Boutique vs. Big Firm help Forum

[Anonymous User]

Fortunate enough to have an offer from a well respected boutique (IP law) and a big firm (IP group) in a major market. I would prefer the boutique in terms of hours, work/life, people, and the substance of the work itself. Both pay market, for 1st years at least. My question is how much of a negative effect will it have down the road starting my career at the boutique firm compared to the big firm? Would going in house down the road be feasible still?Any advice appreciated

[jarofsoup]

Boutiques can be very hard environments to work in. It is really hit or miss. Unless you know that it is a good place to work, go with the big firm.

[QContinuum]

Boutiques can be very hard environments to work in. It is really hit or miss. Unless you know that it is a good place to work, go with the big firm.

Not necessarily, if the "boutique" is a large IP firm, i.e., Fish/Finnegan. Those are essentially BigLaw firms, minus the non-IP practices.

[UVA2B]

Boutiques can be very hard environments to work in. It is really hit or miss. Unless you know that it is a good place to work, go with the big firm.

Not necessarily, if the "boutique" is a large IP firm, i.e., Fish/Finnegan. Those are essentially BigLaw firms, minus the non-IP practices.

Yup, but some of the differences may hold.

At the "boutique," you may do more prosecution than you'd do at the Big firm that focuses solely on Lit. It would likely be in the early years before your rate outgrows prosecution work, but there are fewer and fewer Biglaw firms that are engaging in prosecution, focusing on the higher margin litigation work that they hope will exist.

We've discussed this previously so obviously I'm not saying anything you don't know, but I just wanted to make clear that your practice at the boutique, even if it's Fish/Finnegan, may be different than the Big firm, depending on whether the Big Firm has divested themselves of prosecution work.

[QContinuum]

Yup, but some of the differences may hold.

At the "boutique," you may do more prosecution than you'd do at the Big firm that focuses solely on Lit. It would likely be in the early years before your rate outgrows prosecution work, but there are fewer and fewer Biglaw firms that are engaging in prosecution, focusing on the higher margin litigation work that they hope will exist.

We've discussed this previously so obviously I'm not saying anything you don't know, but I just wanted to make clear that your practice at the boutique, even if it's Fish/Finnegan, may be different than the Big firm, depending on whether the Big Firm has divested themselves of prosecution work.

I think it's very firm-dependent. Fish, for example, has a more or less hard wall between litigation and prosecution. You either litigate or you prosecute; you can do both as a SA, but not as a full-time associate. JD allows juniors to combine prosecution and transactional work, but keeps litigation separate. So it's important to ask the firm what their policies and practices are w.r.t. "crossing over" to a different type of IP work.

[omar.comin]

OP, what kind of work will you be doing? Primarily patent prosecution or will you have the opportunity to do IP transactions at one of the groups? Or is it lit? I think this should likely be the primary concern here.

[sparty99]

Fortunate enough to have an offer from a well respected boutique (IP law) and a big firm (IP group) in a major market. I would prefer the boutique in terms of hours, work/life, people, and the substance of the work itself. Both pay market, for 1st years at least. My question is how much of a negative effect will it have down the road starting my career at the boutique firm compared to the big firm? Would going in house down the road be feasible still?Any advice appreciated

You said nothing positive regarding the big law firm? Thus, you know where you should go and you should therefore go to the boutique firm as you yourself said it has better hours, work/life, people, and the salary is the same. In-house and other law firms will care about what you did and accomplished, not the name of your firm.

[Anonymous User]

OP, what practice area?

If you're talking about patent prep/pros: Boutique all the way. Most big firms do terrible patent prep and pros work. Only two I can speak positively of are Fish and Hayboo. I'm at a very highly regarded prep and pros boutique, and we get to clean up the messes left by big firms all the time. Training at the big firms is the blind leading the blind until you get pushed over into litigation. Their billing rates are just too high to train associates properly. Very few clients are going to pay $15k for a patent application. Your future in prep/pros at a big firm is very limited.

[Anonymous User]

I've worked in both boutique and biglaw. They both have their advantages and disadvantages.

For boutiques, you really need to be in the right boutique. The right boutique can be amazing, but the wrong one can be an awful experience. Be sure to check the attrition of attorneys at the boutique on a website like LinkedIn. It can provide some insight. Many boutiques have no-to-little attrition to other firms.

