Your experience in Defense group is highly dependent on who your managing partner is. Good work-life balance. Manageable case load. Fellow associates generally nice and willing to help. Secondment program allows you to take a week long work trip to another Kennedys office anywhere in the globe and learn about foreign legal system. Depending on your team, you can handle some really interesting cases that even go outside of ID realm.
Cons
Support staff sucks. Management doesn't want to invest in support staff. Pay is not the best. NY firm is a bit siloed. Its still ID work so it can get miserable at times. Sometimes firm culture can be a bit catty - lots of people talking behind your back and you gotta watch what you say to certain folks.