King & Spalding LLP - The Inside View

If any monarch wants to stay popular with the people, they need to keep with the times. Fortunately, that's something that this particular King recognizes. Partner Tracie Renfroe tells us King & Spalding is focusing on its “efforts towards innovation in our practices. I like to think of what we do as constantly evolving and innovating our practice areas to meet client demand.” It's also drawing in applause from the junior associate crowds, who told us they were drawn to this particular King to “get involved in opportunities at the cutting edge of issues in different fields.”

"Opportunities at the cutting edge of issues in different fields.”

One good example of this is the recently formed global human capital compliance [GHCC] practice. “They’re historically labor and employment issues, but it’s evolved to something very different,” Renfroe explains. "Multinational global companies need strategies to manage workforces on a global scale. So GHCC is a really cool practice that caters to the needs of these companies with workforces all over the world and navigates workplace regulatory regimes in those jurisdictions. That team is innovative – there’s a lot of excitement around what they’re doing."

The Atlantan giant offers a trifecta of practices: litigation & arbitration (namely products liability and class actions); government matters & investigations; and corporate/commercial work. Though historically best known for its disputes practice, Renfroe tells us that “the balance between trial disputes, corporate and government matters has shifted in a way that makes us a stronger firm overall.” Chambers USA ranks the firm highly nationwide for its work in areas such as international trade, government relations, corporate crime & investigations, product liability, life sciences compliance, healthcare, corporate/M&A, and capital markets. It gains additional rankings in Georgia for its litigation, environment, bankruptcy/restructuring and banking & finance work, among many others. K&S also gains worldwide rankings in Chambers Global for its work in projects & energy and Islamic finance.

Strategy & Future

For many of our interviewees, the firm’s “tremendous growth” was a significant pull factor. February 2022 saw the opening of K&S’s Miami office. Renfroe tells us: “We’re so excited to now be there. We’re opening with a very robust office – a nice mix of our three major practice areas: litigation and international arbitration, corporate and government matters. All three from day one.” She adds that “it’s an incredible gateway to Central and South America where we handle a large amount of international arbitration for clients in Latin American countries or doing business in Latin American countries.” The office will also get involved in some meaty government work. As Renfroe tells us: “One of my K&S colleagues is a former congressman from Florida and he’s going to be anchoring our government matters practice there.”

The Work

Of the 90 plus juniors on our list, Atlanta housed around a third, with New York and DC taking in a hefty chunk each. Less than five could be found in the Austin, Charlotte, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Northern Virginia, San Francisco and Silicon Valley offices. All associates are split between three main groups: corporate, finance & investments; government matters; and trial & global disputes. Groups tend to have a formal staffing partner “whose job it is to make sure work is being funneled to us.” Though as time goes on, juniors can expect to find work “coming through partners based on relationships built – it’s more organic.”

“A lot of exposure to the clients and opposing counsel.”

Corporate, finance & investments housed almost half of juniors on our list. Subgroups include: corporate; finance & restructuring; funds; real estate finance; project finance; and tax & executive compensation. Junior associates used to do a rotation to find where within corporate suited them best, “but that ended due to Covid. For now, they’re just placing people into groups directly instead.”The project finance group tackles a lot of renewable energy financing “which is really interesting and works with different groups all over the world,” sources highlighted. General corporate handles M&A, securities and capital markets work, working closely with equity investments. Juniors across corporate function in “very lean teams.” This means there’s “a lot of exposure to the clients and opposing counsel.” One source emphasized that “I’ve not been hidden away in the back.” Day-to-day tasks include anything from conducting diligence to “drafting key loan documents from scratch.”

Corporate clients: Under Armor, Rockstar, MailChimp, Global Payments. Recently advised Sharecard in its $3.9 billion combination with Falcon Capital Acquisition Corp, resulting in its listing on NASDAQ.

The government practice covers environment, antitrust, health & safety, FDA, and healthcare work, as well as ‘special matters’ – “basically a fancy way of saying white-collar government investigations with the DOJ and FCC.” Juniors here get staffed specifically into their sub-groups, but experience “a lot of cross sub-practice working where each case has multiple groups on it.” The enigmatically named special matters group is highly present in DC, with other team members spread across the country. The team covers two main types of matters: internal investigations commissioned by the FCC or DOJ and internal investigations commissioned by a company itself. “We run investigations as an unbiased third party, which consists of conducting interviews and fielding insight from lots of different people.” The government investigations then require the team to “produce documents and talk to the government to explain our client’s side of the story and why no wrongdoing took place.” Juniors here are responsible for keeping notes and conducting doc review. They also get to help write interview outlines and lucky ones get to ask the questions.

