my impression of howrey is that attorneys there have a certain personality - aggressive, unreasonable, and willing to really push the envelope when it comes to the positions they take and what it means to "comply" with rules. Is that true?

I love The CAVE!

Any information on SRZ?

i'm confused (not for the first time), but this looks like the 2007 list of 76-80. it looks like the prior lists were from 2008. thus the firm list is not accurate.

Patton Boggs, not Howery is actually no. 80 on the 2008 Vault list. Looks like the links on vault.com are messed up with the "61-80" link taking you to the 2007 list sometimes.

The 2008 76-80:

76. Bryan Cave LLP (5.095)
77. Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP (5.08)
78. Perkins Coie (5.058)
79. Stroock & Stroock & Lavan (5.022)
80. Patton Boggs (5.015)

Bryan Cave pays 110k in it's main St. Louis office.

Eww.

2:46, SRZ's biggest group is investment management, which deals mostly with starting up hedge funds. They also have a sizeable transactional group, which has done a couple of big deals for Cerberus in the last year (GMAC and Chrysler). They have a small but good structured finance group. Their T&E group is pretty big. I think the litigation department does a lot of white collar defense work. The firm has doubled in size over the last six or so years.

Stroock is underrated. It should be at least V50. It pays market, it's not known for screamers and type-A's, and is a good place to work overall. A lot of law students look down on it for some reason, but I guess "prestige" is in the eye of the beholder.

SRZ has an hour-based bonus structure that requires 2000 hours for market bonus and gives (I think) an additional 10K for 2300 and 2500 hours.

I killed at Stroock bowling.

I recently had an on campus interview with Stroock. They were really boring and asked some terrible questions. In fact, I'd say it was the most awkward interview I've ever had, and I was in sales and received callbacks from 8 of my 10 interviews (all of which were ranked higher than Stroock) so the awkwardness was at least 50% not my fault.

Even people I know who got callbacks described them as boring. Maybe that's why law students look down on them; their representatives during interviews are boring and awkward.

Also, Stroock got rid of StroockBowl, so fuck them.

anyone know about the hours at Stroock?

ps: the reps at my school were fun

SRZ is a strange place - and not in a good way. They are great for hedge funds, but frankly, the sheer oddity of their partners was enough turn me off to them. I had one partner who essentially announced she was drunk at my interview.

3:12 -- For the most part, Stroock does not send it's best to on campus interviews, unfortunately. I don't know why that is. For callbacks, you get more of a mix, just like any other place. Also, the folks in litigation are generally more interesting and outgoing than those in other departments. They really shoud only send the lit people to campus.....

3:18 -- hours depend on the department and obviously can vary; generally, you're expected to hit 2100. Not everyone does.

SRZ has a well-reputed, leading hedge fund practice, but from most accounts the turnover in their HF (i.e., Investment Management) group is high (even when compared to BigLaw generally).

The turnover is likely due to at least two things (i) solid opportunities for going in-house to PE and HF shops, and (ii) sweatshop-like conditions.

Patton Boggs - tell me about them.

My cat likes the penguin I got from Stroock for getting a 300 on bowling.

Turnover in SRZ's hedge fund practice is due solely to the fact that even 3-5th year associates in that group receive constants offers to go in-house at the funds for which they work.

i've worked at 3 biglaw shops - first stroock, then a top-10 shop, and now a top-20 shop. i wish i never left stroock. it's a great place. especially compared with other new york firms.

Check out SRZ's PPP. It's higher than most of the top 20 firms. Plus, no non-equity bs with their partnership.

Check out SRZ's PPP. It's higher than most of the top 20 firms. Plus, no non-equity bs with their partnership.

The SRZ partner told you she was drunk? I call BS.

Looks like Lat has fixed the list now.

I had a cb with Stroock last year and I interviewed with a person who had the lazy eye and passed another attorney in the hall who stank of BO. I also interviewed with another disgruntled associate who didn't seem to care for the firm too much. The partners seemed depressed, probably because the firm has imploded within the past 6 years.

I haven't worked at SRZ.. but I've seen two of their partners (bankruptcy) in action... wasn't too impressed.

bryan cave's ny office is worthless

That's strange. The bankruptcy dept head at SRZ is Mike Cook. He's pretty much as good as they get.

really? I saw a SRZ bankruptcy partner school the other side in a contested hearing.

