Milbank (LA) - Alternative Investment Practice Forum

[Anonymous User]

Recently heard about this practice via word of mouth, but haven't been able to find much on the firm website.

Does anyone have any color on what the group does, or about the firm's LA office generally?

[Anonymous User]

I work in the Milbank LA office. Can't speak too much to the alternative investment practice. They are a small group in our office. Deb Festa is one of the main partners in that practice group.

The LA office, generally, is great. We moved from downtown last year to Century City. The new facilities are beautiful (two floors, barista, showers with towel service, etc). Face time requirement around here is super low and very laid back (e.g. Friday is "casual day", but most attorneys treat a few days a week as casual day). The office is dominated by the project finance group, but there is a large corporate and litigation presence.

Feel free to ask more specific questions if you'd like.

[Anonymous User]

I work in the Milbank LA office. Can't speak too much to the alternative investment practice. They are a small group in our office. Deb Festa is one of the main partners in that practice group.

The LA office, generally, is great. We moved from downtown last year to Century City. The new facilities are beautiful (two floors, barista, showers with towel service, etc). Face time requirement around here is super low and very laid back (e.g. Friday is "casual day", but most attorneys treat a few days a week as casual day). The office is dominated by the project finance group, but there is a large corporate and litigation presence.

Feel free to ask more specific questions if you'd like.

OP here - can you speak to what exactly AIG does? Is it like investment management? How are the exit options?

[Anonymous User]

I work in the Milbank LA office. Can't speak too much to the alternative investment practice. They are a small group in our office. Deb Festa is one of the main partners in that practice group.

The LA office, generally, is great. We moved from downtown last year to Century City. The new facilities are beautiful (two floors, barista, showers with towel service, etc). Face time requirement around here is super low and very laid back (e.g. Friday is "casual day", but most attorneys treat a few days a week as casual day). The office is dominated by the project finance group, but there is a large corporate and litigation presence.

Feel free to ask more specific questions if you'd like.

OP here - can you speak to what exactly AIG does? Is it like investment management? How are the exit options?

Can't really speak to it. They are such a small group that I don't have any interaction with them. They aren't even offered as an option on the summer rotation. But if they are looking for an associate, they must be growing!

[Anonymous User]

Different associate here.

The group pretty much does CLOs. It's a small group and a senior just left so they're hiring. It's all juniors at this point. What year are you? Exit ops are probably asset manager, funds, banks, etc. Would disagree that FaceTime requirements are generally lax - it's very group dependent.

The office is generally fine, but if you're a first or second year there are some petty policies. For example, first years have to share offices (which is some TTT shit in LA) and second years are supposed to get interior offices. But there aren't enough, so second years can be stuck in a shared office, though at least they're alone. Meanwhile, exterior offices sit empty. Like I said, it's petty and considering we're an LA office I think it makes us look bad - Paul HasTTTings level.

Also, glass offices suck. Suck hard.

But in the grand scheme those aren't that bad and there are much worse places to work. Everyone is bonus eligible regardless of hours so that's nice.

[Anonymous User]

Different associate here.

The group pretty much does CLOs. It's a small group and a senior just left so they're hiring. It's all juniors at this point. What year are you? Exit ops are probably asset manager, funds, banks, etc. Would disagree that FaceTime requirements are generally lax - it's very group dependent.

The office is generally fine, but if you're a first or second year there are some petty policies. For example, first years have to share offices (which is some TTT shit in LA) and second years are supposed to get interior offices. But there aren't enough, so second years can be stuck in a shared office, though at least they're alone. Meanwhile, exterior offices sit empty. Like I said, it's petty and considering we're an LA office I think it makes us look bad - Paul HasTTTings level.

Also, glass offices suck. Suck hard.

But in the grand scheme those aren't that bad and there are much worse places to work. Everyone is bonus eligible regardless of hours so that's nice.

Another associate here. The office sharing for first years is over at the end of this month. There was a lot of complaining and many partners agreed it was stupid since there are a lot of empty offices, so first years are getting their own offices in a week. That being said, like the above poster said, some offices are set up for two people, but only one associate will be in each, so not the best logistically, but still better than shared. And yes, glass offices blow.

In terms of facetime, it is group dependent. PF has nearly no facetime requirement, whereas facetime seems more important in corporate and lit is somewhere in the middle. The office itself is pretty chill and everyone is genuinely nice/pleasant. People work hard but no one is chained to their desk.

AIP is a small group and sort of a niche subset of corporate. They seem to be scrambling to hire since they just lost a senior associate and they're short staffed. They do CLOs/securitization, but that's about all I can say.