Government team clients: Volkswagen, Nike, Equifax. Recently represented investment advisers ExWorks Capital when its former CEO was alleged to have made fraudulent misrepresentations and stolen a Paycheck Protection program.

“We cover everything from medical devices and medications to cars..."

The trial and global disputes team houses two main areas: product liability and business litigation. There’s also work in IP, international arbitration, tort & environmental, securities litigation, and shareholder litigation. Juniors can sample areas of work and “take yourself to the places you want.” Product liability helps clients in industries such as automotive, pharma, healthcare, and insurance, with Atlanta gaining a lot of work in the tobacco industry. “We cover everything from medical devices and medications to cars and anything else that people have allegedly been harmed by.” The work here can be “personal and can be emotional. People’s lives have been changed and you’re having to deal with that.” Common junior tasks include “managing discovery, filing through databases, drafting motions, and filing and all the things leading up to a trial – though most of the time cases tend to settle out of court.” Business litigation covers a lot of class actions and disputes where customers are affected by a business’s actions. Here, juniors can expect to put together deposition outlines and take many depositions themselves. They also get to do the initial draft of pleadings and motions to dismiss. Of course, across subgroups “everyone has to do some doc review,” it’s the nature of the beast.

Trial & global disputes clients:  Delta Airlines, Deloitte, Emory University, Coca Cola. Recently defended Capital One in a class action matter arising from a data breach incident involving the compromise of 98 million customers in the US.

Pro Bono

K&S is home to “tons of pro bono opportunities of different types, complexities, and lengths,” sources made clear. “There’s something for everyone.” Juniors reported on chances to work on matters spanning civil rights, domestic violence, immigration, and non-profit organizations. The firm officially gives 100 billable pro bono hours, “but if you exceed that you can get credit once the pro bono partner approves it.”

“It’s cool to get a change of pace.”

Pro bono is a “big part of the culture here,” sources reiterated. “Everybody that I talk to is either working on an active project or has worked on several recently. That ranges from juniors associate to senior partners.” Needless to say, partners “encourage” pro bono and were even described as “zealous.” One source described pro bono as “a great opportunity for me to take on complicated matters early – it’s cool to get a change of pace and a great experience bringing justice to individuals.”

Pro bono hours

• For all US attorneys:  46,541
• Average per US attorney:  40.7

Hours & Compensation

Billable hours: 1,950 required for bonus

The billing target exists for bonus purposes only – “there’s no requirement, just a soft expectation.” The 2021 class had their hours pro-rated after starting late due to Covid-related Bar exam delays.Interviewees told us it’s “quite common” to exceed the billing target – the highest we heard of was 2,200. Regionally, we heard that “folks in the California offices will meet the threshold and then slow down. But in Atlanta you tend to meet the threshold in October and then keep pushing.” In our latest associate survey, respondents had worked an average of 56 hours in the past week, just slightly over the market average. However, this is offset by the fact that they had also taken more vacation days on average than the market.

"I've never missed a dinner or birthday party if I can make up that time elsewhere.”

On a daily basis, many told us they’re able to “finish by 7pm most days,” with one source adding “that doesn’t mean I’m fully logged off, I’ll still check my emails in the evening.” Work-life balance was rated highly: “There’s flexibility. I don’t work weekends and have never missed a dinner or birthday party if I can make up that time elsewhere.” However, the sentiment wasn’t universal. Those in the corporate groups including M&A, capital markets, and banking were working markedly longer hours than their peers in litigation, and as such were more likely to report negatively on their work-life balance.

Despite salary grumbles in the past, K&S’s recent pay bumps have matched all offices with market salaries.“It’s very generous. We’re compensated fairly and have a good bonus system to reflect the busy year.” Associates that meet the 1,950 threshold are eligible for their bonus, which is based on class year. For those billing higher, there are “thresholds that give a larger bonus proportional to hours.” Though business development hours aren’t automatically billable, “there’s an ambiguity, so if you’re vocal about it you can get them counted in a discretionary way.”

