Cue 'bet the company litigation or cross-border transactional work T5-->V10' trolls in 3...2...1...

I pick litigation.

Is it better to do bet the company sophisticated litigation or sophisticated cross-border deal making at a V5 firm?

10:21(1) = First to Post, Last In Life

Transactional work offers better exit opportunities.

Help transactional junior associate here - I did the math and I definitely will not make my billable hours...do the old rules apply given the state of the economy i.e. will i get canned next year (or sooner)!!

Transactional = Plotting and scheming

Litigation = Bitching about it after the fact

How highly ranked is your firm? V10 firms are too prestige-oriented to do mass layoffs. But below that cutoff, I'd be worried.

How slow do things seem around the office? Are your colleagues slow?

An advantage of litigation: it is less exposed to economic ups and downs than transactional.

What, no comments? Just goes to show that everyone on this blog is a 1 or 2L!

Transactional = filling in blanks on forms

Litigation = cleaning up after transactional attorneys who fill in the blanks wrong or with words like "best efforts" and "reasonable"

No comments = Has everyone started their holiday early?

10:33,

I'd be inclined to agree. There is certainly more of a demand for transactional skills in-house as the litigation almost always gets farmed out. You can also try to move to the business side if you have the background.

At the start of my career, I was fortunate enough to practice in both areas simultaneously for a couple of years. I'd agree with the author that litigation requires a certain personality type, which I do not possess. So I moved away from litigation into a purely transactional position. I like counseling, negotiating and drafting much better (although these are skills shared by good litigators too). I don't care for doing due diligence (who does). But, litigators do plenty of doc review too.

As a whole, I found transactional clients easier to work with than litigation clients. Sure, there are jerks on both sides of the fence, but a lot of clients who go through a full fledged commercial litigation case from start to finish wind up being at least a little bitter about both the result (even if they "won") and the attorneys' fees.

Stop lying to yourself and get a life.

@10:47

Don't you have some insurance defense work you should be doing?

1. Back in on-campus interviews (lots of years ago), it seemed that everyone wanted to be a litigator and all the firms wanted litigators --- which didn't and still doesn’t make much sense since you hear that 80% of lawyers are not litigators. I was the lone voice saying, "Well, I'll do litigation and would like to learn it, but believe I'd prefer transactional work." Then they looked at me like I had three eyes.

2. Skipping ahead, I did sophisticated, highly technical transactional work for six years at a law firm before going in-house under the belief I would be doing the same stuff. Somehow, through a shake-up in the legal department, I now get "whatever walks in the door" -- and half of my docket is litigation. I don't like it. I don't like the gamesmanship and trying to explain to the business folks why we have to go through all of these legal procedures and hurdles to get a deal done. They are all like, "Why can't we just CALL the other side and explain……" and I have to tell them we're beyond that and can't. It's frustrating for them and me.

3. Further, like the main article said, I am just not the personality to want to win-at-all-costs-score-lawyer-points type and the nastiness that goes with that stresses me out. Transactional work obviously involves strategy and winning and scoring points, but it's more civil. To me, it's the difference between mortal combat and a board game --- in both cases, someone wins and someone loses, but it's not the same.

I co-sign with 10:47, yep.

10:53-- you are a douche bag.

The bottom line for law students: If you like legal research and writing (Westlaw and memos), do litigation. If you can't stand wasting your time shepardizing cases, do corporate.

The pride of a good contract is that it never has to be litigated....that when something weird and unexpected happens during the deal, you look back to the contract and say, "Hey, I drafted in here something that spells out our rights if this happens!" Weird sort of pride, I guess, but still.

these posts are very helpful and practical. keep them coming!

If you are a "people person" who likes being liked, do corporate. You will spend your early years doing lots of administrative-type crap, chasing down documents and the like, but you will get more (and more positive) interaction with other people. You are trying to get a deal done.

If you always want to be right and have the last word, and don't mind having other people think of you as a d-bag, do litigation.

I think that litigation associates can bill for a larger fraction of the hours they are at the office. (I do patent lit)

Corporate associates I know are more likely to putter around all morning and maybe bill nothing, then get a big assignment in the afternoon that keeps them at work late.

