Cleary Gottlieb
New York, NYWashington, DCSan Francisco, CA +1
FIRM PROFILE
Willkie Farr & Gallagher
- Chicago, IL
- Dallas, TX
- Houston, TX
- +5
For associates with an interest in cross border work and notable development opportunities - where there’s a Willkie, there’s a way!
About the Firm
- 8
- National Offices
- 8
- Overseas Offices
- 626
- Associates
- 354
- Partners
Getting a response from a situationship can be tough. Getting a response following a job interview might be even tougher. But with a reputation for being exceptional for their responsiveness, our insiders “felt most in touch with Willkie” during the days of their law firm interviews. “It’s impressive because of the amount of work people are balancing alongside communicating with applicants,” shared one source, whilst others were drawn to the pro bono work at the firm (spoiler: “It’s huge at Willkie!”).
Willkie will satisfy most prestige needs too – our sister publication, Chambers USA, marks the firm out as a leader nationwide in derivatives, transactional & regulatory insurance, and regulatory & compliance investment funds. In New York, Willkie gets top props for insurance and litigation, the latter of which is given top honors in the District of Columbia. The firm's prestige goes even further still across the firm’s seven international offices: Brussels, Frankfurt, London, Milan, Munich, Paris and Rome. Chambers Global places Willkie in the cream of the crop internationally for insurance, and references private equity, investment funds, restructuring, and corporate investigations as notable global practices for the firm.
“Willkie stood out because the vibe was excellent!”
Rankings aside, for our interviewees, vibes played a significant role in bringing them onboard, and “Willkie stood out because the vibe was excellent! People were kind and interested in the world beyond corporate practice, and that has continued to stand out.”
Summer Program
- 150
- Summer Places
Summer acts as the perfect opportunity “to figure out who you enjoy spending time with,” both from a social and a working perspective. Our interviewees noted that they remained friends with their summer class because “on the social side it lived up to expectations; it seemed like a lot of us blended together well, so we got really close in the office and at events after work.” In addition to the events put on, the firm has a summer lunch program for summers to connect with attorneys at a local restaurant – a sweet respite from the work.
Summers are split into separate pools either on the litigation or transactional side, within which they get the opportunity to try out different practices. In New York in particular, summers join either the litigation or the transactional pool. Responsibility ranged with some grumbles about experience being somewhat limited: “I got exposure,” one junior wryly told us, “but my cup did not run-eth over with hours.” Others praised the substantive tasks they were given, including “good observational opportunities, staffing on teams, sitting in on meetings, and conducting research.” General consensus seemed to be that “the summer program was very representative of life as a junior.”
Strategy & Future
“Obviously AI is booming, so Willkie is trying to implement platforms to use these new tools,” one junior told us; “we’re not shying away from advancements in ways to make technology useful.” We heard that the firm is taking a “cautious approach that adds value,” by co-building with Lexis Nexis to ensure they have a tailor-made system to improve efficiencies. This approach meant interviewees felt that they weren’t going to be replaced anytime soon. “There will always be a demand for bespoke legal counsel,” one insisted, “I don’t know if there’s a replacement for someone holding your hand through a transaction, but we are looking at ways we can save associates from doing grunt work.”
Read our conversation with Danielle Scalzo, partner and executive committee member, and Bonnie Hurry, chief human resources officer, under the 'Get Hired' tab.
The Work
When juniors return as fully fledged associates within their chosen practice, they rest assured knowing that their work is overseen by an assigning group of partners. These partners keep track of matters associates are working on through the Horizons dashboard (which showcases the clients associates are working with, as well as their projects and workload), and importantly, ensure that nobody is drowning: “Unless you’re at trial, but when you’re at trial that’s the only thing you’re doing!” Beyond this, work allocation is largely organic and builds off the relationships formed over the summer, meaning juniors are given work directly from partners they spent time with during the program, and “once you’ve built that trust they’ll give you more work.” Associates are also given the opportunity to work across offices on different deals (the only downside being the accompanying time difference!).
“There’s an understanding from people that when you first start out, things will take longer.”
