Law Firms to Stay Away From Forum

[Anonymous User]

Does anyone know what's going on with Sidley DC?

Sidley in general is weird with offers. They never have a 100% offer rate at all their offices. And based on prior NALP history, they have no-offered at least one person at every office at some point in the past few years.

Good firm, but they definitely seem to be more strict on offers than their peers.

I mean - is Sidley DC even hiring summers? They're the only Sidley office who didn't come to our OCI (in a MVPD) and I know I read somewhere on their website they weren't hiring DC summers but were accepting qualified applicants.

Their recruiting calendar shows the DC office represented at OCIs for Michigan, Virginia, and Penn.

Oh I read they weren't. Maybe a Dukie pissed them off

[Anonymous User]

Anyone with anything specific to Boston offices?

Dechert Boston is obviously struggling like the rest of the firm. Ropes & Gray is still the best in town, but they recently kicked out their entire patent prosecution group.

I predict a lot of biglaw firms will be doing this in the next few years. If you want to do anything else at Ropes you're probably fine.

I've heard some rumors that my firm wants to acquire some patent pros partners so they can cross sell services. Do you think this us a good idea? Given what a going on at ropes and elsewhere I was inclined to think it wasn't...

From my understanding that's how it's been done for a long time, but now billing rates for pros can't keep up. That's why most of the pros work is done out of boutiques rather than big law now. I expect to see more firms do what Ropes has done.

The firm has to be willing to embrace alternative fee arrangements and lower billing rates for the pros group, and accept that the profit will be lower for the group. Ropes wasn't willing to do this, making it impossible for the group to compete with smaller, cheaper firms.

Right, my understanding is most big law firms aren't willing to embrace those agreement and lower billing rates. At least not to the extent they used to.

I tend to agree; some firms will be fine with this, but the ones vying to be the biggest firms in their respective cities are probably going to prefer the extra capital they'd get from firing pros attorneys and hiring more attorneys from more profitable groups, over keeping the pros group to maintain the relatively small amount of extra money they get through the cross-services. Especially with firms being cheap af and with associate salaries finally growing, pros just isn't going to fit into the profit schemes these firms are going to need to earn the same profits their predecessors did. They either have to push these groups out and replace them with something else entirely, or push out the existing groups and pay their replacements significantly less.

[Anonymous User]

Paul Hastings: Please choose this firm if you would like to ruin your life and/or career. I am going to go now to bill 0.1 hours for the time I spent writing this post. If I was still at PH, my partner would probably make me charge it to one of our bigger clients cuz he has no ethics.

Also, many partners have been de-equitized lately from what I understand (but these moves are not announced).

I saw someone mention a toxic environment. This does not begin to cover it. Paul Hastings is like the Asbestos of law firms. Merely being there will make it difficult for you to breathe at times, and you will have frequent panic attacks. It will be a cancer and a poison to your very soul. Stay away.

[KM2016]

Paul Hastings: Please choose this firm if you would like to ruin your life and/or career. I am going to go now to bill 0.1 hours for the time I spent writing this post. If I was still at PH, my partner would probably make me charge it to one of our bigger clients cuz he has no ethics.

Also, many partners have been de-equitized lately from what I understand (but these moves are not announced).

I saw someone mention a toxic environment. This does not begin to cover it. Paul Hastings is like the Asbestos of law firms. Merely being there will make it difficult for you to breathe at times, and you will have frequent panic attacks. It will be a cancer and a poison to your very soul. Stay away.

Just goes to show how meaningless Vault rankings are. Also, that's wildly unethical re your partner...

The best law firms to Work For (Paul Hastings Rankings):
#1 Overall Ranking
#1 Associate/Partner Relations
#1 Quality of Work
#1 Satisfaction
#2 Hours
#2 Informal Training, Mentoring & Sponsorship
#2 Transparency
#3 Career Outlook
#3 Firm Culture
#4 Compensation
#4 Formal Training
#5 Integration of Laterals/Clerks
#6 Pro Bono
#7 Business Outlook
#13 Selectivity

[Anonymous User]

Paul Hastings: Please choose this firm if you would like to ruin your life and/or career. I am going to go now to bill 0.1 hours for the time I spent writing this post. If I was still at PH, my partner would probably make me charge it to one of our bigger clients cuz he has no ethics.

Also, many partners have been de-equitized lately from what I understand (but these moves are not announced).

I saw someone mention a toxic environment. This does not begin to cover it. Paul Hastings is like the Asbestos of law firms. Merely being there will make it difficult for you to breathe at times, and you will have frequent panic attacks. It will be a cancer and a poison to your very soul. Stay away.