If I am at work from 9 to 9 with a 1 hour non-working lunch, I typically bill 9.5 to 10 hours.

Transactional, definitely. I've had a taste of litigation and just don't have the stomach for it - and I don't mind saying that.

I generally agree with Lipshaw's description and with the other posters. I have always told people that the litigation vs corporate choice comes down to your personality. And I chose corporate over litigation for the same reasons others have mentioned. I don't like the adversarial nature of litigation, or interminable cases that move at a snail's pace. In contrast, I worked on several deals during my first year as an associate -- getting lots of variety right up front. Also, I enjoy drafting contracts and other corporate documents. It's a different kind of writing. When it comes to corporate deals, the parties of course have their own interests at heart and the back and forth can become adversarial. But the nastiness factor is dialed way down as compared to litigation. Plus, both parties want to get the deal done in the end. And at the signing or close of the deal, there's a dinner and everyone has a great time reminiscing over the dealmaking. People tend to forget the tough conversatio

Litigation vs. transactional?

How about: neither. Or both.

I work in a particular substantive area of law where most of my practice is counseling. Sometimes I have to get into litigation, and sometimes I have to get into dealmaking. But most of what I do is giving clients advice to (1) help them avoid litigation or (2) negotiate a better deal.

There is good variety, and it is fun work.

Second @10:58(1).

And that is why I do corporate.

Litigation is just a leech on business, the economy, and basic humanity.

I am a great trial lawyer and generally regarded as a bombastic douchebag but thats A-Ok- Come to my barbeque at the lakehouse.

I generally agree with Lipshaw's description and with the other posters. I have always told people that the litigation vs corporate choice comes down to your personality. And I chose corporate over litigation for the same reasons others have mentioned. I don't like the adversarial nature of litigation, or interminable cases that move at a snail's pace. In contrast, I worked on several deals during my first year as an associate -- getting lots of variety right up front. Also, I enjoy drafting contracts and other corporate documents. It's a different kind of writing. When it comes to corporate deals, the parties of course have their own interests at heart and the back and forth can become adversarial. But the nastiness factor is dialed way down as compared to litigation. Plus, both parties want to get the deal done in the end. And at the signing or close of the deal, there's a dinner and everyone has a great time reminiscing over the dealmaking. In other words, every deal entails a victory. Not so for litigation. By the end of a deal, people tend to forget any unpleasantness that occurred.

I'll also note that no one likes due diligence in a corporate transaction. But I think it's better than doc review. Doc review (discovery) can go on for months and years. In corporate deals, due diligence period is a finite phase of the process. I never saw it last more than 4 weeks. In fact, it's usually over much faster because of the deal timeline. The hours suck for 2 weeks, then it subsides. Along the same lines, I get the sense that the hours in corporate have more peaks and valleys -- and the down time is closer together because deal times are relatively short. In litigation, my impression is that the number of hours don't peak as high or dip as low as frequently as in litigation. I'd be interested in hearing from litigators on that point.

Also, I should point out that corporate deals involve legal research and even memos (ie to partners and letters to clients). But it's probably not as research-intensive as litigation.

But again, this is all about your personality and which environment you thrive in. Litigators might see the above observations about corporate as drawbacks and be able to point out the upside of the things that I don't like about litigation.

If you enjoy writing - REAL writing, of the argumentative / narrative kind - then don't go into corporate.

Drafting sale/leaseback agreements or disclosures for SEC filings - where you take some precedent and customize / update it to your matter, but always paranoid that you missed something - is not what I would call "writing."

Transactional doesn't always mean corporate. Having observed the lives of other transactional associates, it seems like corporate associates have the least control over their schedules, with partners passing on work at the last minute. Associates in real estate, tax, and finance practices seem to have better schedules. Could be just my firm.