Boutiques have even less of HR structure/support than biglaw, and also don't have alternative partners/management to approach if someone is treating you poorly. The lower billing rates are nice, especially if the budgets for projects are the same as larger firms. I think that the partners at the boutique had lower billing rates than first or second year associates at my biglaw firm. The boutique that I worked at had a wider range of budgets, but generally I worked on higher budget work at the boutique than biglaw. This isn't always the case.

For biglaw, one major advantage is that you will be able to expand your network much larger than being at a boutique. A lot more people come-and-go from biglaw, there will likely be more summer associates, and you will meet more non-patent lawyers which is useful for building out your network. Also, I found that more people in biglaw are interested in going in-house than in boutiques, so you can expand your network to include attorneys that might become future clients. It's also nice to have access to a pro bono program and occasionally help out in other fields like patent lit.

The general quality of work in biglaw is definitely worse. The people can be good, but they aren't operating at peak performance due to the high billing rates, but also constant turnover and mismanagement causing a lot of chaos.

Going in-house is feasible down the road from any firm. I know a lot of people who have recently gone in-house or are interviewing right now. They all get the same interviews no matter if they're at a boutique or biglaw. Going in-house relies on lots of things like personality, technical background, what you did before law school, internal politics of the in-house team, etc. in addition to what firm you worked at.

Many boutiques are also going towards a percentage-compensation plan. Working in biglaw, I was shocked at the amount of overhead that the prosecution group would never use, but would have to pay for with the higher billing rates. Because boutiques can have overhead targeted towards their exact needs, they can actually offer flexibility but also high compensation. It's not uncommon nowadays to get paid anywhere from 40-70% of your billings as your compensation. In biglaw, you're probably getting paid more like 25-33% packaged in a nice salary.

[SFSpartan]

Boutiques have even less of HR structure/support than biglaw, and also don't have alternative partners/management to approach if someone is treating you poorly.

Would call particular attention to this part of anon's (excellent) post, as it highlights what can be the most difficult part of working in a boutique (or in certain satellite offices of biglaw). One of the things I didn't really realize before I moved to my boutique is how important it is to click with the people assigning you work. If your personality doesn't mesh with those people, life can be miserable and, because the firm is small, you might be stuck having to work with them. At least in biglaw, you may be able to get away from the person that makes you miserable.

[Anonymous User]

For boutiques, you really need to be in the right boutique. The right boutique can be amazing, but the wrong one can be an awful experience. Be sure to check the attrition of attorneys at the boutique on a website like LinkedIn. It can provide some insight. Many boutiques have no-to-little attrition to other firms.

I agree with this, and it's an important caveat I should have mentioned in my previous "boutique all the way" comment. Thanks for clarifying.

Boutiques have even less of HR structure/support than biglaw, and also don't have alternative partners/management to approach if someone is treating you poorly. The lower billing rates are nice, especially if the budgets for projects are the same as larger firms. I think that the partners at the boutique had lower billing rates than first or second year associates at my biglaw firm. The boutique that I worked at had a wider range of budgets, but generally I worked on higher budget work at the boutique than biglaw. This isn't always the case.

Also agree with this. For our student readers: "Big budgets with lower billing rates" means you'll get more time to work on things before a partner yells at you for chewing up the budget. More time allows you to do better work and hone your skills further.

For biglaw, one major advantage is that you will be able to expand your network much larger than being at a boutique. A lot more people come-and-go from biglaw, there will likely be more summer associates, and you will meet more non-patent lawyers which is useful for building out your network. Also, I found that more people in biglaw are interested in going in-house than in boutiques, so you can expand your network to include attorneys that might become future clients. It's also nice to have access to a pro bono program and occasionally help out in other fields like patent lit.

Also agree with this, but I think the problem might be a tad overstated. You can still network at a boutique firm, particular if your firm has a good reputation, but you'll just have to hustle a little more. Plenty of our associates have developed healthy networks by being active in local bars/associations.

The general quality of work in biglaw is definitely worse. The people can be good, but they aren't operating at peak performance due to the high billing rates, but also constant turnover and mismanagement causing a lot of chaos.

Going in-house is feasible down the road from any firm. I know a lot of people who have recently gone in-house or are interviewing right now. They all get the same interviews no matter if they're at a boutique or biglaw. Going in-house relies on lots of things like personality, technical background, what you did before law school, internal politics of the in-house team, etc. in addition to what firm you worked at.

