Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered
I have a slightly different take on why this is so. It's not necessarily just because of "excelling in practice". Especially at the junior level, what counts as being a good lawyer is rather nebulous.
Law can be very elitist and prestige oriented.
If you started out in a prestigious firm, it will give your career trajectory and exit options an outsized boost due to the nature of the cases or deals you were lucky to work on. All other things being equal, an average law student who was lucky enough to get a Big 4 TC (maybe because he/she is good at interviews, personable, good looking etc), may end up in an international firm.
I've seen many good students who didn't manage to secure a Big 4 TC for some reason or other, and are languishing in small or mid size firms and will forever remain there because they don't get a chance to assist with top tier work. That sets the trajectory of one's legal career.
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Yeah, I can wholeheartedly second this. At least in corp, I realized very early on in practice that the reputation of the first team which you train and start as an associate with is probably the most important factor in determining your career trajectory (your actual ability comes second). I have seen astoundingly mediocre associates get recruited into well-known international firms purely on the basis of the reputation of their B4 teams (and from what I have seen, these associates usually constitute 70-80% of the B4 corp assoc pool). The only way to really tell if a B4 assoc is worth his salt is whether s/he was able to make it into one of the top internationals with tough technical rounds (most notably the MCs).