Lit Lateral to NY/California

[Pantalaimon]

16 minutes ago, PzabbytheLawyer said:

My problem is I like to think on my job. And everyone I've ever talked to has told me transactional isn't the place to be if that's the priority.

Spicy.

[PzabbytheLawyer]

1 hour ago, Pantalaimon said:

Spicy.

You know, I didn't intend it to come across that way. So I do apologize for the tone.

And again, that's just what most lawyers have told me, who have mostly been litigators. So certainly selection bias.

 

[Pantalaimon]

Just now, PzabbytheLawyer said:

You know, I didn't intend it to come across that way. So I do apologize for the tone.

And again, that's just what most lawyers have told me, who have mostly been litigators. So certainly selection bias.

 

I just found it amusing because I said the same thing to someone last week - something along the lines of how transactional work is a lot of 'doing' but not as much 'thinking'. And I say this as a solicitor-minded person! The person I said that to told me not to say that to any corporate colleagues 😂

[Rashabon]

1 hour ago, PzabbytheLawyer said:

My problem is I like to think on my job. And everyone I've ever talked to has told me transactional isn't the place to be if that's the priority. But I haven't spoken to as many transactional lawyers.

@Rashabonhow did you decide between litigation and transactional?

"I like to feel smart in my job. How did you decide on feeling stupid" is an interesting way to phrase a question.

There were a variety of reasons.

For one, there's plenty of thinking that goes on in transactional practice. I'm not really sure who you've spoken to, but complex transactional matters require a lot of thinking.  It just isn't the same thinking that goes on in litigation, which gets a reputation for a lot more creativity than it sometimes deserves given your thinking is constrained by what cases came before you. The litigation versus transactional divide is also somewhat facile, because a solicitor at a big law firm isn't exclusively doing transactional work. Securities regulation requires thinking in terms of compliance, and advising boards on a variety of things often requires thinking. Reviewing hundreds of cases to find facts that fit your scenario to argue that X is similar to Y which came before isn't the "thinking" I like to do.

Leaving thinking aside, I just didn't find litigation interesting at a senior level. Managing 100s of files with multi-year timeframes only to inevitably settle after endless posturing and procedural steps, boring depositions, repetitive motions, drafting the same factums over and over again, etc. It wasn't for me. I also don't care for the adversarial aspect where there always has to be a loser. Transactional work is a lot more collaborative, even when there's tension or an imbalance of power. I find the work more interesting, I enjoy structuring deals, I like working directly with my clients on their day-to-day and advancing their interests, instead of just being the "break glass in case of fuck up" option.

The litigators I speak to, other than the occasional superstar that goes to argue some case before the SCC which isn't most, tend to get the most animated and excited talking about some good deal they negotiated in settlement, and they talk about them like unicorns, but that's an every day thing for me.

Also transactional seemed to me to have better exit opportunities, better profile, better career prospects, etc.

[PzabbytheLawyer]

16 minutes ago, Rashabon said:

"I like to feel smart in my job. How did you decide on feeling stupid" is an interesting way to phrase a question.

There were a variety of reasons.

For one, there's plenty of thinking that goes on in transactional practice. I'm not really sure who you've spoken to, but complex transactional matters require a lot of thinking.  It just isn't the same thinking that goes on in litigation, which gets a reputation for a lot more creativity than it sometimes deserves given your thinking is constrained by what cases came before you. The litigation versus transactional divide is also somewhat facile, because a solicitor at a big law firm isn't exclusively doing transactional work. Securities regulation requires thinking in terms of compliance, and advising boards on a variety of things often requires thinking. Reviewing hundreds of cases to find facts that fit your scenario to argue that X is similar to Y which came before isn't the "thinking" I like to do.

Leaving thinking aside, I just didn't find litigation interesting at a senior level. Managing 100s of files with multi-year timeframes only to inevitably settle after endless posturing and procedural steps, boring depositions, repetitive motions, drafting the same factums over and over again, etc. It wasn't for me. I also don't care for the adversarial aspect where there always has to be a loser. Transactional work is a lot more collaborative, even when there's tension or an imbalance of power. I find the work more interesting, I enjoy structuring deals, I like working directly with my clients on their day-to-day and advancing their interests, instead of just being the "break glass in case of fuck up" option.

The litigators I speak to, other than the occasional superstar that goes to argue some case before the SCC which isn't most, tend to get the most animated and excited talking about some good deal they negotiated in settlement, and they talk about them like unicorns, but that's an every day thing for me.

Also transactional seemed to me to have better exit opportunities, better profile, better career prospects, etc.

Yeah, sorry, that wasn't how I intended it. It was more so I take you to be someone who is smart and does think, and is a transactional lawyer, so I was curious how you made your choice.

Thanks for your answer. Been doing a lot of thinking about what kind of thinking I'm doing at my job lately.

[BlockedQuebecois]

51 minutes ago, Rashabon said:

Leaving thinking aside, I just didn't find litigation interesting at a senior level.

This was the real struggle for me in deciding what to practice.

I was roped into exactly two corporate files at my old firm, and both were relatively slim teams with top tier partners doing high end work. That meant I was generally invited to the partner's office for conference calls, I was looped into strategy discussions, etc. The work senior M&A partners do is fascinating and involves a lot of problem solving and thinking on your feet. 

In contrast, civil/commercial litigation gets interesting a lot quicker, but it levels off pretty abruptly. Most (non-criminal or family) litigation is incredibly routine and monotonous. It's about managing documents and pressing things forwards. I also find most problems in litigation to be relatively obvious—even the high end litigation practiced at top firms. Once you hit a certain threshold level of intelligence and knowledge of the law, the vast majority of cases are clearly either heading one way or a tossup between two clear but viable alternatives based on the facts.

