Any intel on Covington NYC? Forum

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Any intel on Covington NYC?

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Dec 04, 2018 4:47 pm

Does anyone have insight into Covington NYC? I would be interested in the litigation side, but understand if that is too niche. Any intel on type of work, culture, hours, presence of any screamers, facetime would be helpful.

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Re: Any intel on Covington NYC?

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Dec 04, 2018 5:40 pm

Did a CB there and did a good amount of due diligence in a previous cycle (it was one of my top SA choices). There's certainly a difference between Cov NY and Cov DC - as you probably know, Cov NY was a former boutique that was acquired wholesale by Cov, and wasn't homegrown. But Cov NY does great work (though you won't find much if any of Cov's marquee regulatory work - that's all in D.C.), originates its own projects, and as far as I know, has a good culture. Its offices are great too.

Cov as a whole also treats Cov NY well. A few years ago when the firm resisted the move to 180k, the firm actually raised NY to 180 before giving in and also raising DC to 180. So Cov NY isn't disfavored by any means within the firm. (Point in Cov's favor, the firm was decently quick in moving to 190k - no overt signs of resistance this time 'round!)

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Re: Any intel on Covington NYC?

Post by Anonymous User » Tue Dec 04, 2018 5:50 pm

I’m at Cov NY and think it’s a great firm to work at. I’m a recent lateral so can’t vouch for the accuracy of everything but: Very hard to assess work levels for other people but my wild ass guess is the median hours is something like 2100 billable + pro bono. Culture is very good, if you are into the Covington reputation (ie, floors tend to be quiet, people aren’t hugely social). No screamers (at least that I know of yet). As at any firm facetime issues vary by partner, but I’d say Cov is somewhere in the middle. It would be frowned upon to regularly work from home, but there’s no expectation in my experience that you be in the office late at night or weekends if you’re working.

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Re: Any intel on Covington NYC?

Post by kimkardashian » Sat Jan 12, 2019 12:26 pm

I hear their corporate group isn't great in NY. Can anyone verify?
Last edited by QContinuum on Mon Feb 04, 2019 11:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Outed for anon abuse.

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Re: Any intel on Covington NYC?

Post by Anonymous User » Sun Jan 13, 2019 11:43 am

Anonymous User wrote:I hear their corporate group isn't great in NY. Can anyone verify?
Cov NY anon from above. I’m in white collar, so can’t tell you that much in detail about the Corp practice, but it’s been growing a lot the past few years and very busy at the moment. I know we do a lot of bank M&A, life sciences and tech trans work. Generally a lot of the work is in regulated industries. Lots of cross-office work in Corp. People in the group seem like they’re working hard but like each other a lot.

I would use Chambers as the best source for relative ranking. Maybe I’m just drinking kool aid, but my impression is that the idea Cov NY is only good for lit is a bit of a relic and not true anymore.

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Re: Any intel on Covington NYC?

Post by Anonymous User » Sun Jan 13, 2019 12:30 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:I hear their corporate group isn't great in NY. Can anyone verify?
Cov NY anon from above. I’m in white collar, so can’t tell you that much in detail about the Corp practice, but it’s been growing a lot the past few years and very busy at the moment. I know we do a lot of bank M&A, life sciences and tech trans work. Generally a lot of the work is in regulated industries. Lots of cross-office work in Corp. People in the group seem like they’re working hard but like each other a lot.

I would use Chambers as the best source for relative ranking. Maybe I’m just drinking kool aid, but my impression is that the idea Cov NY is only good for lit is a bit of a relic and not true anymore.
I'm in corporate in this office and can vouch for the above. The office doesn't have the types of institutional client relationships that many of the NY power hitters have, but the group is busy nonetheless with smaller, more niche work (often involving regulated industries like life sciences, communications, financial institutions, etc.). People are pleasant compared to other NY corporate groups.

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Re: Any intel on Covington NYC?

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Jan 14, 2019 10:47 am

I did a cb with them and got an offer, but wound up somewhere else in NYC - I thought the office was beautiful and really liked the people, but it was craaazy quiet. Depends on the type of work experience you want, but I just felt like I wouldn’t have been a good culture fit even though I genuinely liked everyone. On the other hand if you’re looking for a place that feels very calm and there’s no pressure to socialize in the workplace you might really like it. I was looking at lit, but I did speak to a corporate associate who loved the culture but told me they felt the Corp practice was a bit slower than it would be in their ideal world, and that some of their friends at other firms had more substantive deal experience than they did at the same level. However, they really liked the culture and still felt like Cov NY was the right fit for them. Definitely no real warning signs or red flags if you think the culture/ atmosphere is a good fit, and you genuinely can’t beat the view

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Re: Any intel on Covington NYC?

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Jan 14, 2019 7:20 pm

Used to work there, now in house for last 18 months. Echoing the above -- if you're looking for a mega NY firm with front page deals and well-known institutional clients, or a very social atmosphere to get a group of friends to go out, etc., this probably isn't the place for you.

But it was an exceedingly great place to do corporate work, imo and never held anybody back from going in-house somewhere if that's the exit you were looking for. It's busy but also pretty good about letting you dictate how much work you want to carry. You'll very rarely see folks billing crazy high amounts like you'd be forced into doing at bigger firms, especially since you don't need to hit a certain minimum for a bonus. I billed 1800 one year when the market tanked and got a full bonus.

The folks were all great there and you almost never saw somebody lateral to a different firm unless they were moving cities to where Covington didn't have an office. I think maybe one corporate person did when I was there, and that was to join a specialized derivatives practice CBNY didn't do.

You see M&A, capital markets, finance, funds work I think as what you'd spend most of your time doing. I don't think historically CBNY had much of a capital markets practice, but I think they took on a whole group from Dewey when they imploded and really beefed things up on that front. They always seemed busy.

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Re: Any intel on Covington NYC?

Post by Anonymous User » Mon Feb 04, 2019 11:16 pm

Any other thoughts here for what type of M&A they do? I hear it can be a lot of financial adviser side work. Is that true? Considering an interview there.

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