I was very fortunate to have a successful OCI and I'm currently trying to decide between offers from Sidley Austin, WilmerHale, and Williams & Connelly. I'm interested in doing cyber/privacy work and litigation, and perhaps appellate work if the opportunity is there. Hoping to move to government after several years in BigLaw and clerk after graduation.
I loved the people I met with from each firm, but with virtual OCI its definitely challenging to get a feel for firm culture. I would appreciate any insight. Thank You!
Sidley, WH, or W&C (D.C.) Forum
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Re: Sidley, WH, or W&C (D.C.)
With your stated goals (which will hopefully narrow over time) — cyber, appellate, gov’t — you really can’t do better than WilmerHale. They are just so dominant in those areas. If you wanted trial litigation or white collar, W&C would be a very strong contender, but that doesn’t seem to be your priority.
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Re: Sidley, WH, or W&C (D.C.)
You've probably already decided since this was from two weeks ago, but I'll give thoughts for posterity.Anonymous User wrote: ↑Sat Aug 14, 2021 3:00 pmI was very fortunate to have a successful OCI and I'm currently trying to decide between offers from Sidley Austin, WilmerHale, and Williams & Connelly. I'm interested in doing cyber/privacy work and litigation, and perhaps appellate work if the opportunity is there. Hoping to move to government after several years in BigLaw and clerk after graduation.
I loved the people I met with from each firm, but with virtual OCI its definitely challenging to get a feel for firm culture. I would appreciate any insight. Thank You!
I'm of two minds here. On the one hand, W&C doesn't do cyber, so if you want to do that, you should absolutely go to Wilmer. On the other hand, given that you seem not to really know what you want to do, you should consider W&C, where I think the lack of practice groups means the average associate stands a better chance of getting to do a mix of appellate work and various types of litigation.
As far as "moving to government," we'd need to know what you want to do in government to say which firm would set you up better. (But Wilmer would be better if you're hoping for a revolving door situation where you leave then come back.)