[Anonymous User]

Different associate here.

The group pretty much does CLOs. It's a small group and a senior just left so they're hiring. It's all juniors at this point. What year are you? Exit ops are probably asset manager, funds, banks, etc. Would disagree that FaceTime requirements are generally lax - it's very group dependent.

The office is generally fine, but if you're a first or second year there are some petty policies. For example, first years have to share offices (which is some TTT shit in LA) and second years are supposed to get interior offices. But there aren't enough, so second years can be stuck in a shared office, though at least they're alone. Meanwhile, exterior offices sit empty. Like I said, it's petty and considering we're an LA office I think it makes us look bad - Paul HasTTTings level.

Also, glass offices suck. Suck hard.

But in the grand scheme those aren't that bad and there are much worse places to work. Everyone is bonus eligible regardless of hours so that's nice.

Another associate here. The office sharing for first years is over at the end of this month. There was a lot of complaining and many partners agreed it was stupid since there are a lot of empty offices, so first years are getting their own offices in a week. That being said, like the above poster said, some offices are set up for two people, but only one associate will be in each, so not the best logistically, but still better than shared. And yes, glass offices blow.

I'm pretty sure each incoming 1st year class will share offfices. I don't think that's changed.

[Wearthewildthingsr]

Sounds more like a structured finance group than let's say an alternative investment group (e.g., hedge funds, private equity). So more transactional than fund formation.

[Anonymous User]

Curious about the exit ops as well

[Anonymous User]

Curious about the exit ops as well

One of the associate anons above. I already mentioned exit ops. What more do you want to know?

[Anonymous User]

Different associate here.

The group pretty much does CLOs. It's a small group and a senior just left so they're hiring. It's all juniors at this point. What year are you? Exit ops are probably asset manager, funds, banks, etc. Would disagree that FaceTime requirements are generally lax - it's very group dependent.

The office is generally fine, but if you're a first or second year there are some petty policies. For example, first years have to share offices (which is some TTT shit in LA) and second years are supposed to get interior offices. But there aren't enough, so second years can be stuck in a shared office, though at least they're alone. Meanwhile, exterior offices sit empty. Like I said, it's petty and considering we're an LA office I think it makes us look bad - Paul HasTTTings level.

Also, glass offices suck. Suck hard.

But in the grand scheme those aren't that bad and there are much worse places to work. Everyone is bonus eligible regardless of hours so that's nice.

Another associate here. The office sharing for first years is over at the end of this month. There was a lot of complaining and many partners agreed it was stupid since there are a lot of empty offices, so first years are getting their own offices in a week. That being said, like the above poster said, some offices are set up for two people, but only one associate will be in each, so not the best logistically, but still better than shared. And yes, glass offices blow.

I'm pretty sure each incoming 1st year class will share offfices. I don't think that's changed.

Just for the sake of record (for those who will search for info on Milbank and see this), first years no longer share offices. They were moved today. First years have their own internal offices. Second years have been moved to external offices.

[Anonymous User]

Different associate here.

The group pretty much does CLOs. It's a small group and a senior just left so they're hiring. It's all juniors at this point. What year are you? Exit ops are probably asset manager, funds, banks, etc. Would disagree that FaceTime requirements are generally lax - it's very group dependent.

The office is generally fine, but if you're a first or second year there are some petty policies. For example, first years have to share offices (which is some TTT shit in LA) and second years are supposed to get interior offices. But there aren't enough, so second years can be stuck in a shared office, though at least they're alone. Meanwhile, exterior offices sit empty. Like I said, it's petty and considering we're an LA office I think it makes us look bad - Paul HasTTTings level.

Also, glass offices suck. Suck hard.

But in the grand scheme those aren't that bad and there are much worse places to work. Everyone is bonus eligible regardless of hours so that's nice.

Another associate here. The office sharing for first years is over at the end of this month. There was a lot of complaining and many partners agreed it was stupid since there are a lot of empty offices, so first years are getting their own offices in a week. That being said, like the above poster said, some offices are set up for two people, but only one associate will be in each, so not the best logistically, but still better than shared. And yes, glass offices blow.

I'm pretty sure each incoming 1st year class will share offfices. I don't think that's changed.

Just for the sake of record (for those who will search for info on Milbank and see this), first years no longer share offices. They were moved today. First years have their own internal offices. Second years have been moved to external offices.

To clarify: summers will share offices. Incoming first years will share offices until summer (hence the move). Some first years/second years are in offices set up to share but do not share. Shared offices are still a thing, just not for...two weeks?