Culture

It’s no secret that BigLaw life “can get intense – but the people here are very understanding, collaborative, and want to help. We’re fundamentally a firm made up of good people who want to do the right thing by our colleagues.” One source reported: “In this era of having to be on camera, people can tell if you’re not acting like you normally would and ask if you’re OK.” Most interviewees were doing a blend of home and office working, but even before Zoom life began “we loved cross-office working,” one enthusiastic junior shared, adding that “the firm embraces the idea of community.”

Accordingly, we were told that the firm is “hesitant to say that Atlanta is the headquarters and the flagship,” as “offices are connecting constantly.” In CFI, an email goes out whenever a deal closes “saying what happened and who was involved, so you can get to see what colleagues are doing across offices and departments.” We did hear of some regional differences. For example, California offices reportedly had a reputation for “two-hour lunches and a Cali lifestyle in general,” whereas DC juniors were “really excited” about an upcoming office renovation. K&S’s New Yorkers reckoned they were “very relaxed compared to other New York firms,” citing a “wear what you want” policy as evidence.

Career Development

Juniors told us that K&S “do a great job of training us up and helping us on our career paths” through “several formal and informal resources.” A personal career development budget gives each junior up to $3,000 per year to use on “any training or conferences that may be of interest to you. All you need is approval from a partner.” Mentorship is another formal element of support at K&S, with juniors being given mid-to-senior level associate ‘links’ from the moment they join “who can answer any and all questions you have.” Formal partner mentors are also assigned, who “you can talk to about development – it’s encouraged a lot.”

“A place you can stay for a long time.”

Partners place an “emphasis on developing your own pathway as an attorney,” our insiders relayed, adding that “there’s no push for us to specify or to get pigeon-holed into an area of practice if you don’t want.” Because of this, interviewees told us that K&S is “a place you can stay for a long time.” A monthly newsletter tells of everyone’s work anniversaries – “it’s not uncommon to see people who’ve been here 20, 30 or even 40 years. It makes me feel like I’ve chosen the right place.” Anyone that leaves “tends not to go to another Biglaw firm,” sources agreed.

Diversity ,Equity & Inclusion

Sources felt that K&S had “a strong commitment to furthering diversity, but at the same time they recognize there is work to be done.” One junior summarized: “The general diversity efforts appear normal and appropriate for a large firm - they’re not overwhelming or outsized, but I don’t feel like a token or appreciated only during a specific month of the year. I think the firm strikes a healthy balance.” The firm offers a diversity scholarship, though some felt “there needs to be more than just one per office per year as it feels like we are setting ourselves up to only have one or two diverse candidates per class.” However, we were told that there was flexibility on this for the right candidate.We were also told thata diversity conference was held in 2021 where “they had different panels and brought in speakers to speak about diversity and how we as diverse attorneys can navigate the industry.”

Affinity groups include a women's, racial, and LGBTQ+ group which function to “discuss key issues faced by associates and to find mentors that are relatable people.” The groups also help plan events for cultural heritage celebrations and internal education programming. One junior told us that “you can join the leadership committee of an affinity group to help make change after two years of being a member.”

Get Hired

The first stage: recruitment on and off campus

K&S holds OCIs at over 30 colleges across the country, as well as a number of law fairs. Washington, DC hiring partner John Fontham tells us that the firm sees between 20 and 100 students at each campus, depending on their size. Interviews are held by two attorneys and cover a lot of ground with questions assessing “intellectual horsepower, client service focus, interpersonal skills and relationship building and practice group preference.” Fontham advises interviewees to “show that you are well rounded and intellectually curious with a demonstrated record of achievement.” He adds that K&S looks for candidates who “convey authenticity in their interviews and who have a genuine interest in our firm. They're the ones who tend to succeed, and we are not looking for hypercompetitive candidates or big egos –  this is not a firm of sharp elbows.” Associate sources in the firm’s home city of Atlanta advised interviewees that “you need to articulate why you want to be here. Sometimes people are so focused on getting the job that they lose their awareness of where they are geographically.”

Top tips for this stage:

"We value diversity. Talk about your unique life and work experiences and how those will help you stand apart from your peers and succeed at King & Spalding." – Washington, D.C. hiring partner John Fontham.