Flexibility is the name of the game for litigation associates who can work across a range of contentious matters including antitrust, class actions, communications, ERISA, international arbitration, investigations, restructuring, securities, white collar and general commercial, among others. Juniors also find themselves working across Willkie’s range of offices because “particularly between DC and New York, all litigation matters are cross staffed without respect to where you are so, depending on the matter we can be working with Chicago, LA, etc….” For the first three years juniors send weekly workload reports to assigning partners where they can specify areas of interest to tailor their practice. Insiders were pleased to report that the system works well.
As you might imagine, Willkie’s expectations of its juniors increases significantly because “you learn so much as afirst year!” It’s not a case of diving into the deep end though as “there’s certainly a learning curve when you get here, but there’s an understanding from people that when you first start out, things will take longer.” As a first year, doc review was a frequently mentioned task, along with helping to prep presentations for client meetings as well as meetings with opposing counsel, and, inevitably, research. However, as juniors increase in their experience they are given “a good amount of drafting,” including memos and motions. Sources also reported that juniors can even get experience second chairing depositions so, “if you want to do more, and you prove that you can do more, you can do more.”
Litigation clients: Bloomberg, and Wells Fargo. Represented a group of 29 underwriter banks for an IPO of Uber Technologies in a securities class action.
The intellectual property team tend to staff juniors by looking into their technical backgrounds, to see who fits best. We heard that juniors can work on both the litigious and the transactional sides of the practice. “I’ve been working mostly on IP litigations,” one source informed us, but on the transactional side “you can help out with opinion work as well as carry out the due diligence on deals.” Typical tasks for an associate starting out includes “a ton of legal research,” evolving into help with depositions and expert reports, drafting, and deciding upon relevant documents for exhibits. “You pick up a lot of experience with the beginning stage of the litigation cycle,” explained one insider. Associates also work on licensing involving patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets. The foremost of these has juniors monitoring patent applications or tracking appeals on trademark cases.
IP clients: CC Industries, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Aspen Skiing Company. Represented Netflix against GoTV Streaming in a patent infringement lawsuit.
“They give you the opportunity to do a wide breadth of work wherever you are.”
Corporate and financial services has associates working across practices, across offices, and across teams. From LA to Houston, from Chicago to New York, all the way to London, different offices have different strengths. Dallas and Houston in particular have a strong energy client base; DC has a strong privacy and communications team in addition to its litigation and appellate strengths; and LA has a star-studded entertainment client list. Due to the offices' openly collaborative nature, “they give you the opportunity to do a wide breadth of work wherever you are.” Starting out as a junior “you’re given one public company, one private equity, and one private company,” so you’ll be doing anything from M&A to SEC filings for public companies.
“There’s a really good ramp up process,” we were told, with one source sharing: “As I’ve progressed into second year, I think there are more opportunities to do more substantive work.” As afirst year, for the first few months “you have no idea what you’re doing, but that evolves quickly” as juniors are given a lot of responsibility early on to carry out due diligence, work on ancillary documents, and speak with the client. And then as a second year, you’re “making sure the first year is doing what they should be doing!”
Corporate and financial services clients: Saks Global, Create Music Group, CoinFund. Advised Ryan Reynolds and his media company Maximum Effort in a deal to buy back Maximum Effort Marketing from MNTN.
Career Development
Associates get a mixture of formal and informal training opportunities, from mentors to CLEswith some mandatory, and some really cool: “At the last one I went to, the head of litigation sat down with a new partner, who was a former Assistant to the Solicitor General, talking about arguing in front of the Supreme Court!” The mentoring piece was seen as “pretty good” too, with a formal mentoring system ensuring juniors are given a partner and a senior associate as mentors when starting out.
However, it was the informal training that our interviewees most appreciated. “Mid-levels do an exceptional job,” but even “partners make time to give feedback beyond just passing you a redline.” Juniors also noted that the firm makes an effort to future-proof associates, mentioning that “they recognize the growing importance of AI; we have the most robust AI toolbox of firms, obviously including Harvey, but we’re also trained on how to use it ethically.”
“You see a bunch of people come up through the Wilkie ranks.”
