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Subject Expert
Most firms talk a good game, but if it doesn't translate down to your practice group, the group leaders and partners, it's worthless.
Mentor
Everyone will of course jump in here and say K&E, but in addition to A1’s point I’ll just add that talking about a 4,000+ lawyer firm (full of laterals from all the other firms) as if it has a unified culture is ridiculous. Same with saying any other mega firm is good or bad (“Latham’s culture is amazing! Skadden are all losers!”) .
Gotta drill down to specific office and practice group, especially in larger firms.
That being said, I DO think you can judge what firm leadership does. S&C has been consistently anti-associate for many years and was the first top firm to push back to 5 days a week in office - those suck in the abstract but also imply a culture at the top anyway that doesn’t really seem to care about associate wellbeing.
I’m at Kirkland and have had generally positive experience. Free market assignment helps. A lot of folks in my group have boomeranged. They say grass is greener.
I’m sure the firm is fine for people who work there, but I would not want to work at Goodwin. It’s not singly the worst firm for anything, but it 1) did layoffs like tech firms even though it probably didn’t need to because it isn’t as reliant on tech/VC as Gunderson/Fenwick, 2) gave all DEI data that no other firm gave and publicly announced the end of its partnerships with DEI orgs, and 3) hired remote associates and told them later on that they needed to come in or give up their associate titles for staff attorney titles.
Enthusiast
I don’t know about the other stuff, but the worst mid level I ever worked under as a junior lateraled to Goodwin a while back and was recently promoted to counsel, so that’s enough to form my opinion of them.
(Don’t say “well maybe he improved after he lateraled.” We all know he did not)
Mentor
Definitely practice group-specific
My former firm is a “lifestyle firm” but the group i was in was beyond toxic
Name the firm?
Goodwin and McDermott
Subject Expert
Yeah, I had an awful experience at McDermott. Would not recommend.
Subject Expert
CWT
Been at a few firms including a v10 and a v30 and Cahill is far away a toxic shithole in comparison
If many different sources are saying the same thing independently, do you really need more?
All are bad except some boutiques. I mean the people who went to Law school were so weird. Youre basically working with the same type of people
Should probably reframe this as which practice groups are worse in terms of culture, personality, etc.
I’ve worked across from some attorneys at Fried Frank with the most awful attitudes and personalities one could imagine
K&E
Everything you’ve heard about Kirkland is true.
Over 2/3 of the people I started with there have left (mostly for other v20 or higher firms so it’s not like people flamed out)
Heard bad stuff about Paul Hastings, Katten, AOS and McDermott.
Coach
you can't judge by firm because practice groups vary so much within firms and each depends on your personality/goals. I focus on transactional (corporate, finance, funds, real estate) practices, so maybe it is different from litigation but i know happy and sad people in every group you can think of.