Top Five Offices | Chicago HQ, New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, London
Total attorneys | 764
Major departments/practices | litigation, corporate/tax, bankruptcy
First-year pay | $125,000
2001 summer associates | 171
2001 fall first-years | 81
Who to call | Kimberley Klein, attorney recruiting manager, 312-861-2000
Web site | kirkland.com
Random firm-name anagram | LADEN KILL RISK

The Internet giveth and the Internet taketh away. Hence, cyberlaw and bankruptcy are two of today’s hottest practice areas. Chicago-based Kirkland & Ellis boasts leading practices in both fields.

Star lawyer Marc Zwillinger heads the firm’s Cyberlaw and Information Security group. Zwillinger, a national expert on hacking and other digital crimes, came to K&E in 2000 from the Justice Department’s prestigious Computer Crime and Intellectual Property section. At DOJ, Zwillinger helped coordinate the investigation into the infamous Love Bug virus—the May 2000 e-mail message with the subject line “I love you” that infected thousands of computer systems and caused billions in damages. Along with one of his former co-workers from Justice, the 31-year-old Zwillinger has built a thriving six-lawyer cyber practice at K&E. Among the group’s accomplishments: It brought the first series of civil seizure orders (under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act) to impound devices used by pirates seeking to circumvent copyright protection. And it drafted compliance plans for foreign Internet gambling Web sites to ensure that they don’t violate U.S. antigambling statutes. The lawyers have also trained in-house security staff at various corporations in how to respond to computer attacks.

James Sprayregen heads K&E’s bankruptcy group. Sprayregen (who joined the firm in 1990 and made his mark in the mid–’90s handling workouts and restructurings for Citicorp Venture Capital and Banque Paribas) has shaped the practice into one of the finest of its kind. In the past year, its client list has included boldfaced names such as TWA, W.R. Grace, Chiquita Brands, Zenith Electronics, and United Artists Theatres.

In addition to young Turks like Zwillinger and Sprayregen, K&E boasts an old Turk or two. Former Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr returned to the firm in May to pursue his Supreme Court and appellate practices.

K&E has nearly doubled in size in the past decade and now numbers 764 lawyers. The firm reviewed some 10,000 resumés between last September and early this year. About 2,000 lucky stiffs got interviews, 171 landed summer associate jobs, and 81 wound up as first-years for 2001. Bonus: The firm’s two-tiered partner system and meritocratic culture make it easier to grab the brass ring fast.

Top Five Offices | Los Angeles HQ, New York, Washington, D.C., Orange County, California, San Francisco
Total attorneys | 787
Major departments/practices | litigation, corporate, labor, media
First-year pay | $125,000
2001 summer associates | 175
2001 fall first-years | 93
Who to call | Leslie Ripley, national manager, recruiting and professional development, 213-229-7000
Web site | gibsondunn.com
Random firm-name anagram | BRUNCH COD URGENT SIN

Current Lateral Openings

“Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.” If Henry Kissinger’s famous dictum is true, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher is dead sexy. No firm is better connected to the Bush administration. Solicitor General Ted Olson—you remember, the guy who argued George W. into office—spent 33 years at Gibson before assuming his SG post. Partner Miguel Estrada has been nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals’ D.C. Circuit, a major Supreme Court feeder. And Gibson’s Eugene Scalia (Antonin’s son) has been nominated for solicitor of labor, the top legal job at the Department of Labor.

Two of the firm’s largest practice areas are corporate law and litigation. On the corporate side, recent deals include representing Intel Corporation in its $400 million acquisition of LightLogic and Northrop Grumman in its $3.8 billion acquisition of Litton Industries. In litigation, Gibson recently prevailed when a judge ruled in favor of American Airlines and dismissed an antitrust case in which the carrier was accused of driving competitors out of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport by undercutting their fares. The Justice Department is appealing.

Since 1991, Gibson’s roster of lawyers has grown by 23 percent, from 641 to 787. This fall, the firm will visit 41 campuses, seeking to hire some 145 summer associates for 2002. Want to work at a top all-around shop? Want to be a GOP playa’ someday? Try to be one of the 145.