Callbacks

Successful interviewees are invited back for a session that generally consists of “four to six interviews with attorneys and either a lunch or a reception afterwards,” according to Fontham. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, callbacks were conducted remotely during the Winter 2021 recruiting cycle, using a web-based video conferencing system.

Fontham describes the questions at this stage as “more behavioral in nature than during OCIs, but candidates can still expect a conversational interview style. We are looking for much of the same things we sought in the OCI phase, but now expect a deeper level of knowledge about our firm and interest in it.” He adds that the “ability to connect with our people and a demonstrated interest in our firm” at this stage is “even more important than during OCIs.” Associates told us: “We’ve turned down several people with stellar credentials who we feel wouldn’t command a room or be as personable as others. If I were speaking to a lateral or new attorney, I would only recommend them here if they want to help manage clients and win new clients and represent the firm.”

Top tips for this stage:

"Candidates who have a strong sense of their goals and how King & Spalding will help them to achieve those goals will do well."— Washington, DC hiring partner John Fontham.

Summer program

Acceptances: 89

K&S hosted 70 summer associates across the US in 2020. Summer associates indicate their practice area preferences before the summer and are then assigned a variety of work across their chosen areas. Fontham explains that summer associates “work closely with summer and work coordinators who are tasked with making the summer experience a rewarding one. We also supplement our summer program with substantive training, seminars, and panels, and client site visits and lunches.” 

While the firm’s 2020 summer program was completely virtual, Fontham notes some of the unique opportunities available to summer associates during a typical summer: “In June, our summer associates meet in a single locale for a firm-wide mock negotiation and witness interview exercise and networking reception.” Summers also get to visit and work from another office in the firm’s network through ‘Connect K&S’, which according to Fontham “allows summer associates to see how we connect the dots inside the firm to deliver solutions to our clients’ complex legal issues.”

Top tips for this stage:

"Be intellectually curious: we hire bright lawyers who want to learn and challenge themselves. We value summer associates who develop innovative ways to solve problems and are responsive to the needs of the supervising attorneys and their clients. Even as a summer associate, we expect that you will perform at a high level when met with challenging work." — Washington, DC hiring partner John Fontham.

And finally…

Fontham tells us: “We have a full-time position available for every summer associate who joins our program, and we expect that each of them will earn an offer to return. In 2020, our summer offer rate was 100%.”

Interview with Houston office managing partner, Tracie Renfroe

Chambers Associate: What have been the key developments for King & Spalding in the past 12 months?

Tracie Renfroe: I have to say it was a blockbuster year for us. Despite the challenges with being two years into the pandemic and the turbulent markets where we have focus, we grew in all of the major metrics we pay attention to. We grew revenues by more than 20%. We grew our headcount. In almost every office we added more lawyers on a net basis. And we’re super pleased to have promoted 48 lawyers around the world – 32 to partner and 16 to counsel – in 16 different cities around the world on our platform. So not only are we growing but we’re promoting at a very healthy rate, which is very exciting.

As a firm we grew in a really compelling way. We saw both growth in revenues and people across the board. In addition to that we’ve grown in the sophistication of the matters we’re handling. Both across the disputes side of the house as well as in transactional practices. And then we’ve always had a special matters government matters practice that’s done super high-profile stuff. Unfortunately, we can’t talk about that very much due to its nature but it’s continued to also grow in terms of sophistication

CA: Tell us a little bit about the Miami office opening.

TR: We’re starting the year with a really exciting development: the opening of our Miami office in February. It's a hot market and we've been looking at Miami for a long time.  We’re so excited to now be there. We’re opening with a very robust office – a nice mix of our three major practice areas: litigation and international arbitration, corporate and government matters. All three from day one.

Miami has a tremendous amount of litigation in one of our sweet spots. We do a lot of trial work in the consumer products area, it’s one thing we’re known for in the disputes space. We’ve been trying cases in Florida for decades now and it made sense to open an office because we have so many people barred in Florida and on the ground there. And Miami is such an incredible gateway to central and south America where we handle a large amount of international arbitration for clients in Latin American countries or doing business in Latin American countries.

