Get the inside scoop on jobs and careers with Vault career guides. Vault Guide to the Top Mid-Atlantic Law Firms is your complete resource to jobs, careers, interviews and recruiting.
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Vault Guide to the Top Mid-Atlantic Law Firms Get the inside scoop on jobs and careers with Vault career guides. Vault Guide to the Top Mid-Atlantic Law Firms is your complete resource to jobs, careers, interviews and recruiting. |
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Vault Guide to the Top Mid-Atlantic Law Firms In New Jersey, for example, attorneys value the abundant, premium legal opportunities available, minus the "'sweatshop mentality' of many New York firms." We're told that "there is a better quality of life at large firms in New Jersey," and "being near NYC, we work with a lot of New York businesses and individuals." A Newark associate notes the "high quality of professionals" and better hours, while a married Garden Stater says he "would rather be in Princeton than in a large city." And, well, one Newark inhabitant just "did not want to be bothered with the commute to New York and the New York law firm attitude. Life is too short." Indeed it is.
Among the city's many accolades, associates claim that "Philadelphia is a very easy city to live and work in" because of its "great restaurants, art and culture, and you can walk to almost anywhere you'd want to go." As for the job, one source prizes the "sophisticated commercial litigation practices with more manageable billable hour requirements leading to better work/life balance." Well, that's definitely specific. We're told that "the lifestyle of a lawyer in this town is excellent," mostly due to its "large-city resources, and complex and interesting work," but also because "the legal community is a small and tight-knit one." Whether it's the quality of life, the Liberty Bell or cheesesteaks, Philly gets nothing but support from its inhabitants--but hey, what else would you expect from The City That Loves You Back?
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THE SCOOP
Philadelphia's Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP rang in 2007 with a merger; the firm joined forces with Gardner Carton & Douglas, a Chicago-based firm. The combined firm now employs an army of more than 650 attorneys in a dozen offices. As reported in The Legal Intelligencer, the newly-merged firm has been busy making organizational changes to accommodate its new size. Drinker Biddle gave up its old bilateral system, where all lawyers were housed in either the business or litigation departments. Instead, Drinker Biddle attorneys are now slotted in one of 14 practice groups--a change that could make the task of managing a large number of attorneys somewhat easier.
The merger does not represent Drinker Biddle's only notable addition in recent months. At the end of 2006, the firm announced that Deborah T. Poritz, a former chief justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court and the Court's first female chief justice, would be joining the firm as of counsel. The firm expects Chief Justice Poritz to be a feather in the cap of their white-collar practice group.
The firm announced in September 2007 that 12 lawyers from Miller, Alfano & Raspanti, a Philadelphia litigation boutique, will be joining at the beginning of 2008. The group is led by prominent litigator Gregory P. Miller, managing partner of Miller Alfano.