Aiming high is so gauche. Striving to be the best, so very American. The awful burden of working for one of the top outfits in your field—and having to admit it! The horror! Please. We beg you. Steer clear of the jobs listed here. They are the prime career choices of the moment—the very positions that lead to public humiliation and private shame. Consider yourself warned.

LARGE FIRMS

Allen & Overy

Top Five Offices | London, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Brussels, Frankfurt
Total attorneys | 2,033
Major departments/practices | banking, project finance, tax
First-year pay | $125,000
2001 summer associates | 45
2001 fall first-years | 17
Who to call | Elizabeth Papas, recruitment coordinator, 212-610-6300
Web site | allenovery.com
Random firm-name anagram | REVEAL ONLY

Is “global domination” on your career to-do list? Do you believe that the borderless economy will change the world? Do you like the pubs in London? Check out what Allen & Overy has been up to lately.

For the past several years, A&O has been on a worldwide growth bender: “the project,” one Europe-based partner calls it, with James Bond élan. The 2,033-attorney firm—with such big-name international clients as Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and offices in several Bond-like locales (London, Hong Kong, New York, Moscow)—earned a spot in 2000 as one of the top two shops, in terms of the number and value of project finance deals, on the planet. That was before A&O lured attorneys from the lucrative—and growing—bankruptcy and restructuring group of New York’s Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. It was before A&O caused a stir in New York in February by grabbing senior mergers-and-acquisitions and securities partner Daniel Cunningham from Cravath, Swaine & Moore (A&O also recently landed top new partners for its Hong Kong, Madrid, and Hamburg offices). And it was before the firm advised Credit Suisse First Boston and Goldman Sachs International on one of the largest initial public offerings in the UK, in 2001. “Well done!” as Q might say.

A&O’s leading position in the trendy global law movement is itself part of the firm’s current appeal. And international transactional work gives lawyers a chance to shape new law to a degree that domestic work typically doesn’t. The fact that A&O’s largest office is in London, arguably the world’s hippest legal hub right now, also ups its heat index. This fall, A&O will recruit on U.S. law school campuses for just the sixth year. To help feed its growing need for associates—the firm’s New York office has expanded from 2 lawyers in 1985 to 60 today—A&O plans to talk to hundreds of students at 13 campuses. Last year, the firm hired 45 summer associates and 17 fall first-years.

To borrow from Q again, “Good luck, James!”

Top Five Offices | New York HQ, Washington, D.C. Chicago, Los Angeles, London
Total attorneys | 1,622
Major departments/practices | mergers and acquisitions, litigation, corporate restructuring
First-year pay | $140,000
2001 summer associates | 266
2001 fall first-years | 160
Who to call | Carol Sprague, director of legal hiring, 212-735-2076
Web site | skadden.com
Random firm-name anagram | MEEK PERSON SHALL DRAFT DAMAGES

What makes the perennially hot New York–based megafirm hot right now? Volume, volume, volume!

In 2000, Skadden handled more M&A deals than any other firm—102, to be precise, with a total value of, ho hum, $270.2 billion. Among its most notable transactions: The firm represented Citigroup in its $31 billion acquisition of Associates First Capital Corp. and Mannesmann AG in its merger with Vodafone AirTouch PLC. More recently, lawyers in the firm’s Boston and D.C. offices represented educational publisher Houghton Mifflin Company in its $2.2 billion acquisition by French media conglomerate Vivendi Universal.

In addition to M&A, Skadden boasts world-class practice groups in some of today’s busiest areas—corporate restructuring, handled primarily by the New York and Chicago offices (four of the largest 10 bankruptcies in 2000), and energy (you may have read about this issue lately), handled by the D.C. branch. Skadden vacuums up more lawyers per year than just about any other firm in the world. Last fall, it received close to 8,000 resumés, conducted some 3,500 on-campus interviews, and ultimately hired 266 summer associates. Worldwide, Skadden has grown from 160 lawyers in 1978 to more than 1,600 lawyers today. You say a Godzilla-size firm isn’t necessarily your bag? Placement experts point out that a large firm, with deep pockets and multiple diversified practice areas, ain’t a bad place to work in an uncertain economy.