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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Andrei Radu" data-source="post: 210802" data-attributes="member: 36777">Hi [USER=33134]@TonyStark[/USER] since I have gotten this type of questions a number of times, I firstly just want to make some general observations as to how I think you should go about researching them. My responses will be based on general knowledge based on reading the legal press, experience in commercial law, and sometimes some quick research using some of the sources I will list bellow. I think my experience and readings sometimes give me an opportunity to add substantial value through my input, but most parts of the answers I give will be based on the quick research I do. For the purposes of an interview or application, I think you should normally aim to do this research yourself, as it (i) will build useful skills and add depth to your understanding of the legal market; and (ii) will likely mean you can find more unique insights and form a more nuanced and accurate view of a given firm - I am unable to spend more than a 10-15 minutes on such a task. Now go through the resources I would rely on and my research methodology: <ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">First, I would start by using resources that can give me a broad overview of the firm, such as the TCLA, Law.com, and Chambers Student Firm Profiles. They will give you a good understanding of the 'type' of firm you are looking at, which will help a lot with narrowing the pool of potential competitors you are looking at. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Then, you should look at the firm's profile on Chambers UK and Legal 500 to identify what are the practice areas the firm has received good rankings for - you can generally assume those will be its areas of focus. After you have identified the main practice areas, you should look up the general rankings for each practice areas on Chambers UK and Legal 500 - this will help you identify the firms that are also well recognized for their expertise in those rankings. For US competitors, you will perhaps want to look at Vault and Chambers USA rankings as well to make more global comparisons - as in many cases, their client base for which they compete for UK mandates will greatly depend on their original client base in the US. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Finally, to differentiate the firm from other well-recognised firms in a practice area, use the legal press: articles on publications like The Lawyer, Law.com, Legal Business, Bloomberg Law, or The Global Legal Post (but also some podcasts such as The Lawyer podcast, Law, Disrupted, or Bloomberg Law) are very useful to look at comparisons between the best firms in different practice areas and sectors. For instance, in corporate M&A, you might find about the total value of deals a firm has advised on in a given period, the average value of deal they worked on, whether it has advised on lots of deals in a given sector, how much revenue the practice has generated, how much it has grown, whether it gained/lost partners through lateral hires etc - and how all of those date points compare to those of rivals. This research can definitely help in finding an a great answer to 'what makes us different' types of questions. </li> </ol>Once you have gathered all this information, you should be able to identify both competitors in core practice areas and more general US competitors; but, more importantly, this will make you able to discuss the firm in a much more convincing and impressive manner than if you had not undergone this research yourself.Finally, to come back to your initial question, I will give you the input that I think would be perhaps the biggest value-add (particularly if you do not have time and/or access to some of the legal press resources I mentioned). Skadden is known to be an elite US firm (consistently ranked in the V10) with great Transatlantic capacities (having a middle to large US office, more well developed than of most other V10 players) and is probably the leading corporate M&A firm in this space. Corporate M&A is its core area of focus, as Skadden is perhaps the one firm that has actually shaped this practice area, pioneering core parts of the field. In modern rankings, it is consistently ranked as having the among the top 3 highest total values of deals the advised on, and in many cases it is the 1st. Regarding competitors in corporate M&A, in the UK we would be looking at mainly the MC firms (particularly Slaughter and May and Freshfields), whereas for US firms this would be Latham, Sullivan & Cromwell, Cleary Gottlieb and Davis Polk.</blockquote>

Verification: Our company is called, "The Corporate ___ Academy". What is the missing word here?

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