Legal News

How I Made Partner at . . . Boies Schiller: ?Get Out of the Weeds?

By Dan Slater

When David Boies made his speedy departure from Cravath, Swaine & Moore in 1997 to start his own firm, he immediately brought in his son, Chris, a former Sullivan & Cromwell lawyer, to help launch a corporate department at Boies, Schiller & Flexner.

Eleven years later, the corporate side of BSF — which is still thought of as primarily a litigation shop — continues to grow, albeit slowly. There are 27 lawyers. This year, the group made a new partner: 30 year-old Mike Huang, who arrived at BSF just three years ago via Taiwan, Berkeley (’99), Columbia law school (’02), and, coincidentally, Cravath — making him a sixth-year associate.

We spoke with Huang earlier this week, shortly after he returned from the firm’s annual jaunt to Jamaica.

Hi Mike. First of all, congrats. Did you know you’d made partner prior to the Jamaica trip?

I found out beforehand that I was being put up. But they have the vote down there, so once the vote was announced it was a surprise. The results weren’t determined until everyone raised their hand.

Did you get to enjoy Jamaica?

Yes. But sometimes, unfortunately, you have to work down there. That’s standard. We’re always available to our clients, no matter where we are.

Are you a “I always knew I wanted to be a lawyer” kind of person?

No. [Laughter] The real story is that I had no idea I wanted to go to law school until my junior year in college. I was an engineering major at Berkeley, and it was during the dot-com boom, so I thought I’d maybe go to Intel or a company like that, but I didn’t know for sure. Then I had a conversation with a history teacher from high school. He asked me what I wanted to do when I graduated. I said I didn’t know. So he said, at the end of the day, if you can’t think of anything, give law a try.

So how’d an engineering guy find his way to M&A?

After summering at a litigation boutique in San Francisco, I decided litigation wasn’t for me. Then I went to Cravath for my second summer of law school. That was the first time I ever did what, at that point, they called a deal. No one ever explained to you what a deal was until you did one. Back then, they told me I had to go to a closing. I said, what’s a closing?

Seems like you picked it up pretty quickly.

Even now, in interviews, when I’m asked what corporate law is like, I say it’s like an apprenticeship. You learn everything on the job.

How did Cravath partners feel about you joining Davis Boies’s firm?

A couple of the partners at Cravath I talked to had nothing but nice things to say about David.

I enjoyed my time at Cravath. I left not because of Cravath but because of Boies Schiller. [Cravath] asked me to think about staying. But I was excited about the opportunity to be part of this growing corporate practice. And from a work perspective there wasn’t much of a difference.

Got any advice for associates out there who aim to make partner by 30?

Well, in corporate work, you start off in the weeds — at a granular level — on any transaction you work on. It’s hard to step back and see what’s really going on. What’s the business deal being cut? What does the client want? For me that was hard. And it’s not like you have a business background from law school. So what I had to do is not only do the day-to-day work, like making sure there are no typos and that the the documents are conformed, but also take the time to try to understand what’s going on. That’s not necessarily a task you’re asked to do.

What’s the longest you’ve ever worked without sleep?

At Cravath I once pulled three all-nighters in a row.

You think you’ll sleep more or less now that you’ve made partner?

[Laughter] I don’t know. Now that I have a chance to reflect on it while I’m talking to you, I don’t think it’ll change my life much. It’s not a pit stop or an end goal. We’re going to continue to move along.

OK, Mike. Good luck.

Thanks.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on December 18, 2008 (boomark / email).