Speaking of future-proofing, our interviewees felt they were well versed with the path to partnership. “I do envisage it as something attainable,” one junior told us, with another explaining that “you see a bunch of people come up through the Wilkie ranks… the path to partnership seems far out right now, but every year our reviews are helpful and the expectations of what we have to do to progress there are well laid out.” For those who don’t see partnership as the ultimate goal, “we have placed a decent number of people in-house from the time I’ve been here.”
Hours & Compensation
- No requirement
- Billable hours requirement
“A large part of our culture lends itself to no billables,” one insider told us, so as a result “if you have a second to breathe you can take that time.” Associates are expected to enter in seven hours of time every day, but “no requirement takes pressure off.” At a minimum, associates are kept to 35 hours a week, but we heard from most of our interviewees that “a normal week is anywhere between 40 and 50 hours. Weeks can even reach 60 hours when you’re at trial.”
However, these hours aren’t the norm, and when associates are hitting super high hours, “there is a button on our reports saying, ‘I’m underwater, help me!’ so they can make adjustments and redistribute work.” Ultimately there was the general feeling that partners respect juniors’ time, supported by the fact that they encourage and “want you to take vacation – they understand the need to reset.” All in all, insiders felt that “because work isn’t always within our control the lockstep compensation is really reassuring.”
Culture
All of our interviewees were extremely positive about the firm’s culture which matches “intellectual curiosity” with “super personability” across the board. “Everyone is nice to each other, and careful not to be mean even when giving feedback,” one junior noted.New recruits are gauged based on their answer to the question: How do you add to the collective good? As one junior explained, “it’s deeper than talent – they understand the value of that interpersonal relationship.” Associates are expected in-office three days a week to help establish these relationships, a balance which interviewees told us they love: “It means I can stay home with my cats on Fridays!”
We heard that every office ensures associates have opportunities to mingle through formal and informal lunches, happy hours, and seasonal holiday parties. One junior’s account painted a particularly vivid picture of Willkie’s Chicago office where the social committee organizes events like the “'Willkie games,’ where associates play games like ping pong and foosball in a tournament – they just announced the brackets during our town hall!” Practices generally put on smaller events for their teams. Firmwide, the firm hosts milestone programming for associates in first, third, and fifth year, which includes flying associates out to the New York office. “We’ve done ice skating, and gone to a jazz club” and attendance is encouragedbecause “it helps people loosen up!”
Pro Bono
- 92,446
- Total Us Pro Bono Hours
- 73
- Average Pro Bono Hours Per Attorney
“Everyone has something on their docket.”
Willkie’s policy of uncapped pro bono was acclaimed by associates because since it’s billed the same as client work it “encourages folks to take on these matters.” In fact, the firm’s portal tracking internal and external pro bono opportunities makes it “almost like, too easy to get pro bono” and as a result, “everyone has something on their docket.” Associates get recognition as a “pro bono champion” once they’ve taken on 25 hours, with some people spending “up to 40% of their time on a broad swathe of pro bono matters.”
We heard of people get involved in both transactional and litigation matters including everything from helping startups in the US who are eligible for US grants, to name changes and individual civil rights cases. The Chicago office in particular was praised for their “great culture” surrounding pro bono where there’s “a lot of civic engagement, and a lot of partners are involved in the community.” It was also not unheard of for juniors to bring in their own pro bono clients for the firm.
Inclusion
“They value individuality,” something that, one junior told us, is a reflection of the firm’s approach to inclusion. We heard that Willkie is supportive of affinity group activities, and anyone is welcome to partake. These include the Asian and Pacific Islander Group, the Black Affinity Group, First Generation Professionals, Jewish Affinity Group, Latinx Affinity Group, LGBTQ+ affinity group, South Asian and Middle Eastern Affinity Group, and the Veteran’s Affinity Group.
As an example of previous events hosted, interviewees mentioned that the LGBTQ+ Group is “extremely active,” and the Black Affinity Group brings in speakers for Black History Month, the Chicago office puts on an event for Lunar New Year,and that the Veteran’s Group in New York take part in the Tunnels to Towers 5k, sponsored by the firm.
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Top Figures
- New York
- Largest US Office
- 2,056
- Revenue (£m)
- $225,000
- 1st Year Salary
- 17
- Partners Made
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