You can learn more about these firms here:

http://www.internetisseriousbusiness.com/

3:07 -- you are right about the bonus structure. If you fall under 2000 hours you get a $10K bonus as a consolation prize and the market rate kicks in at 2000 hours (which in most departments is impossible not to reach). At both 2300 and 2500 hours you get an additional $10K.

3:55 -- you bastard.

3:58:

You've been Rick Rolled.

What about Perkins? When are they going to raise in Seattle to meet Heller? It's bad business to raise all California offices to 160K and to have the flagship office in Seattle below market. If Perkins was a stock I would short it until they got with the program . . .

Never Again!

I've heard some Patton Boggs attorneys have made racist comments during interviews, such as asking an Asian American student, in the middle of the interview, "How is your English?" (English was the person's first language).

Bryan Cave has such a short man complex. They like to make like they're a big deal, because they make top 100, but come on, they're headquartered in St. Louis.

3:31 - Patton seems like it has better hours than some DC firms - I think its because of the lobbyist influence and the fact that a ton of their work is done out of office. Cant go wrong with it for government relations/investigations/etc.

Not really strong in business or IP (at least in DC).

I can only speak for myself, as others' experience in different groups may vary, but Stroock is a great place to be. There is plenty of interesting work, but no unreasonable expectations or demands. The pay is market, but the hours are pretty normal. I'm very happy I chose Stroock.

How is Stroock IP?

Out of this group, who hasnt gone to 160k yet? (besides Bryan Cave)

Stop commenting!! There is a fatal conflict between 2 of these firms. If you don't stop commenting, I will report you to the authorities.

2000 hour requirement includes unlimited pro bono hours and there are ample opportunities to do pro bono (ask for a project and you can find one easily). If you don't make 2000 hours (bonus) it's because you sat on your butt as opposed to doing pro bono.

3:55 - the 4:56 response is re: SRZ

Bryan Cave is at $160k in NY.

PB is going to announce its new salary structure in September. My guess would be 160 in DC/NJ/NY. Not sure what they will do in Dallas, but its a good sized office, so I'd venture 160 but who knows what the upper level associates will get.

4:05 - Some attorneys or one attorney? Not sure it's fair to screw the whole firm with a comment like that based on one a-hole interviewer.

PB most definitely has not raised to 160. Not only that, but their 145 scale is compressed. So anyone above 2nd year is super-under market. Interesting that they were one of the first to raise to 145 in DC, but haven't moved since.

An overall good place to work if you get in with the right partners. Their white collar/govt. investigations group has some great people as noted above.

Morale has been in the crapper lately. I left recently, but heard things haven't changed over the summer.

3:44 --

Not sure what you mean by "imploded within the past 6 years." Stroock is still here, thank you very much, is doing quite well and is very profitable.

As for the BO comment, you must have really taken the time to sniff that attorney as he walked by, which is sort of weird in and of itself.....

Strook cancelled their entire schedule for OCI at my school 2x, once during early interivew week, and again during segment 2. Seems like a bad firm who cannot coordinate getting recruiters to OCI, financial instability?

Does anybody have any info on Perkins Coie? Especially the Seattle Office. Any info would be appreciated.

5:13:

no no no. he walked by ... maybe 3 feet away from me, and the BO permeated the entire hallway. it was really atrocious stuff a la seinfeld variety.

and strook did implode and is trying to recover. the penguin add campaign is a spectacularly failed example of that.

Stroock apparently gives pro bono credit for doing PR work on ATL. And from the looks of it, every associate appears to be getting a bonus.

in my stroock interview i told the attorney that i liked penguins...sexually. AND i got an offer.

I worked at one of Bryan Cave's CA offices (which are still at 145 by the way) and they suck. The nickname "Bryan Slave" is completely accurate. The firm is trying to be a top tier law firm w/o doing what it takes to get there (like paying market rates). They force you into practice groups that suck and hinder your career advancement.

What's the deal with Perkins Coie in DC?
I'm at a t14 and they've been on campus every year for the last few years, but this year it's just West Coast offices....Did they get rid of their DC Summer Program?

Stroock is pretty top notch in the structured finance (abs & cdo) area. I've worked with them a good bit and have to say they're outstanding lawyers. From what I've heard from friends who work there, the hours are pretty sane from a NY perspective.

Stroock is strong financially.

When people say the 2000 hour bonus is "market" - what's the actual amount they mean? Could someone please explain the hours-based bonus structure?