Hah, a few corporate partners came over to my firm from there and completely ruined the group in terms of personality. One of the main reasons I'm thinking of leaving.

[Anonymous User]

Paul Hastings: Please choose this firm if you would like to ruin your life and/or career. I am going to go now to bill 0.1 hours for the time I spent writing this post. If I was still at PH, my partner would probably make me charge it to one of our bigger clients cuz he has no ethics.

Also, many partners have been de-equitized lately from what I understand (but these moves are not announced).

I saw someone mention a toxic environment. This does not begin to cover it. Paul Hastings is like the Asbestos of law firms. Merely being there will make it difficult for you to breathe at times, and you will have frequent panic attacks. It will be a cancer and a poison to your very soul. Stay away.

I have had a wildly different experience from this person at PH - mine is actually quite positive. Which goes to show that you really need to be careful in assessing the team you want to end up on and the office you want to end up in. They're so different across the board. And also that big law life, in general, is pretty difficult. Every firm has jerk partners and terrible clients that you inevitably have some exposure to. As for firms that I've heard are on financially shaky ground: Pillsbury, K&L Gates. I would also assess carefully firms that have not made raises to $180K in the big cities where COL is high (e.g. Chicago, SF, NYC, LA).

[First Offense]

Paul Hastings: Please choose this firm if you would like to ruin your life and/or career. I am going to go now to bill 0.1 hours for the time I spent writing this post. If I was still at PH, my partner would probably make me charge it to one of our bigger clients cuz he has no ethics.

Also, many partners have been de-equitized lately from what I understand (but these moves are not announced).

I saw someone mention a toxic environment. This does not begin to cover it. Paul Hastings is like the Asbestos of law firms. Merely being there will make it difficult for you to breathe at times, and you will have frequent panic attacks. It will be a cancer and a poison to your very soul. Stay away.

Just goes to show how meaningless Vault rankings are. Also, that's wildly unethical re your partner...

The Best Law Firms to Work For (Paul Hastings Rankings):
#1 Overall Ranking
#1 Associate/Partner Relations
#1 Quality of Work
#1 Satisfaction
#2 Hours
#2 Informal Training, Mentoring & Sponsorship
#2 Transparency
#3 Career Outlook
#3 Firm Culture
#4 Compensation
#4 Formal Training
#5 Integration of Laterals/Clerks
#6 Pro Bono
#7 Business Outlook
#13 Selectivity

Hint: Vault Rankings are complete shit.

[Anonymous User]

Paul Hastings: Please choose this firm if you would like to ruin your life and/or career. I am going to go now to bill 0.1 hours for the time I spent writing this post. If I was still at PH, my partner would probably make me charge it to one of our bigger clients cuz he has no ethics.

Also, many partners have been de-equitized lately from what I understand (but these moves are not announced).

I saw someone mention a toxic environment. This does not begin to cover it. Paul Hastings is like the Asbestos of law firms. Merely being there will make it difficult for you to breathe at times, and you will have frequent panic attacks. It will be a cancer and a poison to your very soul. Stay away.

I have had a wildly different experience from this person at PH - mine is actually quite positive. Which goes to show that you really need to be careful in assessing the team you want to end up on and the office you want to end up in. They're so different across the board. And also that big law life, in general, is pretty difficult. Every firm has jerk partners and terrible clients that you inevitably have some exposure to. As for firms that I've heard are on financially shaky ground: Pillsbury, K&L Gates. I would also assess carefully firms that have not made raises to $180K in the big cities where COL is high (e.g. Chicago, SF, NYC, LA).

Agreed. Have had a much different experience at Paul Hastings (NY) as well than the few posters before this.

I think while one of the above posters notes how misleading vault rankings can be (very true), so too can be a small sample size of a few TLS posters who likely worked for shitty partners/groups. Almost all things are group-specific everywhere you go.

[Anonymous User]

I get that every group can have a bad apple but if other firms have completely similar situations wouldn't there be more associates from other firms who are just as incentivized to out their firms? The frequency with which PH is being mentioned seems suggestive to me...

[Anonymous User]

The issues with Dechert are firm wide. In NY, every major group outside of tax and real estate had first year layoffs. Other offices reported similar happenings. I doubt anyone at the firm would in good faith tell any young lawyer to start there. There'll almost certainly be another large round of layoffs in the next 3 weeks.

