WSGR vs Cooley (both PA) for ECVC Work Forum

[Anonymous User]

I have offers from both firms as a junior lateral. My goal is to do EC/VC work and some M&A work in tandem. I'd greatly appreciate folks' thoughts. Thanks!

[Anonymous User]

I'm a midlevel at one of the top SV firms known for EC/VC work and have plenty of friends at all the local shops, including these. Cooley wins by a mile given your goals. WSGR doesn't do much early stage EC/VC work any more and is much more focused on later-stage representation. I will say that WSGR is probably top dog in the Bay Area for big ticket tech M&A (esp. public deals), but sounds like you want an EC/VC practice with some M&A on the side. WSGR is also known for having a shitty culture around here and recently lost a ton of talent to Cooley.

Cooley will have lots of startup work (both company side and investor side) and also does plenty of M&A, so should give you ample opportunities to get the mix you're looking for. I'm across from Cooley on VC financings all the time but only very rarely encounter WSGR, except on M&A. Cooley is also known for having a great culture. FWIW, I know plenty of people who have lateralled from WSGR to the other SV firms, but have never heard of someone making the opposite move.

[Anonymous User]

I'm a midlevel at one of the top SV firms known for EC/VC work and have plenty of friends at all the local shops, including these. Cooley wins by a mile given your goals. WSGR doesn't do much early stage EC/VC work any more and is much more focused on later-stage representation. I will say that WSGR is probably top dog in the Bay Area for big ticket tech M&A (esp. public deals), but sounds like you want an EC/VC practice with some M&A on the side. WSGR is also known for having a shitty culture around here and recently lost a ton of talent to Cooley.

Cooley will have lots of startup work (both company side and investor side) and also does plenty of M&A, so should give you ample opportunities to get the mix you're looking for. I'm across from Cooley on VC financings all the time but only very rarely encounter WSGR, except on M&A. Cooley is also known for having a great culture. FWIW, I know plenty of people who have lateralled from WSGR to the other SV firms, but have never heard of someone making the opposite move.

Junior at WSGR, with classmates and friends at each of Cooley / Fenwick / Gunderson.

Just want to caution OP that some of this analysis above is just wrong. I won't respond to all of it, but a few points that stood out:

"WSGR doesn't do much early stage EC/VC work any more"
- Just laughably wrong. You can have as much early-stage EC/VC work (both company side and investor side) as you want here. At any level, it is by far the easiest work to get staffed on.

"WSGR is known for having a shitty culture around here and recently lost a ton of talent to Cooley"
- We don't have a shitty culture and Cooley's isn't uniformly "great"... I've heard the "shitty culture" line about every firm in the valley at this point, depending on how overworked my friends are. Obviously varies much more by group than by firm. Feels like a weird neg to throw around about biglaw firms. And the Cooley stuff was like 18 months ago at this point and was overblown even then. (If you actually knew associates who left, common threads were simply wanting to work in SF rather than SV or just following a work-assigning partner who left.) I promise you, we've all moved on with our lives. Still friends. We're across from each other on all the same deals all the time. I only ever hear people from firms other than WSGR/Cooley even bring this up anymore, like they're letting you in on some hot gossip. It's not.

"FWIW, I know plenty of people who have lateralled from WSGR to the other SV firms, but have never heard of someone making the opposite move"
- We get laterals from the other SV firms all the time, especially over the last 12 months as the market has been hot.

OP, highly recommend doing second looks and talking to the actual folks you'll be working with. And then just go with the firm/people you like more. I had to make this same decision back during campus recruiting, and I went WSGR, but Cooley is an awesome firm. It's a coin flip. You'll get great training at both and there are no doors closed to you at either in terms of the work you're seeking or exit opportunities. If you come back to check out WSGR, let me know and I'll PM you to try to set up lunch.

[Anonymous User]

Everyone at my school given these choices chooses Cooley.

[Anonymous User]

I'm a midlevel at one of the top SV firms known for EC/VC work and have plenty of friends at all the local shops, including these. Cooley wins by a mile given your goals. WSGR doesn't do much early stage EC/VC work any more and is much more focused on later-stage representation. I will say that WSGR is probably top dog in the Bay Area for big ticket tech M&A (esp. public deals), but sounds like you want an EC/VC practice with some M&A on the side. WSGR is also known for having a shitty culture around here and recently lost a ton of talent to Cooley.

Cooley will have lots of startup work (both company side and investor side) and also does plenty of M&A, so should give you ample opportunities to get the mix you're looking for. I'm across from Cooley on VC financings all the time but only very rarely encounter WSGR, except on M&A. Cooley is also known for having a great culture. FWIW, I know plenty of people who have lateralled from WSGR to the other SV firms, but have never heard of someone making the opposite move.

Part of this is so wrong. I am at WSGR. I wish it were true. They won't let me NOT do EC/VC work. Lots of us that like mature company work bitch about all the EC/VC work they make us do. The thinking here is you can do mature companies if you want but more or less everyone has to do some EC/VC work. If you want to do nothing but EC/VC you can easily do nothing but.

I'm guessing this perspective is due to a limited data set or just plain luck. Not trying to flame this poster. It may just be two ships in the night.

Not commenting on the rest because I'm not really here to defend WSGR. Lots of people left for Cooley as part of one big move. Since then many have followed, especially associates, because they have a great SF office. They pretty much all go to the SF office. I think that's a big factor but maybe not the only factor.

[Anonymous User]

Cooley, because generally the general perception is that they're booming, while WSGR is kind of treading water at best

[dabigchina]

Did Cooley ever make people whole for not paying summer bonus?

[Anonymous User]

Above the law seemed to say they would factor into year end bonuses. We'll see if that's true.

[Anonymous User]

OP here, all of this is super helpful, much appreciate it. Any thoughts on quality of training or lifestyle?

[Anonymous User]

Cooley, because generally the general perception is that they're booming, while WSGR is kind of treading water at best

I'm one of the WSGR associates above. I am not here to defend WSGR's culture because I don't know how it compares to others. But this is clowning. This person has no idea what they are talking about. In terms of business, it's good times at WSGR.

[Anonymous User]

Cooley, because generally the general perception is that they're booming, while WSGR is kind of treading water at best

I'm one of the WSGR associates above. I am not here to defend WSGR's culture because I don't know how it compares to others. But this is clowning. This person has no idea what they are talking about. In terms of business, it's good times at WSGR.

OP here - that's great to hear. Unless it's a niche group, would you mind sharing what group you're in? Also, if you're in one of the CA offices, can you tell me the median or average number billed by associates last year?

[Anonymous User]

Cooley, because generally the general perception is that they're booming, while WSGR is kind of treading water at best

I'm one of the WSGR associates above. I am not here to defend WSGR's culture because I don't know how it compares to others. But this is clowning. This person has no idea what they are talking about. In terms of business, it's good times at WSGR.

OP here - that's great to hear. Unless it's a niche group, would you mind sharing what group you're in? Also, if you're in one of the CA offices, can you tell me the median or average number billed by associates last year?

I'm in the general corporate group in PA. We have numbers on this and they show average and median coming in right around hours cut-off of 1,950, which I think is pretty typical every year. That being said I'm not sure those numbers are the most representative as they can be skewed by laterals coming in mid-year and people who are basically checked out but that only skews down. In most years I'd say the vast majority of people come in just a tad above hours cut-off or 200-300 over if they're hard workers. It's a busy year so I think most people are billing 100-200 more than they normally would this year.