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I'll be at a V100 this summer where I can pick and choose projects that interest me and then declare a specialty later on. I'm far more interested in transactional work as opposed to litigation. I can see myself doing M&A work but I've only taken corporations and not securities regulation.

I've noticed that asdociates and partners who do M&A work also tend to be involved in securities - my question is that is it possible to do M&A work without doing securities work? May be a stupid question but I wasn't sure if it was possible to do either/or.

Also, would I be at a disadvantage this summer if I have not yet taken securities regulation?

You won't be at a disadvantage for not taking Sec Reg. No one is going to expect you to know anything. It might be slightly helpful to know certain terms people are throwing around without having to ask them what they mean, but that's what Google is for.

Also, I'm not sure what you mean by securities work. I doubt there is any transactional practice that doesn't involve securities to some degree, especially M&A. I do suggest taking Sec Reg at some point if you plan on doing transactional work.

Okay, I think the first responder was confused about the question. Yeah, every transactional practice will "involve" securities. I think OP is distinguishing between capital markets and M&A. At plenty of firms, the M&A group is its own group and the lawyers there only do M&A. Others have a general corporate practice where associates do both M&A and cap markets.