Best Philly Firms? Forum

[Anonymous User]

HYS grad coming off a COA clerkship. I summered at a biglaw firm in DC before clerking and then clerked straight out of law school. My wife is headed to Philly for med school, so I'm looking to work for a firm there after my clerkship this year. I know basically nothing about the market. I'm hoping to do a good chunk of appellate work and motions writing. Are there any firms with established appellate practices in Philly? Or any firms known to give associates strong substantive litigation experience? Or am I looking for something that doesn't exist outside of DC and boutiques?

[Lacepiece23]

HYS grad coming off a COA clerkship. I summered at a biglaw firm in DC before clerking and then clerked straight out of law school. My wife is headed to Philly for med school, so I'm looking to work for a firm there after my clerkship this year. I know basically nothing about the market. I'm hoping to do a good chunk of appellate work and motions writing. Are there any firms with established appellate practices in Philly? Or any firms known to give associates strong substantive litigation experience? Or am I looking for something that doesn't exist outside of DC and boutiques?

Not sure if this is all that helpful but my wife works at Holland & Knight and really likes it. It pays Cravath and people are nice. One of the only firms in the city that does. If it were me, I’d head there.

[Anonymous User]

HYS grad coming off a COA clerkship. I summered at a biglaw firm in DC before clerking and then clerked straight out of law school. My wife is headed to Philly for med school, so I'm looking to work for a firm there after my clerkship this year. I know basically nothing about the market. I'm hoping to do a good chunk of appellate work and motions writing. Are there any firms with established appellate practices in Philly? Or any firms known to give associates strong substantive litigation experience? Or am I looking for something that doesn't exist outside of DC and boutiques?

Not sure if this is all that helpful but my wife works at Holland & Knight and really likes it. It pays Cravath and people are nice. One of the only firms in the city that does. If it were me, I’d head there.

A few thoughts from someone familiar with the Philly market.

• Your hiring timing may be kind of fucked. I understand that clerkship hiring has wrapped up at the big Philly shops (Morgan Lewis, Dechert, Duane Morris etc).
• I would cold reach out to alums who are clerking for CA3 judges who sit in Philly. The actives tend to be plugged into that community and their judges could probably tell them which firms are worth your time - particularly Krause, who practiced commercially before hitting the bench.
• I would not think that the big shops are the way to go for what you want. But there are a handful of well-regarded boutiques that will at least give you substantive experience. (Hangley comes to mind as a place where similarly-credentialed folks go; there are other good boutiques as well.) However if your goal is to exit post med-school to a large firm in a major market, I would be surprised if your years at Philly boutiques doing logistically smaller cases will make you an attractive candidate.

[Lacepiece23]

HYS grad coming off a COA clerkship. I summered at a biglaw firm in DC before clerking and then clerked straight out of law school. My wife is headed to Philly for med school, so I'm looking to work for a firm there after my clerkship this year. I know basically nothing about the market. I'm hoping to do a good chunk of appellate work and motions writing. Are there any firms with established appellate practices in Philly? Or any firms known to give associates strong substantive litigation experience? Or am I looking for something that doesn't exist outside of DC and boutiques?

Not sure if this is all that helpful but my wife works at Holland & Knight and really likes it. It pays Cravath and people are nice. One of the only firms in the city that does. If it were me, I’d head there.

A few thoughts from someone familiar with the Philly market.

• Your hiring timing may be kind of fucked. I understand that clerkship hiring has wrapped up at the big Philly shops (Morgan Lewis, Dechert, Duane Morris etc).
• I would cold reach out to alums who are clerking for CA3 judges who sit in Philly. The actives tend to be plugged into that community and their judges could probably tell them which firms are worth your time - particularly Krause, who practiced commercially before hitting the bench.
• I would not think that the big shops are the way to go for what you want. But there are a handful of well-regarded boutiques that will at least give you substantive experience. (Hangley comes to mind as a place where similarly-credentialed folks go; there are other good boutiques as well.) However if your goal is to exit post med-school to a large firm in a major market, I would be surprised if your years at Philly boutiques doing logistically smaller cases will make you an attractive candidate.

Hangley does mostly insurance coverage work I believe. That’s what they said a few years back when I interviewed. They were well below market but promised a better lifestyle. Who knows.

[UnfrozenCaveman]

We're in a hybrid work environment and you are a miserable commute to two cities that may also have openings.

[Anonymous User]

We're in a hybrid work environment and you are a miserable commute to two cities that may also have openings.

Anon poster. This may be TCR, can't believe I forgot about the Delaware shops, which might be the best outcome for you. The Amtrak to Wilmington is probably 20 minutes each way, but runs like once an hour except at the usual commuting times (if you are living close to Penn, this is super walkable for you - much harder if your wife is going to med school anywhere else, though). It's a 40 minute drive from Philly with no traffic, closer to an hour when people are driving in/out.

