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Interested in doing general litigation. Possibly looking to go into a circuit clerkship after a few years or stay on the partner track. Which would offer the best opportunities for substantive work experiences like brief writing and oral advocacy?

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Mon May 08, 2023 2:07 am

Interested in doing general litigation. Possibly looking to go into a circuit clerkship after a few years or stay on the partner track. Which would offer the best opportunities for substantive work experiences like brief writing and oral advocacy?

These are both enormous firms, so your experience will depend a lot on the office and who you work for. You certainly couldn't make a statement on which would be good for "brief writing' and "oral advocacy." I can tell you that most biglaw firms won't give you many oral advocacy opportunities. There are partners at these firms who have never done a real trial.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Mon May 08, 2023 2:07 am

Interested in doing general litigation. Possibly looking to go into a circuit clerkship after a few years or stay on the partner track. Which would offer the best opportunities for substantive work experiences like brief writing and oral advocacy?

Speaking from personal experience, I recommend Gibson Dunn by a mile.

If you're doing "general litigation", at K&S i.e., you have an offer from "Trial", you'll be effectively barred from working on investigations--(especially anything government facing, there's a separate group for investigations/government work). Support staff is almost non-existent, not tech savvy, and is almost never reachable past 5 or on weekends, so you'll be making your own binders/doing your own admin work on top of (and often even instead of) associate duties. Their mass torts group is either unable or unwilling to hire more associates, so they try to poach junior business lit associates all the time. (And their work in my opinion is largely mind-numbingly boring, really really sad, and non-substantive, e.g., medical records data entry for horrifically injured/sick people). The partners in the mass torts group, in my personal experience and from what I've heard, treat associates horribly. I've had many jobs and worked with many big law lawyers and have never once been treated with the level of utter disrespect that I experienced at K&S from those in the mass torts group.

K&S also does not pay bonuses out until March (way later than almost every other firm), and hours are tied to billables, which can be hard to come by during slow periods, and you're SOL if a partner writes off too much of your time so it doesn't count as billable. Business development, work on pitches, and DEI efforts do not count towards your bonus at all. If you bill to a "pending matter" that ends up not becoming a real, paying matter, none of it goes towards your bonus. Pro bono is capped at 100 hours barring very limited exceptions. I've had partners actively discourage me from working on pro bono because they don't view it as "real" work, because it is not billable.

Gibson Dunn +1

Current K&S associate here (though not in DC). Place sucks, go to Gibson.