Then there are also interesting transaction opportunities in Florida across the board. It’s such a huge growth space – and when there’s growth there’s demand on the transactional side. We’ve been doing government matters and enforcement work there for a number of years and have some great relationships in Florida. One of my K&S colleagues is a former congressman from Florida and he’s going to be anchoring our government matters practice there as well. So, we’ve been doing business in Florida for many years and now it seems like a perfect time to go in and open an office.

Lots of people have been volunteering to go out to Miami. It’s very exciting and a lot of our lawyers from different offices are going to spend time there. There are lots of client contacts opportunities there.

CA: How has the pandemic affected firm culture?

TR: In 2021 we saw a nice momentum building for people returning to the office. Our culture is very much a collaboration and people-focused culture and that works best when you’re together. We thrive and pride ourselves on working together across teams so we really like to put together a bespoke team for every matter for our client. It’s not a cookie-cutter approach and it’s exactly what we need in particular situations. The benefits are for our clients and it also results in a whole lot of integration of our lawyers working together in ways that make us unique.

We saw really incredible, talented associates joining the firm in 2021  and they’re coming into the office. They’re eager to get into a legal practice environment work setting and experience that. It’s been so exciting to see such talented young lawyers join us even though we couldn’t have the traditional recruiting programs.

We worked remotely during the pandemic very effectively and we’ll continue to have the flexibility to do that as appropriate for client, firm, and personal needs.    But there are no questions about it – we’re really excited we can start working in offices together again on a regular basis. It’s our culture to connect – we really like being together. And we’re so strong in our mentoring and associate training programs. I was just in a great meeting with associates and partners and the brainstorming is more spontaneous in person – you can’t put a price on that.

CA: What is the firm focusing on in 2022?

TR: We’re continuing to really increase our efforts towards innovation in our practices. I like to think of what we do as constantly evolving and innovating our practice areas to meet client demand. One of those examples is our Global Human Capital and Compliance practice. It’s fairly new to our firm and we grew it significantly in 2021 by adding more teams in that specialty area to serve clients all over the globe. They’re historically labor and employment issues but it’s evolved to something very different. Multi-national global companies need strategies to manage workforces on global scale. So GHCC is a really cool practice that caters to the needs of these companies with workforces all over the world and navigates workplace regulatory regimes in those jurisdictions. That team is innovative – there’s a lot of excitement around what they’re doing. 2022 is going to see big initiatives as that team continues to grow its offering for clients. We’re trying to anticipate the future and get there before our clients get there.

In addition, we plan to continue to diversify our practice mix. One of the things that makes us different is we have such a strong disputes practice globally. Most firms our size that’s not their core strength. But it’s been a core strength of ours from the beginning. Our transaction practice has grown so quickly that the balance between trial disputes, corporate and government matters has shift in a way that makes us a stronger firm overall.  The strength of all of our practices creates more opportunities for younger people. Across those three practices, we collaborate and when we do that we get more business that’s more sophisticated and it creates more opportunities for the associates. I can tell you the brand new associates in this office are working on Fortune 10 company matters. And one just got back from a month-long arbitration hearing in London after only being here about five months. Imagine that brand new, first-year lawyer.

CA: What can people expect to see from the firm in the next five years?

TR: We have a core strategy of continuing to grow the scale of our premiere elite practices and continuing to grow the profitability of the firm. So the stronger we get, the more elite talent we can attract and the more opportunities we can create for our more junior talent. That aspect of our strategy has served us very well and will continue to be our strategy going forward. What I see happening in the next three to five years is continuing to strengthen and expand internationally. Our offices are in major markets and we’ve made growth outside the US a priority. We want to strengthen those offices and attract top talent. London is a good example – it’s a challenging market and we have incredible talent there, but we want more of it. We’re growing in the technology and energy sectors and as the energy transition continues to evolve, we’ll be right there with it. We’re doing energy transition work all over the world and it’s remarkable to see that happen. That goes hand in hand with technology.

On the cultural side, the diversity initiatives at our firm have been strong in the past and we’re making them even stronger now. The commitment here is really profound and you’ll continue to see us diversify our lawyer population even more over the coming years. It’s in our DNA so much so that we have so many initiatives to make sure we’re providing the very best workplace for the most diverse workforce we can. It’s exciting to see what we’ve accomplished and where we’re going. Every single person no matter their background they must feel super comfortable, thrive and develop into the lawyer they want to be.