doc provisions.

I've seen a fair amount of people who moved from corporate to restructuring too, but if I have to bet I would agree that you see more movement the other way. Doesn't mean anything as to which practice is more harder. It's more because people can't handle the intensity of restructuring and/or relative lack of exit options with good work life balance. You will get a ton of good exit options in restructuring; it's just 90% of them will still be a very demanding job that doesn't allow you to go home and watch Netflix after 8pm everyday.

[Anonymous User]

They are very very different practices. One of the funny things about bankruptcy is they draft all kinds of documents, frequently from scratch under crazy tight timelines. This results in a lot of their documents being poorly drafted. Which is fine for a practice where they just need to get a document signed so the company can make payroll. But, that sort of drafting and sloppiness would not fly in most corporate departments where timing is crazy, but the company is not going to run out of cash if the deal slips a week or two or a month or whatever.

I’d say bankruptcy is more intellectually interesting than corporate work, but so is litigation. I don’t know that I would say it’s necessarily harder. I would say I interviewed tons of bankruptcy folks looking to switch to corporate. I doubt there is much movement in the other direction.

Was at Weil/K&E. I agree with most of the above. You will draft motions/objections/replies/agreements for all kinds of small non-vanilla deals/settlements/fights made under the broader restructuring/chapter 11 deal, which means you may have little-to-none precedents to rely on. It improves your "creative legal writing" but also the intense timeframe doesn't give you time to hone and refine your writing. If a document makes the points and protects important interests, it is good to file.

It is very intellectually interesting and to some extend harder than corporate. Not because how hard and abstract the concepts are compared to other practices, but more because of a broad range of knowledge you have to pick up: bankruptcy codes, local rules, valuation, corporate finance, debt and sometimes equity instruments, DCM concepts, credit docs provisions, M&A doc provisions.

I've seen a fair amount of people who moved from corporate to restructuring too, but if I have to bet I would agree that you see more movement the other way. Doesn't mean anything as to which practice is more harder. It's more because people can't handle the intensity of restructuring and/or relative lack of exit options with good work life balance. You will get a ton of good exit options in restructuring; it's just 90% of them will still be a very demanding job that doesn't allow you to go home and watch Netflix after 8pm everyday.

Would love elaboration on what those exit ops are. Just took a bankruptcy class in LS and loved it but I've always heard/read that exit ops are shit.

[Anonymous User]

They are very very different practices. One of the funny things about bankruptcy is they draft all kinds of documents, frequently from scratch under crazy tight timelines. This results in a lot of their documents being poorly drafted. Which is fine for a practice where they just need to get a document signed so the company can make payroll. But, that sort of drafting and sloppiness would not fly in most corporate departments where timing is crazy, but the company is not going to run out of cash if the deal slips a week or two or a month or whatever.

I’d say bankruptcy is more intellectually interesting than corporate work, but so is litigation. I don’t know that I would say it’s necessarily harder. I would say I interviewed tons of bankruptcy folks looking to switch to corporate. I doubt there is much movement in the other direction.

Was at Weil/K&E. I agree with most of the above. You will draft motions/objections/replies/agreements for all kinds of small non-vanilla deals/settlements/fights made under the broader restructuring/chapter 11 deal, which means you may have little-to-none precedents to rely on. It improves your "creative legal writing" but also the intense timeframe doesn't give you time to hone and refine your writing. If a document makes the points and protects important interests, it is good to file.

It is very intellectually interesting and to some extend harder than corporate. Not because how hard and abstract the concepts are compared to other practices, but more because of a broad range of knowledge you have to pick up: bankruptcy codes, local rules, valuation, corporate finance, debt and sometimes equity instruments, DCM concepts, credit docs provisions, M&A doc provisions.

