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- Big Law has plenty of competition for its best lawyers.
- Some of the most ambitious lawyers want to work for clients in their legal departments.
- New Pirical data shows which law firms have the most alumni working in Big Tech.
Big Law has a hard time keeping its lawyers.
It's not just rival firms dangling basketball-player salaries, extra vacation, and branded merch to lure away top talent.
Big Tech is competing for those lawyers, too.
New data shared with Business Insider reveals which firms send the most lawyers to the biggest names in tech.
Pirical, a legal people-analytics company, tracked lawyers who previously worked at the 200 largest law firms by revenue in the United States and now hold legal roles at seven tech companies: Google, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX. Pirical filtered out summer associates and interns.
Morrison Foerster and Wilson Sonsini tied for the top spot, each with 40 alumni working in legal roles across the seven companies. Both firms regularly represent tech startups and the investors backing them.
Latham & Watkins followed with 33 former lawyers. Kirkland & Ellis, the industry's revenue leader, ranked 11th with 21 former lawyers working at those companies, tied with Paul Hastings and Sidley Austin.
Pirical's analysis may have missed lawyers whose job titles fell outside its search criteria, said Craig Savitzky, its insights and content editor. He said newer companies, particularly Anthropic, are also likely undercounted because their legal teams are growing faster than public profiles are updated.
Big Law-Big Tech pipeline
For attorneys hoping to land a coveted job at a tech giant, a stint at a white-shoe law firm can be a stepping stone. They can trade billable-hour quotas for a seat closer to the business, attractive pay, and just one client to keep happy instead of dozens.
That combination makes these roles "some of the most highly desirable and sought-after positions" for law firm associates, said Casey Sullivan, a recruiter with CMW Legal Search.
There's another draw, Sullivan said. The companies at the forefront of artificial intelligence are wrestling with some of the thorniest legal questions of the day, from intellectual property to regulation.
"That's where the most interesting work is for lawyers," he said.
Not all law firms are equally effective launch pads. Pirical's Savitzky noted that the firms near the top of the list have deep ties to the tech industry, if not the deepest pockets.
Cooley brought in $2.4 billion in revenue last fiscal year, placing it 29th on The American Lawyer's ranking of top law firms by revenue. But it tied fourth on Pirical's list, with 29 alumni working at the seven tech companies, including nine at Nvidia, a longtime client.
Davis Wright Tremaine, which has represented Microsoft in antitrust and employment lawsuits, has 13 alumni working in the software giant's legal department. Fenwick, which advised Wiz and Fitbit on their sales to Google, has 13 lawyers at the search giant.
Business Insider also sliced the data another way, looking at which of the seven tech giants employ the most alumni from the top 25 firms on Pirical's list.
Big Law is effectively a feeder school for Google's legal team. The company employs 322 alumni of the top 25 law firms on Pirical's list, more than any other tech company studied.
That doesn't necessarily mean Google is the most desirable location for lawyers leaving Big Law. Savitzky said the numbers likely reflect the sheer size of Google's legal department and the decades it has had to recruit from top firms.
from Business Insider https://ift.tt/Yzv7D6M
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