Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions Forum

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Re: Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Aug 29, 2017 7:32 pm

Tried to search but didn't see much discussion regarding Latham LA M&A. How's the culture of the group? Is it mostly PE? Buy or sell side? Thanks.

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Re: Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions

Post by SmokeytheBear » Tue Aug 29, 2017 7:35 pm

Can't speak to that, so I'll let someone else field it. But I knew a woman in the group a few years ago (midlevel) and she seemed to like it. Very low face time requirement (she would go in a few days a week at most). Her hours varied wildly--40-60 one month and 300 the next.

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Re: Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Aug 29, 2017 7:39 pm

SmokeytheBear wrote:Can't speak to that, so I'll let someone else field it. But I knew a woman in the group a few years ago (midlevel) and she seemed to like it. Very low face time requirement (she would go in a few days a week at most). Her hours varied wildly--40-60 one month and 300 the next.
Thanks, that's helpful. Interested as a lateral but not positive re: their clients and business. Not a fan of PE work tbh.

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Re: Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions

Post by SmokeytheBear » Tue Aug 29, 2017 7:44 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
SmokeytheBear wrote:Can't speak to that, so I'll let someone else field it. But I knew a woman in the group a few years ago (midlevel) and she seemed to like it. Very low face time requirement (she would go in a few days a week at most). Her hours varied wildly--40-60 one month and 300 the next.
Thanks, that's helpful. Interested as a lateral but not positive re: their clients and business. Not a fan of PE work tbh.
They've kinda been lighting up the lateral market--I got a few emails about it as well.

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Re: Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Aug 31, 2017 2:27 am

Can anyone speak to the culture at Proskauer? Saw some chatter on it in a thread last year and interested in hearing people's thoughts.

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Re: Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Aug 31, 2017 11:46 am

Anonymous User wrote:Can anyone speak to the culture at Proskauer? Saw some chatter on it in a thread last year and interested in hearing people's thoughts.
Seems like a great place to work..more humane than many of the other big law firms..Very nice people

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Re: Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions

Post by Anonymous User » Thu Aug 31, 2017 1:03 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:Can anyone speak to the culture at Proskauer? Saw some chatter on it in a thread last year and interested in hearing people's thoughts.
Seems like a great place to work..more humane than many of the other big law firms..Very nice people
I'm curious about this as well. Anyone know what their summer program is like? How does it compare to the ny office?

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Re: Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions

Post by LaLiLuLeLo » Thu Aug 31, 2017 3:19 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:Can anyone speak to the culture at Proskauer? Saw some chatter on it in a thread last year and interested in hearing people's thoughts.
Seems like a great place to work..more humane than many of the other big law firms..Very nice people
TBH this sounds like someone who met with them during OCI or summered there. If you're an attorney, then sorry for jumping on you, but this isn't helpful at all and doesn't seem like actual knowledge of Proskauer.

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Re: Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions

Post by SmokeytheBear » Thu Aug 31, 2017 3:22 pm

LaLiLuLeLo wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:Can anyone speak to the culture at Proskauer? Saw some chatter on it in a thread last year and interested in hearing people's thoughts.
Seems like a great place to work..more humane than many of the other big law firms..Very nice people
TBH this sounds like someone who met with them during OCI or summered there. If you're an attorney, then sorry for jumping on you, but this isn't helpful at all and doesn't seem like actual knowledge of Proskauer.
Yeah, I wanted to say the same, but held back.

From what I know about the firm from having worked across or with them on a few deals is that they do mostly healthy company equity and debt market work and that they are heavily, heavily dependent on Woronoff's book.

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Re: Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Sep 01, 2017 8:39 am

I can take questions on kirkland la (corporate). I'm deep in the thick of associate ranks.

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Re: Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions

Post by SmokeytheBear » Fri Sep 01, 2017 10:14 am

Anonymous User wrote:I can take questions on kirkland la (corporate). I'm deep in the thick of associate ranks.
This is an honest question and not trolling--why is everyone I have worked opposite of from Kirkland, whether LA, NY, or CHI, a dick? And why is that everyone's takeaway? You guys are certainly v good at what you do, but you're also dicks about it. Is there some training that happens where you're told to be as agressive, unfriendly, and unhelpful as possible?

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Re: Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Sep 01, 2017 11:59 am

Everyone on the LA office at least tries to be pretty nice..at least inhouse. I'm honestly curious who you worked across from in the LA office - I can probably guess. I moved over from a different firm and can't see anything materially different in the culture...honestly, you're probably just catching them at various stages of deal flow. If you're working across from in m&a I'm sure you're some pe, but I feel like 90% of the clients here are middle market pe so we are on a ton of transactions all at once and on very tiny teams.

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Re: Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions

Post by Anonymous User » Fri Sep 01, 2017 8:16 pm

How's the patent lit lateral market/workload?

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Re: Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions

Post by SmokeytheBear » Tue Oct 03, 2017 3:09 pm

So where did everyone end up? Happy with decisions? Any reactions to certain firms during OCI that you want to share (loved the culture, didn't have good experiences, etc). Curious to hear which firms people liked/didnt like.