Many boutiques are also going towards a percentage-compensation plan. Working in biglaw, I was shocked at the amount of overhead that the prosecution group would never use, but would have to pay for with the higher billing rates. Because boutiques can have overhead targeted towards their exact needs, they can actually offer flexibility but also high compensation. It's not uncommon nowadays to get paid anywhere from 40-70% of your billings as your compensation. In biglaw, you're probably getting paid more like 25-33% packaged in a nice salary.

Also agree with all this.

Would call particular attention to this part of anon's (excellent) post, as it highlights what can be the most difficult part of working in a boutique (or in certain satellite offices of biglaw). One of the things I didn't really realize before I moved to my boutique is how important it is to click with the people assigning you work. If your personality doesn't mesh with those people, life can be miserable and, because the firm is small, you might be stuck having to work with them. At least in biglaw, you may be able to get away from the person that makes you miserable.

Also agree with this, but would note that "you can't get away from bad partners" is a problem at any small firm, and is not unique to IP firms.

[SFSpartan]

For boutiques, you really need to be in the right boutique. The right boutique can be amazing, but the wrong one can be an awful experience. Be sure to check the attrition of attorneys at the boutique on a website like LinkedIn. It can provide some insight. Many boutiques have no-to-little attrition to other firms.

I agree with this, and it's an important caveat I should have mentioned in my previous "boutique all the way" comment. Thanks for clarifying.

Boutiques have even less of HR structure/support than biglaw, and also don't have alternative partners/management to approach if someone is treating you poorly. The lower billing rates are nice, especially if the budgets for projects are the same as larger firms. I think that the partners at the boutique had lower billing rates than first or second year associates at my biglaw firm. The boutique that I worked at had a wider range of budgets, but generally I worked on higher budget work at the boutique than biglaw. This isn't always the case.

Also agree with this. For our student readers: "Big budgets with lower billing rates" means you'll get more time to work on things before a partner yells at you for chewing up the budget. More time allows you to do better work and hone your skills further.

For biglaw, one major advantage is that you will be able to expand your network much larger than being at a boutique. A lot more people come-and-go from biglaw, there will likely be more summer associates, and you will meet more non-patent lawyers which is useful for building out your network. Also, I found that more people in biglaw are interested in going in-house than in boutiques, so you can expand your network to include attorneys that might become future clients. It's also nice to have access to a pro bono program and occasionally help out in other fields like patent lit.

Also agree with this, but I think the problem might be a tad overstated. You can still network at a boutique firm, particular if your firm has a good reputation, but you'll just have to hustle a little more. Plenty of our associates have developed healthy networks by being active in local bars/associations.

The general quality of work in biglaw is definitely worse. The people can be good, but they aren't operating at peak performance due to the high billing rates, but also constant turnover and mismanagement causing a lot of chaos.

Going in-house is feasible down the road from any firm. I know a lot of people who have recently gone in-house or are interviewing right now. They all get the same interviews no matter if they're at a boutique or biglaw. Going in-house relies on lots of things like personality, technical background, what you did before law school, internal politics of the in-house team, etc. in addition to what firm you worked at.

Many boutiques are also going towards a percentage-compensation plan. Working in biglaw, I was shocked at the amount of overhead that the prosecution group would never use, but would have to pay for with the higher billing rates. Because boutiques can have overhead targeted towards their exact needs, they can actually offer flexibility but also high compensation. It's not uncommon nowadays to get paid anywhere from 40-70% of your billings as your compensation. In biglaw, you're probably getting paid more like 25-33% packaged in a nice salary.

Also agree with all this.

Would call particular attention to this part of anon's (excellent) post, as it highlights what can be the most difficult part of working in a boutique (or in certain satellite offices of biglaw). One of the things I didn't really realize before I moved to my boutique is how important it is to click with the people assigning you work. If your personality doesn't mesh with those people, life can be miserable and, because the firm is small, you might be stuck having to work with them. At least in biglaw, you may be able to get away from the person that makes you miserable.

Also agree with this, but would note that "you can't get away from bad partners" is a problem at any small firm, and is not unique to IP firms.

Didn't mean to suggest that this was a problem with IP firms - agree that this is really a problem with boutique firms in general...