- Quickdraw McLaw
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All of yesterday’s comments got us thinking about a topic we haven’t really revisited since 2013: what is the most prestigious firm in town and why? Is it just your opinion or do you think it is a widely held opinion? Is it a Nevada firm or a national firm with a presence in Nevada? Do they pay well? Do you wish you worked there? Do they hire Boyd grads? Does the prestige of a firm make any difference in the grand scheme of things? Does it matter if more attorneys in Vegas have worked there than at any other firm? What gives a firm prestige?
I don't know that I think of any firms as 'prestigious.' Some firms are known for good work, some are not. Calling a firm prestigious just indicates to me that they have oversized egos but are paid well.
Here's one to chew on…can a firm that advertises on billboards/tv be prestigious or does that automatically take them out of that category?
I've seen tacky Quinn Emanuel billboards and they're pretty prestigious.
Out of curiosity, where did you see a Quinn billboard?
Burbank airport has one. I think I've seen others but that's the one that comes to mind.
I'd say a billboard in an airport where you're targeting business travel is not what people have in mind when people say "billboard lawyers." I'll give it a pass. But at billboard at Eastern & St. Rose will DQ you.
Just a reminder that Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill advertised, and so did David & Main.
And that was the most unbelievable part of BCS. That black & white Davis & Main TV commercial was a work of art though.
Naqvi. Fight me.
You lose by knockout.
Naq-out? 😉
No, Powell'ed
You got Lernered that Moss covers the Baker who Shook the Eglet out of the Prince.
Cute.
prestigious
[preˈstējəs, preˈstijəs]
ADJECTIVE
inspiring respect and admiration; having high status.
In my mind, Baily Kennedy, Bice Pisanelli, and Holland & Hart. Top notch firms. Just behind them are MACLaw and McDonalds Carano.
I think that Lloyd Baker's biceps and Harley are prestigious.
It's crazy to look back at that 2013 thread. Back when I was a young lawyer in about 2012, I landed interviews at both Jones Vargas and LSC. I 100% would have taken offers at one of those two if I had received one. In my mind back then, those were the preeminent firms in Nevada.
I was thinking the same thing. RIP LS&C.
Sometimes the jobs you don't get are your biggest break.
True. Though to my knowledge all the LSC associates landed on their feet – mostly at Fennemore, and all the JV associates landed on their feet – I believe mostly at Gordon silver (though I could be wrong on both accounts).
Actually, I think both firms went to Fennemore? Man thinking back to back then makes we feel old.
McDonald Carano, Hutchison & Steffen and Pisanelli Bice are all top notch Nevada firms.
Most prestigiously ridiculous firm name is "Sweet James" – who the f are those people???
The Beard of Justice!
Hutchison & Steffen are great at billing, and not much else.
Akerman is prestigious at harassing women.
"Prestige" is such a wonderfully amorphous, bullshit concept. I salute my colleagues that have harnessed it to their financial advantage. Often, it means paying more as a client (relative to actual value), or getting paid less as an associate.
I practice in a niche area. Sometimes a wealthy party will hire a "prestigious" firm to represent them. The client doesn't know that the firm doesn't really know this niche area of law. I'm always amused by this. I have not hate for this, just respect. I need to figure out how to sell some of this "prestige." What a great product.
You honestly do. I've worked at firms that could command high rates and firms that couldn't. My life was better when I could collect more per hour. I also did better work for clients that would pay for me to put in the time to do good work.
I agree with 10:59 – Hutchison & Steffen and Pisanelli Bice are two firms that come to mind when thinking about which firms in the valley are most "prestigious".
I always thought of H&S as a super Mormon firm that's fine but not elite. Pisanelli Bice is definitely a big time firm. I don't get why any associate would want to go there, though. From what I have heard, the associates that work there work their asses off – like top of the market hours – and they make less than they would at Snell-level firms.
Lewis Roca, especially regarding appellate issues
Yes, Lietenant Dan is the best.
Which Dan? Waite or Pols?
L&Rhas an appellate lawyer Abraham Smith who is amazingly good and does a lot of pro bono. Also Joel Henriod. Their appellate group has depth.
Weinberg Wheeler for civil trial work. They also pay associates significantly more than any of the firms this thread has mentioned.
But they also demand more hours. On a per-hour basis it's roughly the same, or at least it was a handful of years ago.
I have not heard the same about pay. They start their associates high, but they do not keep the associates pay very high.
What do they pay associates range wise?
WW keeps getting mentioned whenever discussion of firms is raised. My only knowledge of them is through this blog. Are they an ID firm? If yes, IMO, that DQs it from prestige. Or, is it just WW employees trying to stroke their own egos?
WW does defense work on high dollar liability cases. I'm not sure if insurance companies pay some or all of their rates, but if they're paid by insurance then it's not at insurance defense rates. I know the first year salary a number of years ago was 135k, and at the time GT and Holland and Hart were at like 115k or 120k. I have no info on what salary progression looks like there.
As someone who worked at WW, they start high but you do not advance. They turn people over like Alverson used to (but with more starting money). More than a handful of associates have had nervous breakdowns (as in medically diagnosed episodes) that led to their departure.
NSC just temporarily suspended Bradley Bellisario. Guess his OBC discipline matter still pending.
Bremer Whyte. Especially when Nelson Cohen was there.
The responses in that 2013 thread didn't age very well. A few of the firms are gone, some are but shells of their prior prestigious self.