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Re: Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Oct 03, 2017 3:30 pm

SmokeytheBear wrote:So where did everyone end up? Happy with decisions? Any reactions to certain firms during OCI that you want to share (loved the culture, didn't have good experiences, etc). Curious to hear which firms people liked/didnt like.
MTO blew me out of the water, but that was mostly just the people I interviewed with seeming to very sincerely and nicely believe all of the selling points the firm as a whole advertises. Maybe I fell for something, but everything else I was able to research seem to bear out the truth of what they said, and it really doesn't seem like there's a better place on the West Coast to get to learn how to actually get good at litigation as quickly as possible.

Latham felt huge and nice but very impersonal.

O'Melveny is good people.

Kirkland felt like people I wanted to be friends with but not necessarily work for.

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Re: Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Oct 03, 2017 3:52 pm

Not to burst your bubble, but I'm 100% positive you'll start hearing/feeling very, very different things about MTO in the near future.

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Re: Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Oct 03, 2017 3:56 pm

Anonymous User wrote:Not to burst your bubble, but I'm 100% positive you'll start hearing/feeling very, very different things about MTO in the near future.
Awesome. Glad I have that vague assurance looming over me now!

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Re: Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions

Post by SmokeytheBear » Tue Oct 03, 2017 4:06 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
SmokeytheBear wrote:So where did everyone end up? Happy with decisions? Any reactions to certain firms during OCI that you want to share (loved the culture, didn't have good experiences, etc). Curious to hear which firms people liked/didnt like.
MTO blew me out of the water, but that was mostly just the people I interviewed with seeming to very sincerely and nicely believe all of the selling points the firm as a whole advertises. Maybe I fell for something, but everything else I was able to research seem to bear out the truth of what they said, and it really doesn't seem like there's a better place on the West Coast to get to learn how to actually get good at litigation as quickly as possible.

Latham felt huge and nice but very impersonal.

O'Melveny is good people.

Kirkland felt like people I wanted to be friends with but not necessarily work for.
That's great you had such a diverse group of firms to interview with.

For the vast majority of people, how you feel about a firm or the vibes you get from a firm during OCI will be a bit different during the summer, which will also be a bit different than working there in real life.

I feel like, though, of all places your experience at MTO during the summer will be closer to how it really is (seeing as it is one of the few big firms that says "it's your offer to get" as opposed to the more normal "it's your offer to lose").

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Re: Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Oct 03, 2017 4:53 pm

You should just be aware that your attitude is not at all prevalent among people who have actually worked at MTO.

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Re: Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Oct 03, 2017 5:03 pm

Anonymous User wrote:You should just be aware that your attitude is not at all prevalent among people who have actually worked at MTO.
Wait a sec. So the people aren't nice, or you won't get substantive experience on interesting cases earlier in your career at a firm with an excellent reputation in a variety of lit spaces?


Because one of those is a bit more important than the other to me... I recognize everyone's got a recruiting face on, but just clicked a bit better with what I saw as a dorky and slightly more transparent vibe at MTO.

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Re: Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions

Post by lolwat » Tue Oct 03, 2017 5:30 pm

It's interesting because most of the MTO/ex-MTO people I've spoken to about the firm seem to like the firm.
That's not to say it doesn't have its downsides. That's the nature of our shitty profession, really.
I think as a general matter the people there are nice (I'm sure exceptions exist, as everywhere), and you'll learn more litigation stuff earlier at MTO than at other biglaw firms, but not as early as if you were at like HH or Susman etc.

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Re: Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Oct 03, 2017 6:04 pm

No one disputes the substantiveness of the legal work. The issue is with the agreeableness of the people and the general work environment. Several clerks on my court came from MTO and then decided not to head back.

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Re: Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Oct 03, 2017 6:14 pm

Anonymous User wrote:No one disputes the substantiveness of the legal work. The issue is with the agreeableness of the people and the general work environment. Several clerks on my court came from MTO and then decided not to head back.
Damn dude. Your initial quote had me dreading some Irell-like announcement in the very near future, rending MTO apart mere weeks after I had foreclosed other options for my summer. Instead, I find that you were overly and forebodingly vague purely in order to tell me that there are some not nice people at MTO?

I know and expect that- it's BigLaw, and from what I gather there can definitely be some overly demanding/exacting partners. I know I'll have to take my chances with that, just like anywhere. Just felt like the overall aura of the firm, from having too many committees and discussions to investing a bit more in associate development, seemed nice. MTO is structured in a way that seems like they actually put some real emphasis on the things every firm says during OCI, and while I'm sure it's not sunshine and rainbows, if they give me a little of that as well as good opportunities and experience, I'll be more than satisfied.

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Re: Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Oct 03, 2017 6:24 pm

Definitely didn't mean to imply that MTO is in danger of imminent implosion haha. Sorry if I gave that impression. Just wanted to say that the reputation of the firm is much less rosy in the LA area as far as niceness/satisfaction. Though again, no one doubts they are great litigators. (Though they were phenomenally dickish in front of my judge on more than one occasion.)

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Re: Los Angeles Market Associates Taking Questions

Post by SmokeytheBear » Tue Oct 03, 2017 6:35 pm

Anonymous User wrote:Definitely didn't mean to imply that MTO is in danger of imminent implosion haha. Sorry if I gave that impression. Just wanted to say that the reputation of the firm is much less rosy in the LA area as far as niceness/satisfaction. Though again, no one doubts they are great litigators. (Though they were phenomenally dickish in front of my judge on more than one occasion.)
I don't think that's universal. I know several people who are there who I went to law school with and they are all happy and have been happy with their experience.

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