Anyone who heads for a transactional career thinking that transaction work is anything less than 95% as adversarial as litigation is in for a rude awakening. "Winning the point" as well as winning most of the points is the mantra of most deal jocks. Even when you concede you back down only by an inch; even when you tell someone you're willing to agree to a point you couch it carefully so that when you comment on the next turn of the draft you are really only putting in words that are a shade different than what you originally proposed. It's a war of attrition where those that run out of energy and focus after many consecutive all-nighters will "lose" and be vanquished.

There is nothing worse than litigation, but the second worst thing is negotiating against a team of deal hounds.

If you're trying to decide between the two areas, ask practicing attorneys in each area to tell your what they are working on currently. What did you do today? What did you do yesterday? What did you do last week? Is that different from what you were doing a month ago?

Then listen closely to the tasks they are working on, and think about the skills involved in each. Can you see yourself doing those things every day?

All of this talk is depressing me. Neither litigation nor transactional work sounds like much fun.

I think I want to become a law librarian now.

Are you outgoing, good at expressing yourself both orally and in writing, don't get hives by the mere mention of a "court," eager to tackle a wide variety of legal issues, and yes, able to occasionally get into a confrontation with opposing counsel without curling up in the fetal position and crying out for your mommy?

If the above is true, then you should go into litigation.

If you aspire to be a trained chimpanzee, then do transactional.

I can't imagine how boring it would be to do transactional work. Granted, a lot of litigators don't see much work outside of doc review and writing memos, but taking depositions, preparing for hearings, and then the thrill of trial makes litigation exciting. The real point behind litigation, for me, is that the prospect of going to court and convincing a judge or jury that you're argument is right.

I think the comments re: the toughness/intensity of litigation are overstated. I think many litigators would say that lit is actually not intense enough. Most litigators went to law school with dreams of being a fighter for a living, and are disappointed to find that biglaw litigation involves too much Lexis, too much boring editing and way too much paper-pushing.

I also think the litigators here who are saying things like "only do lit if you're OK with people thinking you're a d-bag" are just being overdramatic to compensate for their boring work.

As you might guess, I do transactional now. It's boring too, but it gives me an opportunity to move over to the business side.

Bottom line for current students and young associates:

1. If you're looking to exit the law, do transactional
2. If you're looking to be a lawyer forever, litigation will probably be more interesting
3. Don't ever, EVER get discouraged by stories of how tough & hardcore litigation is. Its nothing like that, you'll be fine (and yes, I've worked on big, bad "bet the company" matters plenty of times)

11:14, what area do you work in?

I would prefer to not draft memos or K's all day long. I would like to negotiate, argue, and counsel. What areas of law should I be looking at?

Agree, 11:14. It's a sweet third option, and the hours are steadier, too. Plus, I'm about to become a third year and I have done doc review a grand total of once, and due diligence never.

If you do litigation for a few years, how hard is it to switch to transaction? How about more than a few years? How about vice-versa?

the passage quoted in blue can be a bit misleading. Trial work and litigation work are not always the same thing, especially in commerical settings. You can go into litigation and never do a trial, just working on motion practice (where you're not humiliating witnesses and discrediting everything that moves) and strategic posturing for most of your cases until they settle.

Bottom line is live frugally and save as much money as you can so you are not stuck in the law forever.

Also, abovethelaw.com falls into the trap of discussing career options that aren't available to most law school graduates. Most law school graduates will not have the chance to do transactional work or especially corporate transaction work which is only really done by elite big firms. Most lawyers end up doing litigation coming out of law school, they are not drafting mergers and acquisition agreements.

Transactional work is also subject to the business cycle and slows down dramatically every 5 years as the economy goes into recession. These slowdowns can wreck legal careers as transactional lawyers struggle to find work or retool as many of those in the M&A, and securitization fields are doing right now.

10:52 here, I'll add that transactional clients, especially on bigger deals, are far less likely to bitch about fees. You law students may not care about this now, but it is no fun listening to clients drone on and on about how much they hate paying your bills. Transactional clients will let you know if the meter is running too long during the course of the transaction. But at the end of the day, most people are just glad to get the deal done. I think this is because clients see immediate results with deal work. And, for the most part, they understand what the lawyers are doing. Most laypeople do not understand litigation. Even after you educate them about it, most of the information gets forgotten or ignored. Hell, even some trained in-house lawyers don't fully understand the nuances of litigation.

