Best place to start a civil litigation career?

[Ruthless4Life]

Most of the posts sum up pretty good.   Give my further two cents - 

-  Smaller boutiques will give juniors much more chances to be on your feet from the beginning. This is simply due to size of the firm and costs concerns.   Good thing is that you get lots of “litigation experience” and running your own case files independently.  You also learn how to deal with various stakeholders like opposing counsel, experts, etc because the only person really doing the work is, well, yourself.  On the other hand, lack of resources means you have to do probably most of your “clerical” work which takes up a lot of your time and it can be frustrating at times when you might be spending your time scanning and printing stuff.  Also one problem is that you might get less exposure to “big stakes” litigation at big firms.  Those are an entirely different world.  In summary, you have to learn to be a one man band.  
 

-  Disputes resolution department at big firms get “big cases”.  You will have much better support, who will help you do the clerical work and have juniors, summer students, paralegals, etc. helping you out with grunt work while you can focus on the “legal issues.”  The downside of this is that as a junior you’re also very low on the food chain and you are also supporting the more senior associates and partners.  It might take quite a few years till you move up slowly to have more “responsibilities” and little court time.  But you will get more exposure to various legal issues in more complex cases only a few large firms have the “capability” to take on.  You function as part of a team and everyone in the assembly line has his/ her own function.  Of course the bigger the size of the firm the more you have to spend time learning how to deal with colleagues from various departments and offices.

 

Edited April 18, 2022 by Ruthless4Life

[Ghalm]

I'd just add that in my experience, as a big law jr. lit associate, my function in the team appears to often be quite significant, while still being low on the food chain. A junior on a file (depending on the staffing of the file) prepares the first draft of all major and minor documents. Each first draft goes through a process of feedback and revision that results in the advanced draft that the most senior on the file reviews and comments on. So far, it seems to me like the junior is often key to this revision process (they do the revising based on the more senior lawyer's feedback). Often, this means that my draft and my drafting carries up the food chain and informs the factual and legal narrative of our defence or prosecution of a commercial claim. I have to know the facts and the law well, and I can't fuck up. I am very much surprised at how someone so junior (me) can have what appears to be such a significant role in the files I am on. For example, I have been working with the junior partner on a giant class action against a giant company to prepare the legal analysis at the heart of our defence - and by "working with the junior partner" I mean doing 80% of the work and incorporating her feedback, comments, and overall scrutiny of my work product. While I will never argue at the motions and hearings for this matter, my role (I think) is far from menial even though it is the lowest role on the food chain. I share this just to give a sense of what I think it means to be the lowest on the food chain in big law lit. And, for smaller files (which some big law shops have), I get to do even more significant work on the file (though, the issues are often far less complex). 

[JadedBayStreetLawyer]

If you want to FIRE and maybe go to Caymen, go to Big Law and dabble in some insolvency lit.