I would bet only 1-2% of cases involve a novel problem or development that might push the law forward in some way. Maybe another 3-4% have the chance to go that way in the right advocate's hands. 

All of which is to say, if you're a relatively senior partner at a big firm and you're not a superstar, I think it's likely an M&A lawyer is using their intellectual horsepower more frequently. 

Edited December 16, 2021 by BlockedQuebecois

[Rashabon]

I think that's right. Litigation is a volume business in a lot of ways and you're churning through small cases with little interesting features between large, interesting and complex litigation. I had a similar experience in the opposite direction as a litigation student (the firm wanted me to be a litigator at first, and candidly told me it was a very close call even letting me go to a capital markets practice at first). For every class action that goes to trial (uh, almost none), there's a million that just linger on at a certification stage, where a lot of the arguments are the same and you're reviewing the same case law and making the same arguments applied to different facts.

I also have a family member that is a construction litigator. Their practice is beyond rote and it was an influence on me for sure. I also just didn't find court as interesting as others do. When I play RPGs I always play tanks or melee DPS. For whatever reason, consistently I just don't play magic classes. So standing up in a court room obeying outdated modes of speech and behaviour instead of speaking candidly just so you properly cast your incantations was exhausting to me.

I recall one exciting motion, one of the few times I did some novel thinking as a student, and the argument ended up in our motion factum and we were going to try it on and it was some really good thinking on my part. We get into the court, the judge complains about this being before him instead of being settled, and wouldn't you know it, the parties settled before we heard the motion. Off we trundled.

I like the finality of transactional work, I like the pre-COVID peaks and valleys. There's lots of room to be thinking on complex M&A and capital markets deals. You're balancing a lot of variables trying to navigate to a solution.

Private M&A is a different beast and has different considerations and ranges from boring, easy, to as complex as any public M&A file.

But part of the reason I chose a capital markets practice is because the regulatory overlay ups the difficulty level a bit and forces you to engage with the law and developments in the law, as opposed to a corporate/commercial practice which doesn't as much.

Edited December 16, 2021 by Rashabon

[Pantalaimon]

1 hour ago, Pantalaimon said:

I just found it amusing because I said the same thing to someone last week - something along the lines of how transactional work is a lot of 'doing' but not as much 'thinking'. And I say this as a solicitor-minded person! The person I said that to told me not to say that to any corporate colleagues 😂

I should clarify - not that any of you should care what an articling student thinks, but in the spirit of my colleague's admonishment that the way I phrased it was poor - that the rationale for my statement was that transactional work didn't give me much time to think. The pace is intense and you just do whatever you think is right without pondering it the way you do a memo or the like. I found it so much easier to fill a day than something like researching, where I'd need frequent breaks to sharpen the mind.

[easttowest]

I don’t disagree with everything that has been said, but I also don’t know how you could consider an examination for discovery (ie. a deposition) boring, so we’re definitely just wired differently. 

Class action cert stuff is awful! Plus, you’re probably going to lose if you’re on for the defence. But you don’t have to just do that or even any of that. 

One thing I will say is that from what I’ve seen at a full-service shop, while litigators will be brought in during a crisis, they’re not often the crisis counsel who gets to be in charge of everything; that usually goes to whoever has the client relationship, which is more likely to be the corporate lawyer who the client deals with day in and out. That person will bring in advisors and provide counsel to the Board or whatever committee and co-ordinate strategy etc etc, though the litigators will be on a lot of the calls and voice input. Even if the crisis ends up going to litigation and we take over, a lot of our advice is made in collaboration with the corporate lawyers and sometimes given through the corporate lawyers. So if you’re the type that wants to be the big kahuna at a full-service shop, you should be a corporate lawyer. 

I am that type of person but do not like solicitor work so we’ll see how that goes for me. You can get there from lit too, it just seems less common.

 

[Rashabon]

Yep, that's part of what was captured by better career prospects in my post above. I'm front and centre for the client on things, even when litigators are involved. My group treats litigators to an extent like specialists. Once in a blue moon I get the same treatment from a litigation type group, but not as often. Especially as a capital markets lawyer where everything you do is ultimately going to end up in the public record beyond just a court record or newspaper articles.

I also find the process of litigation exhausting. It's very procedural in a way that tires me, as compared to procedural solicitor stuff which is usually quick. Like an examination for discovery - admittedly it's been years since I've been in involved in anything since I'm not a litigator by any stretch, but you can't just skip to the meaty interesting stuff. You need to spend a ton of time laying groundwork, etc. Same thing with litigation itself. Just tons of motions and hearings on procedural matters before you get to the good stuff. Sometimes those motions are the good stuff, but it just wasn't for me. I'm not saying it's bad, and some people live for that stuff. It just wasn't for me.

I'm also very technically minded, so becoming an expert at capital markets rules, corporate law, aspects of trusts law, etc. is appealing and I happen to be involved in a lot of complex stuff. A bunch of work is updating precedents for new facts, but I do a lot of sui generis drafting and creating precedents and contracts and it requires a good deal of thinking and creativity.

[easttowest]

It’s funny that this has flared up now, the past couple of days I have been advising on a clause in an agreement (definitely being treated as a specialist on this one) and it has been a fun change of pace. I’ve always liked drafting but don’t think I would enjoy it at the pace you guys have to do it.