I will say this for litigation, there is nothing in the transactional world that compares to completely vanquishing a foe on a motion to dismiss or motion for summary judgment. That is pure intellectual warfare at its finest.

10:57 is a tool.

11:14 here, the poster who does a lot of counseling / advisory work. The substantive area I practice in is ERISA.

(Mocking comments about ERISA work in 3, 2, 1....)

I knew in law school that I'd prefer being a litigator to being a transactional attorney for the simple fact that deals, mergers, etc. bored me to tears. I skipped those articles in the WSJ, so why would I do it for a living? I suspected my lack of interest wouldn't serve me well in-house, either. I'm at a small firm now doing litigation, so my exit strategies from BIGLAW were fine because I had no interest in doing anything but litigation. Sure, it's limiting, but I was comfortable with that limitation. Litigation suits me - and I'm not aggro or hell-bent on winning at all costs. I like dealing with other people's disputes and figuring out a solution for them.

I can see the appeal of transactional work for somebody interested in business, though.

Transactional=blackjack
Litigation=poker

I disagree with the idea that litigators hate each other. In many situations, especially if you're in a somewhat specialized area of litigation, you deal with the same lawyers in multiple cases. Although both are trying to win, litigation actually requires some sort of cooperation between the parties at time to resolve discovery disputes, etc.

how about business litigation? is that somewhat of a hybrid or not at all?

also i like litigation i have no problem with public speaking, arguing, etc but my writing skills need to improve. granted they may never be great (and definately will not reach my oral advocacy strength) but do they improve with experience, time

12:20, spellcheck would be a good first step.

12:20: litigators live and die by their writing ability. The vast majority of litigation before the court will be through written motion/briefing practice. If you're not able to do that well, you won't get to keep your best arguments, claims, or defenses for trial. Also, as a former clerk, I can tell you that often the court won't even grant any sort of argument if the written submissions are bad because they just expect the hearing will be just as bad.

A common thread (no pun intended) among this and many other posts here is the overwhelming desire of most practicing attorneys to get the hell out of practice. First, that should be pretty telling to law students/people considering law school. Second, I am curious as to whether people would agree that among the "professions" (law, medicine, architecture, teaching, etc.) that us lawyers are by far the most eager to get out of the "profession we chose."

As for myself, when I was in private practice (litigation) after law school, I hated almost every minute of it. Now I have a great government gig, and while I do still think about making a change down the road, I don't loathe getting up and going to the office anymore.

@ 12:23 - so 12:20 spelled "definitely" incorrectly and that's what you are harping on? Correct spelling, especially on a blog, is not a good indicator of writing skill, good or bad.

12:20 here again, thanks 12:39 and obviously for a brief etc spellcheck will be used.

i understand what 12:29 said. i clerked for a judge and interned in us attorneys office (i am 3L now) and appreciate the importance of writing well. my question is does writing get better with experience and by observing better writers etc

Off topic, how much money do you think Lat makes per year? Does he do better than a senior associate at Wachtell?

I agree with the first sentence of 11:54 but it's easier said than done, especially in NYC, and especially when you meet a nice girl who likes going out to eat, taking nice vacations, getting nice presents, then you marry her and pay for the wedding, buy a condo, and then comes a kid, and before you know it, you're looking at the long road ahead, and that road goes one way and one way only....

12:20/12:48: of course writing can always get better with experience, especially if you're committed to getting real feedback and trying to understand the edits and changes being made to what you've done. The problem is that few partners care about mentoring, and probably just slightly fewer senior associates. I would say your best bet would be (have been) to form a relationship with either a writing professor if still in law school, or one of the better writers and get that person to mentor you.

11:14, my first guess was IP.

litigation, while adversarial, doesn't have to be bitter, especially between counsel. it really depends on the litigation style of the firms involved. some firms (and some partners w/in some firms) believe in being as aggressive as possible at all times. those cases can be tiring (and that, of course, is the desired result)...or they can be even more fun, especially when you win.