This one is the best:
Gordon Silver is the only true full practice firm — bankruptcy & reorganization, gaming & administrative, commercial litigation & appeals, intellectual property, criminal defense, sports & entertainment, among other emerging practices. Additionally, they have an amazing lobbying affiliation with Jon Porter. While firms have been downsizing and facing implosions, Gordon Silver has grown in Reno, Phoenix and Washington, D.C.
Through the roof bud!
The subject was posted for today("The Most Prestigious Firm In Town 2011 Edition")along with a few questions that would be relevant to determining the best firms, such as: Is it just your opinion that they are quite prestigious, or is it a widely held opinion. Also, the question was posed as to whether such firm pays well.
But the question was also posed, as to determining the most prestigious firm in town, "Do they hire Boyd graduates?"
As to that particular question, is that question intended as that new thing known as sarcasm?
4:37 for all the ribbing Boyd graduates take(and quite a bit of it on this very blog), in fairness I wish to make two observations:
1.The national rankings of Boyd(assuming we should give real weight to such rankings, which is a fair question) have improved to the point that they are, roughly speaking, a middle-tier law school(thus, they rate higher than my law school).
2. I've dealt with a fair number of Boyd graduates(about 18 or 20), and they don't seem particularly lacking when compared to the average attorney who graduated from somewhere else.
But I do have to make one qualifier. Over the last few years two opposing counsel have stood out as being shockingly inept, and were completely baffled by even the most simplistic of legal concepts and procedures.
Both were Boyd graduates.
Again, I've dealt with quite a few Boyd graduates, and most seemed fine, so we are really just, anecdotally speaking, talking about two attorneys out of 18 or 20 Boyd graduates I have dealt with.
But with those qualifiers understood, I simply cannot believe that anyone saw fit to license these two clueless and hapless attorneys.
Leave it to Nevada to do so.
BTW, one of those two attorneys, although already licensed about 2 or 3 years at the time of this incident, filed a law suit and let it sit, without serving it, for many months, until the inordinate delay really damaged their client's case.
His reason for such serious neglect and delay? He told the judge that he thought that once he filed a law suit that the court system automatically locates and serves the Defendant, and that Plaintiff's side therefore need not concern itself with locating and serving the Defendant.
Compounding this absurdity was the fact that Plaintiff herself knew exactly where Defendant resided and could be served, as well as his work location and shift. But, according to what Plaintiff presented in court filings once she fired the attorney, is that she on several occasions she tried to tell the attorney where Defendat lived and could be served, and was always told "Don't worry about it. The court will find him and serve him with the papers."
This attorney, during a couple earlier conversations I had with him, always bragged about how great Boyd is and that it enabled him to "Hit the ground running on Day #1 of being licensed, without the necessity of me cutting my teeth at someone else's firm during the first several years."
Hmmm.
Ah, Boyd. If a student enters reasonably bright and hard working, then chances are this student will mature into a competent attorney. The problem is that Boyd takes in trash and it appears many of the professors (and, forgive me, the entire legal writing department) are horrid. Any marginal student will become unusable by the profession.
I am NOT a fan of Boyd but let me posit a possible hypothesis about the Boyd grads that we experience– they are not the best Boyd grads. Perhaps Boyd (like many schools) sends their great students to BIGLAW and markets to their detritus feeders that they can always get a job in Las Vegas. Therefore the Boyd grads that we are seeing are not the best and brightest to whom Boyd is pinning its US News rankings.
Re: Boyd grad not knowing Rule 4 exists, sounds like he admitted he went straight into solo practice. Not the greatest call given that law school does not prepare anyone to be able to actually practice law.
That applies regardless of where you went to law school.
11:28, yeah that's what it sounds like. The Boyd graduate bragged to 5:04 that when one graduates from Boyd they(supposedly) can hit the ground running as soon as they are sworn in, need not pay their dues by working for a firm the first few years of practice, etc.
So, the buffoon expected the court system, free of charge, to find and serve the defendant.
I remember another incident of that nature wherein an attorney told me he made such mistake early on in his practice. Don't believe he was a Boyd graduate, but he was not really bright in my view–ambitious, but not overly bright.
But he was like the Boyd graduate 5:04 describes in that he insisted on going on his own right away, immediately opened his own practice and refused to pay his dues by working for a firm.
He would say "Why should I let some other S.O.B.s make money off my hard work?"
That may sound like an arguably reasonable comment in other contexts, but that demonstrates an immature, idiotic thought process when uttered by a newly minted attorney who does not know that the government is not responsible for serving private law suits.
Just to be clear, service of process was a PRETTY BIG part of Civ Pro at Boyd. Don't blame an idiot's law school for the idiot being an idiot. Not when there are plenty of other things to blame the law school for.
Hence @816's comment above. Marginal students make marginal lawyers. Poor students……
5:04, I've encountered more than a few attorneys, over the years who I felt were substandard. We all have. I'm sure some of my opposing counsels felt I was substandard.
But that's pretty bad–he never served the law suit because he thought the court system researches where all Defendant's live and then timely serve them all at no charge to Plaintiff.
Idiotic.
This was the single greatest moment in the history of the Las Vegas legal community. And Bossman Alpha Chad had the stones to run it during the superbowl
https://youtu.be/oHdEOFM4oQU
This is pretty funny
I remember that when it ran. Pretty epic if you ask me.
Snell, PB, and LRR would be at the top of my list.
I would argue PB is prestigious. Campbell Williams is prestigious. BHFS is prestigious. Eglet is prestigious. These are firms of different sizes, pedigrees, areas of practice. Yet all prestigious.
Second for Snell, PB, BHFS. LRR…ehhh.
Naqvi,as 10:34 suggests.
We know that is the #1 firm because the billboards and t.v. ads tell us so.
That's all we need to know