I've seen a fair amount of people who moved from corporate to restructuring too, but if I have to bet I would agree that you see more movement the other way. Doesn't mean anything as to which practice is more harder. It's more because people can't handle the intensity of restructuring and/or relative lack of exit options with good work life balance. You will get a ton of good exit options in restructuring; it's just 90% of them will still be a very demanding job that doesn't allow you to go home and watch Netflix after 8pm everyday.

Would love elaboration on what those exit ops are. Just took a bankruptcy class in LS and loved it but I've always heard/read that exit ops are shit.

Doesn't give good in-house ops, or the classic "lifestyle" ops that corp/lit get. Really can't go to government. You might be able to go in-house at a newly restructured company at a high level, but that's not all that common AFAIK.

However, it's the practice area if you want to go to banking/the buy side in a front office role. The distressed/RX world has lots of lawyers in finance roles. People on this site don't talk too much about them because most people want lifestyle exit ops and to get out of NYC, but if you don't mind working biglaw hours for the rest of your career there are interesting plays you can make out of RX (although IIRC the best exits tend to come from seniors at creditor shops since the debtors don't work as much with distressed funds/special situations investment teams).

[existentialcrisis]

They are very very different practices. One of the funny things about bankruptcy is they draft all kinds of documents, frequently from scratch under crazy tight timelines. This results in a lot of their documents being poorly drafted. Which is fine for a practice where they just need to get a document signed so the company can make payroll. But, that sort of drafting and sloppiness would not fly in most corporate departments where timing is crazy, but the company is not going to run out of cash if the deal slips a week or two or a month or whatever.

I’d say bankruptcy is more intellectually interesting than corporate work, but so is litigation. I don’t know that I would say it’s necessarily harder. I would say I interviewed tons of bankruptcy folks looking to switch to corporate. I doubt there is much movement in the other direction.

Was at Weil/K&E. I agree with most of the above. You will draft motions/objections/replies/agreements for all kinds of small non-vanilla deals/settlements/fights made under the broader restructuring/chapter 11 deal, which means you may have little-to-none precedents to rely on. It improves your "creative legal writing" but also the intense timeframe doesn't give you time to hone and refine your writing. If a document makes the points and protects important interests, it is good to file.

It is very intellectually interesting and to some extend harder than corporate. Not because how hard and abstract the concepts are compared to other practices, but more because of a broad range of knowledge you have to pick up: bankruptcy codes, local rules, valuation, corporate finance, debt and sometimes equity instruments, DCM concepts, credit docs provisions, M&A doc provisions.

I've seen a fair amount of people who moved from corporate to restructuring too, but if I have to bet I would agree that you see more movement the other way. Doesn't mean anything as to which practice is more harder. It's more because people can't handle the intensity of restructuring and/or relative lack of exit options with good work life balance. You will get a ton of good exit options in restructuring; it's just 90% of them will still be a very demanding job that doesn't allow you to go home and watch Netflix after 8pm everyday.

Would love elaboration on what those exit ops are. Just took a bankruptcy class in LS and loved it but I've always heard/read that exit ops are shit.

Doesn't give good in-house ops, or the classic "lifestyle" ops that corp/lit get. Really can't go to government. You might be able to go in-house at a newly restructured company at a high level, but that's not all that common AFAIK.

However, it's the practice area if you want to go to banking/the buy side in a front office role. The distressed/RX world has lots of lawyers in finance roles. People on this site don't talk too much about them because most people want lifestyle exit ops and to get out of NYC, but if you don't mind working biglaw hours for the rest of your career there are interesting plays you can make out of RX (although IIRC the best exits tend to come from seniors at creditor shops since the debtors don't work as much with distressed funds/special situations investment teams).

The dangerous thing about this line of thinking though, is that you really don’t know how you’ll be able to handle big law hours until you actually experience them.

It’s hard to make the decision as a student or SA “I won’t mind being on call 24/7 for the rest of my career in exchange for tip top comp” without actually having lived like that.

This line of thinking would maybe make more sense to me for someone who had say worked in banking before law school and actually experienced that lifestyle and decided it’s something they can handle long term.