12:53 thanks. hope you help out the inexperienced writer if you are litigator

12:51 The key is to avoid the nubile young women as they are the biggest expense of the male lawyer and lead to the very expensive family and children.

12:20/12:48...yes, but you have to work at it; and like anything else, continuous practice improves your skills. try to get as many writing/drafting assignments as possible (no matter the type...pleadings, motions in limine, discovery requests, briefs), and take the time to review the edits made by the partner, even if you're not the one entering them. seeing the difference between your writing and the finished product massaged by someone better will help immensely. you don't need someone to sit down and walk you through the changes; you'll be able to see the differences and understand why particular verbiage is more or less effective.

writing is like any other skill; it requires effort and practice to improve.

1:10 thanks alot really. i guess others have had this issue and have gone on to be fine writers through hard work. i'm ready to put in the effort and practice to improve. i do think that your suggestion is the way to go as the more practice the better as in everything else.

the big firm "thrill of trial" = 2 weeks of 14 hour days writing motions in limine beforehand; staying up until 3 a.m. updating and indexing binders with the day's testimony and doing emergency research; and otherwise obsessing over minutiae for some of the most tedious cases imaginable.

if the excitement of trying cases is what draws you to lit, you won't find it at big firms. go for criminal practice instead

appellate lit

fap fap fap

@10:21, I would actually recommend mixing it up a bit and going for cross-border litigation about bet-the-company transactions

1:23 hows the money in crim law

You don't need to be a jerk to succeed at litigation and trial -- at least not in the South where I practice. Jerk lawyers often do their clients a disservice because the animosity they generate often makes it hard to settle a case on reasoanble terms and they often irritate the judges. Many successful trial lawyers are good guys who are simply slow, steady, and, most importantly, thorough.

What are your options if you practice Litigation for two years and then want to go to corporate? Is that possible?

Agree with the recent commenter that if you really want to be a 'sublimated warrior' then criminal litigation, not civil/biglaw litigation, is the way to go. It's where the trials are; it's where the competition is.

Plus, after being a criminal lawyer for a number of years, it seems pretty easy to lateral somewhere, saying "check me out, I'm a badass litigator, hire me," and then ease into a more relaxed civil practice.

You give up a lot of money up front, but you get experience the likes of which a biglaw litigation associate will never, ever get, and if you play your cards right you can easily make up the $$ on the back end of your career (when you actually need it for tution and mortgages etc.).

I enjoy human suffering. Which is better for me?

Law school narrows your world to "litigation or transactional" because that's the easiest way to teach. Plenty of lawyers -- including lawyers at large firms -- enjoy careers in regulatory negotiation and/or compliance, which use a mix of skills and often involve decent hours as well. The usual clients are heavily regulated entities, like airports, railways or manufacturers.

Family law, 2:14. Family law.

Litigation blows. Sooner or later you are going to have to deal with document review -- either doing it yourself as a first year or supervising the work of brain dead temps working 60 plus hours who care more about their score on the fuedalism game than on their work or writing motions about why your client should have to turn over a shitload of stuff as a second to eighth year or as a partner trying to explain to a client why they will have to spend millions turning their company inside and out to turn over every e-mail ever drafted to their adversary or as a judge having to listen to attorneys fight like four years old about discovery. Litigation is very unfulfilling. The biggest cases can take more than a decade to litigate and often spawn (shockingly) more litigation. Read Bleak House and times it by ten. This is litigation and it sucks. So sayeth a 4 year temp attorney.

2:14 be a paralegal for a nasty partner!

I ain't gonna work on Maggie's Farm no more.

2:31: That's only in large law firms. Litigation can be very fulfilling, but multi-year commercial cases generally aren't.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned tax.

No document review or due diligence ever.
Mixture of transactional work and litigation (tax controversy).
Similar exit opportunities to clients as transactional lawyers
Almost never have to pull emergency all-nighters
Much better academic options

The downside is that you have to be good with statutory analysis and comfortable with numbers, which is a serious barrier to entry for most lawyers.