[Anonymous User]

We're in a hybrid work environment and you are a miserable commute to two cities that may also have openings.

Anon poster. This may be TCR, can't believe I forgot about the Delaware shops, which might be the best outcome for you. The Amtrak to Wilmington is probably 20 minutes each way, but runs like once an hour except at the usual commuting times (if you are living close to Penn, this is super walkable for you - much harder if your wife is going to med school anywhere else, though). It's a 40 minute drive from Philly with no traffic, closer to an hour when people are driving in/out.

What are some of the top DE firms? Not to sound like a complete populous jerk-off, but I have borderline SCOTUS-clerk credentials, and you are telling me it’s going to be hard to get a decent job as a lawyer in one of the biggest cities in the United States? Is the Philly market actually this dead?

[Lacepiece23]

We're in a hybrid work environment and you are a miserable commute to two cities that may also have openings.

Anon poster. This may be TCR, can't believe I forgot about the Delaware shops, which might be the best outcome for you. The Amtrak to Wilmington is probably 20 minutes each way, but runs like once an hour except at the usual commuting times (if you are living close to Penn, this is super walkable for you - much harder if your wife is going to med school anywhere else, though). It's a 40 minute drive from Philly with no traffic, closer to an hour when people are driving in/out.

What are some of the top DE firms? Not to sound like a complete populous jerk-off, but I have borderline SCOTUS-clerk credentials, and you are telling me it’s going to be hard to get a decent job as a lawyer in one of the biggest cities in the United States? Is the Philly market actually this dead?

Plaintiffs lawyers run this city. NYC and DC are both within two hours so prestige hungry people tend to go there. I don’t think it will be hard for you to get a job at one of the few biglaw shops that pays market. There just aren’t a lot of these places.

A lot of us would rather work at Kline & Specter and help secure billion dollar verdicts.

[Anonymous User]

We're in a hybrid work environment and you are a miserable commute to two cities that may also have openings.

Anon poster. This may be TCR, can't believe I forgot about the Delaware shops, which might be the best outcome for you. The Amtrak to Wilmington is probably 20 minutes each way, but runs like once an hour except at the usual commuting times (if you are living close to Penn, this is super walkable for you - much harder if your wife is going to med school anywhere else, though). It's a 40 minute drive from Philly with no traffic, closer to an hour when people are driving in/out.

What are some of the top DE firms? Not to sound like a complete populous jerk-off, but I have borderline SCOTUS-clerk credentials, and you are telling me it’s going to be hard to get a decent job as a lawyer in one of the biggest cities in the United States? Is the Philly market actually this dead?

You are applying significantly late, the current E.D.Pa. and CA3 clerks - many also highly qualified - applied for and accepted the small number of "issues and appeals"-y jobs that open in this city for associates without experience. The large firms are not hiring a lot of litigators right now, but I wouldn't be shocked if you got one or two offers. Could your "complete populous jerk-off"' self accept taking orders from a fourth year who went to Penn State or Villanova law and didn't clerk? That's what will happen at one of those shops.

[Anonymous User]

We're in a hybrid work environment and you are a miserable commute to two cities that may also have openings.

Anon poster. This may be TCR, can't believe I forgot about the Delaware shops, which might be the best outcome for you. The Amtrak to Wilmington is probably 20 minutes each way, but runs like once an hour except at the usual commuting times (if you are living close to Penn, this is super walkable for you - much harder if your wife is going to med school anywhere else, though). It's a 40 minute drive from Philly with no traffic, closer to an hour when people are driving in/out.

What are some of the top DE firms? Not to sound like a complete populous jerk-off, but I have borderline SCOTUS-clerk credentials, and you are telling me it’s going to be hard to get a decent job as a lawyer in one of the biggest cities in the United States? Is the Philly market actually this dead?

You are applying significantly late, the current E.D.Pa. and CA3 clerks - many also highly qualified - applied for and accepted the small number of "issues and appeals"-y jobs that open in this city for associates without experience. The large firms are not hiring a lot of litigators right now, but I wouldn't be shocked if you got one or two offers. Could your "complete populous jerk-off"' self accept taking orders from a fourth year who went to Penn State or Villanova law and didn't clerk? That's what will happen at one of those shops.

Yeah. My question is what are the issues and appeals type jobs in Philly? It’s not apparent that any of those exist to an outsider. In DC you just apply to an issues and appeals group or a boutique that does that work. I don’t see anything like that in Philly.

[0heL]

I work in midlaw at a Philly firm. I am very with both the firm and prospects of advancement, PM me if interested