[Anonymous User]

It's not just the partners that are toxic at PH. It's also the associates that treat each other like shit. The worst part is that even when management is made aware of the issue, they actively ignore it. They do not care at all about associate happiness, despite what the Vault rankings say. Those surveys are heavily manipulated by the firm. To any summers that have yet to accept their offers: do 3L OCI, especially if you were offered a different practice group from the one that you said you were interested in. You've been cold offered and will be pushed out very quickly.

[KM2016]

Paul Hastings: Please choose this firm if you would like to ruin your life and/or career. I am going to go now to bill 0.1 hours for the time I spent writing this post. If I was still at PH, my partner would probably make me charge it to one of our bigger clients cuz he has no ethics.

Also, many partners have been de-equitized lately from what I understand (but these moves are not announced).

I saw someone mention a toxic environment. This does not begin to cover it. Paul Hastings is like the Asbestos of law firms. Merely being there will make it difficult for you to breathe at times, and you will have frequent panic attacks. It will be a cancer and a poison to your very soul. Stay away.

Just goes to show how meaningless Vault rankings are. Also, that's wildly unethical re your partner...

The Best Law Firms to Work For (Paul Hastings Rankings):
#1 Overall Ranking
#1 Associate/Partner Relations
#1 Quality of Work
#1 Satisfaction
#2 Hours
#2 Informal Training, Mentoring & Sponsorship
#2 Transparency
#3 Career Outlook
#3 Firm Culture
#4 Compensation
#4 Formal Training
#5 Integration of Laterals/Clerks
#6 Pro Bono
#7 Business Outlook
#13 Selectivity

Hint: Vault Rankings are complete shit.

1) Thank you for restating what I said re Vault rankings.
2) Great use of anon.

[What the f.supp?]

I wish the mods would start outing these morons abusing the anon function. It shouldn't annoy me so much, but it does.

[SmokeytheBear]

I wish the mods would start outing these morons abusing the anon function. It shouldn't annoy me so much, but it does.

Agreed. They should lose their license too.

[Anonymous User]

It's not just the partners that are toxic at PH. It's also the associates that treat each other like shit. The worst part is that even when management is made aware of the issue, they actively ignore it. They do not care at all about associate happiness, despite what the Vault rankings say. Those surveys are heavily manipulated by the firm. To any summers that have yet to accept their offers: do 3L OCI, especially if you were offered a different practice group from the one that you said you were interested in. You've been cold offered and will be pushed out very quickly.

While I'm admittedly shamelessly defending PH, my biggest issue is that the above is an unsubstantiated generalization.

It may have been TOTALLY true w/r/t your personal experience, and even a few others that have posted along the same lines.

However I am saying, and the other poster above is saying, that they had/have the complete opposite experience .. which likely means that we are either (a) totally full of shit [which i personally think isn't the case but I have been full of shit before] or (b) proof that it is definitely group-specific stuff.

And highlighting this is absolutely worth doing, because there are many law students who treat this forum as gospel, and might make a choice solely on anonymous TLS banter (again, I appreciate how hypocritical im being by saying this), which could have been personally the right choice for them.

So, while I'm not doing so for fear of outing, I think it would be WAAAAAY more productive to say "the partners in xyz group in xyz office are TOXIC" than making a sweeping generalization about "partners and associates at" PH or Dechert or even any other firm for that matter.

But, I guess OP was looking for these type of generalizations or he/she wouldnt have asked, so I'm probably just being a hardo.

[Anonymous User]

Heard through the SA grapevine this year that Weil is crap. This is third hand so grain of salt, but apparently they set the summers against each other and create a very cutthroat environment.

[Anonymous User]

Heard through the SA grapevine this year that Weil is crap. This is third hand so grain of salt, but apparently they set the summers against each other and create a very cutthroat environment.

That's false, just finished my summer there and that is not the case. Yea there are some practice groups that are more difficult to get because they can only take a certain number of people, but the firm doesn't set summers against each other. Do good work, network with the attorneys in the group that you want, and don't get held up on not being placed in a group that only needs 3 people when there are 100+ summers.

[Anonymous User]

Does anyone know what's going on with Sidley DC?

Sidley in general is weird with offers. They never have a 100% offer rate at all their offices. And based on prior NALP history, they have no-offered at least one person at every office at some point in the past few years.

Good firm, but they definitely seem to be more strict on offers than their peers.

I mean - is Sidley DC even hiring summers? They're the only Sidley office who didn't come to our OCI (in a MVPD) and I know I read somewhere on their website they weren't hiring DC summers but were accepting qualified applicants.

Their recruiting calendar shows the DC office represented at OCIs for Michigan, Virginia, and Penn.