What is Perkins paying in its Phoenix office?

for whatever it's worth, i interviewed with bryan cave (along with squire, lewis and roca, snell, and fennemore craig) in phx and i was prepared to accept with them. i ended up choosing another firm in a different geographic market, but i really liked the people and thought the firm did great work for the area. i suggest anyone looking in the phx area to give a strong look to bryan cave.

Perkins Seattle has a meatgrinder reputation, but the people I know who summered there liked it. (Of course, that's summers.) Top of the heap in SEA, very strong on IP especially, but the pressure is on now that non-Pac NW firms are moving into town and bringing higher salaries with them (see, e.g., the K&L Gates merger, Heller). It'll be awhile yet before Seattle market rate reaches 160, though. For QOL, most people will tell you go to Davis rather than Perkins, but Perkins has greater prestige.

I'm not sure that Perkins has a "meatgrinder reputation". It is a pretty nice place to work as far as BigLaw firms go. In addition, it is also a Fortune Magazine Top 100 Company to work for, and it has won that distinction for 5 straight years without feeling the need to write and record a song about the achievement. The firm is filled with great lawyers, and it also has more than its share of genuinely good people (more than its share by BigLaw standards, of course). If you are not planning on going to a V25 firm in New York, then there are not many better places than PC when it comes to choosing between the other V100 firms. Perkins pays well, associates are respected and treated professionally, and I've personally made more than a few friendships with my peers and the partners with whom I work. The lawyers that I have met at PC also seem to have a universally good sense of humor - which can be critical when things get stressful. Of course, these are just my personal impresssions, but I've always wondered why Perkins doesn't get more press among BigLaw firms touting it as a pretty good destination to land after law school. I'm not sure that you could find many people that would really have something negative to say about PC. There are minor annoyances, yes, but most of what I have observed here is pretty positive, and management works to limit negatives that are brought to its attention.

Perkins Coie (Seattle) is a great shop - interesting clients (Amazon, Boeing, Adobe, Yahoo), smart folks and a generally decent atmosphere. The Boeing litigators, in particular, are smart, decent folks with interesting cases around the world. I think they have recovered from the dot.com silliness of 2000 (gee, let's put a foozball table in our office - our [idiot] dot.com clients will pick us to do their legal work!]. Preston Gates has the Seattle name now, but Perkins Coie is simply top flight.

Perkins has horrendous morale and retention problems among mid-level associates--worse than typical for Biglaw. And check out their AmLaw associate satisfaction score; it's pretty awful for a putative "quality-of-life" firm.

Been a while, but I worked at the Cave too. Very nice people. Generally less high-pressured than true Big Law. If you want to be in St. Louis, it is a great choice. Satellite offices offer some good experiences in some practice groups and they have some excellent partners that provide good mentorship. But the work load is lumpy so you can't always count on getting enough work in the area you want and have to supplement with work you don't want. The work flow issue is made worse by billing rate differentials across regions. St Louis was not great about funneling work to associates in DC or NYC because the clients want to pay the St. Louis rates, not the higher DC/NY rates. So you really have to rely on work from partners in the satellite offices and there were not a ton of them with books big enough to support more than even one associate. I also would describe the satellite offices as a bunch of sole practitioners. They did not seem well integrated and I did not see much successful cross-selling between groups. Finally, they have had some issues with how women are treated. Think that has been fixed, but it was a bit old boy, especially in the mid-west, so who really knows. In the end, it is not a bad place to start a career for a year or two but the lack of consistent good work means that you may not be learning all you could compared to associates at other firms and the prospects of making partner are not so great. If you go to any office other than STL, it should probably be with the idea that you might have to jump to a better gig if you are not lukcy enough to get paired up with one of the few partners that can actually make something happen with your career.

Schulte's bankruptcy group is actually pretty good. It's not a big group, and it's not the best in the city or anything, but Mike Cook and Adam Harris are certainly distinguished attorneys in the field.

Bryan Cave is a collegial firm and a nice place to practice. But it definitely has its problems, the biggest being delusional visions of grandeur. Most partners don't agree or don't care about the strategic vision. But it is anathema within the culture to rock the boat. The New York office is an unmitigated disaster, the Chicago office is small and sleepy and the California offices plod along doing their own thing. Little connection between St. Louis/Kansas City with the rest of the firm.

I work at Patton Boggs DC -- used to work at a much bigger law firm (*cough* Sidley *cough*); like it here much, much better.

I think even with the upward adjustment in salary, we will end up below market in the 3-6 year band; but the life style here is very good.

Unlike many law firms with a 2000 hour requirement -- this is a place where you can have a successful career by billing only 2000 hours a year.

