What in your opinion is the best firm for lit in the country? Forum

[Carter5]

Would you say Wachell NYC or Williams & Connolly DC. Or any others

[nealric]

Answers to questions like these are always an "it depends."

Best for whom and for what? If I'm a client looking to defend a class action, my answer would be very different from prospective hire who just completed a SCOTUS clerkship. Location also matters. There are different answers for D.C., New York, Texas, California.

Watchtell is an M&A shop. Not sure why you would rank it so high for lit. W&C is a D.C. centered firm that has a fairly niche practice. You don't go there for patent litigation, but of course you don't go to a patent lit boutique and expect to defend a politician against corruption accusations.

[TheProsecutor]

Would you say Wachell NYC or Williams & Connolly DC. Or any others

Depends on the type of litigation.

But WLRK is prob tops for complex derivative, securities, white collar, and merger litigation. Probably top 5 for commercial lit. Interestingly enough, their corporate practice is so good it sort of makes people forget how effective their lit shop is.

Williams & Connolly is great particularly in defensive criminal work and government investigations.

Quinn and Kirkland are really great if you have large scale litigation or multi-district litigation that is likely to go to trial

On the plaintiffs side, KVN is tops along with Susman.

Really depends on what lit we're talking about and on what scale.

[QContinuum]

Munger, Keker, Susman, and Boies are often considered the best lit shops in the country. But there are also pluses to doing lit at a general practice firm like Wachtell or S&C or Deb or W&C, particularly if one is interested in white-collar work. Some may find somewhat lesser-known lit shops like Selendy & Gay or Kaplan Hecker & Fink a better fit. And then there's Quinn, which is kind of sui generis.

Of course, the above is directed to general corporate lit & white-collar work. Patent lit is different, as is plaintiffs' side work, as is appellate work.

[Shaggier1]

I think Wilkinson Walsh belongs in this conversation as well - at least if you are talking about actual trial work.

[PeanutsNJam]

No love for bartlit beck itt?

[Wild Card]

Wachtell, b/c of the money and selectivity

[polareagle]

Munger, Keker, Susman, and Boies are often considered the best lit shops in the country. But there are also pluses to doing lit at a general practice firm like Wachtell or S&C or Deb or W&C, particularly if one is interested in white-collar work. Some may find somewhat lesser-known lit shops like Selendy & Gay or Kaplan Hecker & Fink a better fit. And then there's Quinn, which is kind of sui generis.

Of course, the above is directed to general corporate lit & white-collar work. Patent lit is different, as is plaintiffs' side work, as is appellate work.

This is a weird way of categorizing firms.

Keker and Susman are lit boutiques.

Boies and W&C are larger, lit-only firms. Munger describes itself as a "full service" firm, although I'd probably put it with Boies and W&C. All three are certainly among the best list firms in the country, although I don't think many would agree that Boies > W&C.

[Person1111]

Would you say Wachell NYC or Williams & Connolly DC. Or any others

Depends on the type of litigation.

But WLRK is prob tops for complex derivative, securities, white collar, and merger litigation. Probably top 5 for commercial lit. Interestingly enough, their corporate practice is so good it sort of makes people forget how effective their lit shop is.

Williams & Connolly is great particularly in defensive criminal work and government investigations.

Quinn and Kirkland are really great if you have large scale litigation or multi-district litigation that is likely to go to trial

On the plaintiffs side, KVN is tops along with Susman.

Really depends on what lit we're talking about and on what scale.

Best answer in this thread. Two things I will add: (1) a lot of firms deeper in the V100 are best-in-class for more niche/specialized litigation practices, whereas the marquee big litigation shops (Quinn, Kirkland, etc.) are good at everything and great at some things; (2) KVN and Susman and their ilk (would also put McKool in this category even though it gets little love on TLS) are among the best plaintiffs' shops for specific types of big-ticket commercial, antitrust, and securities, and finance-adjacent litigation. They are not the best at plaintiff-side labor & employment (Outten & Golden, etc.), plaintiff-side consumer and mass tort (Hagens Berman, Lieff Cabraser, etc.), or many other types of plaintiff-side work.

[Anonymous User]

Just to correct one thing: KVN (now KVP) does not do much plaintiffs'-side work. Would be v. surprised if it was more than ~10% of firmwide billables. Susman much more plaintiff-oriented, but even they have faced pressure to do more defense-side, hourly cases. There was an article quoting Susman himself on this a while back. No inside information, but it would not surprise me if Susman is ~50/50 plaintiff/defense these days.

As a boutique-er, will also just add that, these are the usual names that always appear in these conversations. But you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't really dig into the local boutique market wherever you work. The best major-market boutiques will usually give you experience on-par with KVP, W&C, and MTO (and certainly Boies).

[BulletTooth]

Just to correct one thing: KVN (now KVP) does not do much plaintiffs'-side work. Would be v. surprised if it was more than ~10% of firmwide billables. Susman much more plaintiff-oriented, but even they have faced pressure to do more defense-side, hourly cases. There was an article quoting Susman himself on this a while back. No inside information, but it would not surprise me if Susman is ~50/50 plaintiff/defense these days.

As a boutique-er, will also just add that, these are the usual names that always appear in these conversations. But you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't really dig into the local boutique market wherever you work. The best major-market boutiques will usually give you experience on-par with KVP, W&C, and MTO (and certainly Boies).

I think I remember seeing some sort of advertisement material from Susman saying that they do 60% plaintiff and 40% defense. But yes, I definitely imagine there has been a shift to more defense.

[LBJ's Hair]

I guess appellate is sorta niche, but Gibson deserves some love.