Oh I read they weren't. Maybe a Dukie pissed them off

I work at Sidley DC. In each year that I have been here (a few years), we have had 100% offer rates. I have really enjoyed my time at Sidley and encourage everyone to apply - we are definitely hiring...!!!!

[Anonymous User]

Heard through the SA grapevine this year that Weil is crap. This is third hand so grain of salt, but apparently they set the summers against each other and create a very cutthroat environment.

That's false, just finished my summer there and that is not the case. Yea there are some practice groups that are more difficult to get because they can only take a certain number of people, but the firm doesn't set summers against each other. Do good work, network with the attorneys in the group that you want, and don't get held up on not being placed in a group that only needs 3 people when there are 100+ summers.

Don't know about other markets but Weil Dallas gave 10/10 offers (in the practice group they each were shooting for) and all ten seemed to have a great summer.

[Anonymous User]

Andrews Kurth fired a first year without a review

Avoid

[Anonymous User]

Heard through the SA grapevine this year that Weil is crap. This is third hand so grain of salt, but apparently they set the summers against each other and create a very cutthroat environment.

That's false, just finished my summer there and that is not the case. Yea there are some practice groups that are more difficult to get because they can only take a certain number of people, but the firm doesn't set summers against each other. Do good work, network with the attorneys in the group that you want, and don't get held up on not being placed in a group that only needs 3 people when there are 100+ summers.

Don't know about other markets but Weil Dallas gave 10/10 offers (in the practice group they each were shooting for) and all ten seemed to have a great summer.

I know a weil summer who got no offered this year.

[Anonymous User]

Heard through the SA grapevine this year that Weil is crap. This is third hand so grain of salt, but apparently they set the summers against each other and create a very cutthroat environment.

That's false, just finished my summer there and that is not the case. Yea there are some practice groups that are more difficult to get because they can only take a certain number of people, but the firm doesn't set summers against each other. Do good work, network with the attorneys in the group that you want, and don't get held up on not being placed in a group that only needs 3 people when there are 100+ summers.

Don't know about other markets but Weil Dallas gave 10/10 offers (in the practice group they each were shooting for) and all ten seemed to have a great summer.

I know a weil summer who got no offered this year.

in Dallas or another office? I was told all of dallas got offers and the people I know summering there seemed super happy. I keep hearing their corporate department here keeps being raided by other firms and is struggling which i why I avoided it. my friends all had the work they wanted though

[Anonymous User]

Heard through the SA grapevine this year that Weil is crap. This is third hand so grain of salt, but apparently they set the summers against each other and create a very cutthroat environment.

That's false, just finished my summer there and that is not the case. Yea there are some practice groups that are more difficult to get because they can only take a certain number of people, but the firm doesn't set summers against each other. Do good work, network with the attorneys in the group that you want, and don't get held up on not being placed in a group that only needs 3 people when there are 100+ summers.

Don't know about other markets but Weil Dallas gave 10/10 offers (in the practice group they each were shooting for) and all ten seemed to have a great summer.

I know a weil summer who got no offered this year.

in Dallas or another office? I was told all of dallas got offers and the people I know summering there seemed super happy. I keep hearing their corporate department here keeps being raided by other firms and is struggling which i why I avoided it. my friends all had the work they wanted though

Sorry wasn't clear. Not Dallas but major market.

[Anonymous User]

PEPPER HAMILTON.

They don't really pay bonuses (see recent Above the Law article.) In some groups, it's so bad that Pepper has no home-grown associates older than third years--that's right--EVERYONE leaves by their fourth year. Then Pepper hires unsuspecting laterals who think that it's a real law firm. Great strategy--hire people that other firms trained because you can't retain any of your own associates. KILLING IT.

Also, the newest incoming class FIRMWIDE is 11 associates. Their summer class was much bigger. Even if some of them went off to clerkships...unclear where the rest of them went.

[jd20132013]

PEPPER HAMILTON.

They don't really pay bonuses (see recent Above the Law article.) In some groups, it's so bad that Pepper has no home-grown associates older than third years--that's right--EVERYONE leaves by their fourth year. Then Pepper hires unsuspecting laterals who think that it's a real law firm. Great strategy--hire people that other firms trained because you can't retain any of your own associates. KILLING IT.

Also, the newest incoming class FIRMWIDE is 11 associates. Their summer class was much bigger. Even if some of them went off to clerkships...unclear where the rest of them went.

I mean this doesn't actually sound like a bad strategy to me for anyone except the home growns who never get bonuses