Does anyone know anything about Choate, Hall & Stewart? Sweatshop or slightly more reasonable?

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It was seen as a great firm when I was in law school (in Boston). I have a few friends who liked it much better than our old firm, and several friends that have stayed 5-6 years. However, they do a fair amount of PE work so it cant be all rainbows and unicorns.

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You work very, very long hours compared to the other Boston firms. Friends there worked 2200+ hours. They’ve had a retention bonus on top of annual bonus for a while. I think after 4 years there, you get like $20-50k retention bonuses annually.

Also, people just call it Choate.

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People seem to enjoy it there though.

Culture is very “old Boston” — conservative attitude and a lot of old white men in firm leadership. Lost a lot of people to Kirkland a few years ago and haven’t really bounced back in the middle market PE space since then (in my opinion).

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I don’t think they lost that many people. Christian Atwood was a big loss, though.

Feel free to message me.

By reputation it is a friendly and personable firm.

A law school classmate was doing corporate transactional work and billed 70 hour weeks for most of a year before jumping ship. He said everyone was nice but it was unsustainable.

I don't know if it is truly a sweatshop but clearly they have too much work on their hands.

Sweatshop. Have not worked there in a couple years, but I doubt that has changed.

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