Also, I have actually seen real lawyers doing the part time thing successfully here (all working Moms); so if that is something you think is important, I know you can succeed here.

Does Perkins Coie still have its little VC centered office in Pioneer Square, Seattle? Or did that go the way of the in-house foosball table?

This open thread seems to have overwritten the #1-#5 open thread. Is that one gone now? Sweet.

My husband works at Schulte, and while the hours are tough (as they are everywhere in the city), the partners he works with are genuinely nice people. He previously worked with a bunch of jerks with zero social skills (which I honestly thought described all lawyers), but the environment at Schulte is completely different. Associates are good (and fun with a few drinks in them!), and the partners treat them like humans. Can't beat that!

Schulte's clerkship bonus is 15,000. any word on any other firm's clerkship bonus on this thread?

what dept does your husband work in 8:50?

Bryan Cave is an interesting firm. The nicest bunch of people you could ever hope to be associated with. The firm is a powerhouse in Missouri, but unfortunately irrelevant in every one of its other markets. The New York office doesn't generate a lot of work. NY associates work many less hours than their counterparts in Missouri, but are paid a lot more. The Chicago, London, California and DC offices are pretty quiet and non-significant in the grand scheme of things. Phoenix has suffered a handful of critical partner defections. But if you want to live in Missouri, Bryan Cave is tough to beat. It's "the firm" in St. Louis. It's a big deal to be a BC lawyer in SL.

6:18 -- you are an idiot. how discontinuing handing out penguins to prospective summer associates equates with the entire firm "imploding" (when the financial evidence shows just the opposite) is a mystery.

And the B.O. was probably your own. After all, you were the one being interviewed (and from your posts, hopefully rejected).

10:34

First, I did not make up the BO incident. It was clearly from an overweight male attorney who walked past myself and the interviewer (she was walking me to the next interviewer's office). It stank up the hallway. I like your childish rebuttal, though (along the lines of, "No I'm not, you are"). It was just really bizarre, and that's why I remember it so well.

Second, the firm did implode. It used to be more highly regarded in the legal profession, and now has trouble recruiting top law students and competing with other large New York law firms. It has had to close down a number of offices recently and otherwise shrink the size of its remaining offices (and by shrink that includes people leaving). That much is clear.

As for more circumstantial evidence, no one I know thinks of the firm very highly (except maybe its real estate practice I think). When I interviewed at other law firms, I happened to run into former Stroock associates, and they brought up, on their own and without knowing that I had interviewed with Stroock, that the firm had--and I quote--"imploded." Sure, they were disgruntled, but it seemed more from a sadness that the firm was tanking rather than disliking the firm or its people. Further, the partners I spoke with seemed sad about the current state of the firm. They complained about not being able to attract top students anymore. An associate I spoke with was unhappy because the practice he had originally joined had to close down.

Everyone I met there seemed like genuinely nice people. They said they liked working there, were treated well, and had relatively more early responsibility than at other firms. But there was a glumness hanging around the firm, and I believe that is because it is having quite a bit of trouble currently.

Also, I didn't link stopping handing out penguins and the firm imploding. My own thoughts are more: the firm ran into serious trouble (imploded); it attempted to remedy that by, among other things, stepping up their ad campaign which included penguins; which in turn made law students think less of it; which further increased its downward spiral. Your level of analysis and lack of reasoned response (indeed, an irrational, emotional and childish response) just goes to show that you, sir, are the moron and are probably of the type that Stroock must try to recruit nowadays. It is a real tragedy.

Where did #1-#5 go?

My sense is that the culture of Perkins Seattle differs substantially from their other offices. As in, Seattle might be a standard staid BigLaw firm, but their other offices are lean, spunky, and staffed with high caliber fascinating people. Not being a firm person myself, I would seriously consider working for a Perkins "branch" office, if only there weren't such a gap with the national BigLaw pay scale...

Perkins Coie is a wonderful firm. The Firm may not be at the top of the profitability or pay charts, but it is a firm with a soul, an assortment of very solid practices and offices, and a positive collegial culture.

trying to figure out schulte, since i got an offer there. i had a mixed vibe at callback. what's the prestige factor in their investment managment or structured products?

as am I (see post 8:30). what did you think of them?

investment management and structured products are two groups schulte is best known for. investment management is the flagship, basically the all around leader when it comes to hedge funds. likewise, the structured products group is held in high regard. Paul Watterson, the head of the group, is considered to be one of the best attorneys in the city in this area.