As to the positive points about being a litigator, I'm surprised at how unspecific and disingenuous the comments are. The outstanding benefit of working in litigation (we're talking big law here, where you don't represent individuals) is that you get paid without regard to whether you win. Here's an example from my early career. Our client is a fidelity carrier presented with a $50m policy limits claim for an embezzlement at a major bank. To press its claim, bank hires a big-time tort guy known to be loved by juries. We know we can't beat this guy at trial, so we do a lot of discovery and motion work, bill about $4m, and then settle after 18 months for the full demand.
Can't beat it.

2:02 - What criminal pays depends. How good are you?

Bad criminal lit makes ~ $40K at the public defender's office and gets sanctioned by appellate judge for horrible brief.

Good criminal lit is limited only by the wealth of the client who got his back against the wall.

I love trial! I love the sleepless nights, the days spent away from my family, the waiting on verdicts that depend on the whim of the judge or the jury! It's great.

Seriously, in my practice (mid-sized firm in which I actually get to try jury cases, though not very often) litigation is 80% monotony, and 20% excitement. Four days of each week suck.

If you want to get into criminal defense, get used to losing. The prosecution only tries cases that are near slam dunks.

One of the "best" criminal-defense attorneys in my area once intervened in a case and saved a junkyard dog that was going to be put down. This was the first death-penatly case he had ever won.

crim law = ben brafman

I'm surprised so many people here talk about doc review like it is enduring waterboarding. For a big firm lawyer being paid six figures to essentially read documents shouldn't be all that painful. Also, one of the advantages is it is a good way to add up billable hours.

Trial work these days, especially at Biglaw, is rare. But, it's worth it. It's fun to actually get to see what the judge or jury thinks of the theories and arguments you've been crafting during the course of litigation. But, there are other fun aspects of litigation as well. Deposing a witness and getting great admissions that help win a summary judgment or exact a better settlement is fun and rewarding. Plus, if it involves traveling, there are few better ways to rack up easy billables and enjoy nice dinners and hotels on the expense account.

Transaction work (these days) is global (banks and parties in other countries), resulting in keeping some odd hours. I just finished my 3rd day of working until 3 am to deal with a bank out of Hong Kong.

2:02: Criminal defense means demand cash and get the money up front.

3:47, which comments have been disingenuous? as far as i know, transactional attorneys get paid whether the deal goes through or not...where's the difference? does your firm withhold paychecks from transactional attorneys if the deal falls apart?

every associate i know gets paid regardless of the outcome of any project, and regardless of whether the client pays the bill or not.

Who cares about being liked? I want to be highly paid and respected.

Who cares about being liked? I want to be highly paid and respected.

I had Lipshaw for Contracts his first year of teaching. Hes crazy as hell, but one of my favorite profs ever

Litigation = Denny Crane.
Corporate = Hands Espenson.

to chime in: it seems that litigators schedule a call with the client every monday to let them know how the case is going. corporate attorneys take calls from clients friday at 5 p.m. and are told to draft something by monday morning.

client contact in corporate is overrated. litgators run their show. corporate lawyers take orders from clients.

This might be counter-intuitive, but I think that a great corporate lawyer needs to be more confrontational than a great litigator. I don't really have the stomach for being the bad guy. I went from litigation to in-house transactional work. Turns out there was much more confrontation in the sort of transactional work I was doing, and I went back to big firm litigation.

Now I get to write my briefs and try to persuade the judge my interpretation is right -- don't have to deal much with the a-holes on the other side. Once in awhile I have to argue a motion or take or defend a depo, and I put on my big boy suit and pretend to be a tough guy. But mostly, litigation suits my "can't we all just get along" type personality far better.

I don't get the common personality stereotypes promulgated here either. My experience is that litigators are the more socially adjusted and interesting branch of a maladjusted profession. The transactional attornies veer toward a really unappealing passive aggresiveness that I found really unflattering.

I graduated from a top tier law school and went to a top-3 consulting firm for the last 2 years.

am i nuts for wanting to get back into law? sounds like all of you talk about wanting to get into "business". Let me tell you, its not so amazing over here either- crazy travel, big company bureaucracy