There is no culture of PPO. You may need to be in personal contact of a partner to gain visibility as an intern. The work culture is okayish except for 2-3 seniors who had pushed many of us to leave the organisation. The pay is not at par with market standards. It is a decent place for a fresher or A1 to gain experience in corporate work.
D&D does not have any formal recruitment policy. There is no system to consider past interns for any suitable vaccancies. So, having done one or multiple internships does not give you any advantage. You might get lucky if a suitable vaccancy arises at the same time when you send your application, otherwise just forget it.
Payscale would not be the correct term to discuss wages at D&D. Because there are no rules/formula in place to properly determine a compensation structure. In any case the wages are way below the normal industry standards (considering there are no rules, you might get a respectable deal if you have some personal connections or other similar leverage). There's also an annual bonus component but that's always delayed by several months (don't be surprised if you get it in the subsequent cycle). Most possibly, you will leave the firm before getting the bonus.
Also, D&D does not offer any clear career progression roadmap. You will certainly be disappointed if you are expecting promotions as per the industry standards.
Talking about the work culture. D&D follows a work pooling approach. So, you will be reporting to 3-4 partners simultaneously. If that's a turn off for you then don't consider the job.
Coming to the team distinctions, there is a separate disputes team. Corporate team is more like a miscellaneous/sundry jobs team in practice. As a member of corporate team your job shall be to deal with everything under the sun which is not purely disputes (most of the times it will be labour laws, environment laws, regulatory laws, and property laws, along with some transactions and DDs from time to time).
(Survival tip for freshers: You can think of your D&D job as an extended paid internship, which is anyday better than your previous unpaid ones.)
If you have the knowledge to crack interviews then a big yes.
T1 firms are always on the lookout to hire T2 associates with good levels of knowledge so that they can discount their experience and save some cost by hiring them as freshers while they have one year of experience.
They pay is not good.
Payscale would not be the correct term to discuss wages at D&D. Because there are no rules/formula in place to properly determine a compensation structure. In any case the wages are way below the normal industry standards (considering there are no rules, you might get a respectable deal if you have some personal connections or other similar leverage). There's also an annual bonus component but that's always delayed by several months (don't be surprised if you get it in the subsequent cycle). Most possibly, you will leave the firm before getting the bonus.
Also, D&D does not offer any clear career progression roadmap. You will certainly be disappointed if you are expecting promotions as per the industry standards.
Talking about the work culture. D&D follows a work pooling approach. So, you will be reporting to 3-4 partners simultaneously. If that's a turn off for you then don't consider the job.
Coming to the team distinctions, there is a separate disputes team. Corporate team is more like a miscellaneous/sundry jobs team in practice. As a member of corporate team your job shall be to deal with everything under the sun which is not purely disputes (most of the times it will be labour laws, environment laws, regulatory laws, and property laws, along with some transactions and DDs from time to time).
(Survival tip for freshers: You can think of your D&D job as an extended paid internship, which is anyday better than your previous unpaid ones.)
T1 firms are always on the lookout to hire T2 associates with good levels of knowledge so that they can discount their experience and save some cost by hiring them as freshers while they have one year of experience.