Investment Banking to Law? Forum

[cluelessbanker]

I'm a mid-level M&A/PE associate at a top firm. I'd really like to hear what you think would be interesting about working on the legal side of M&A deals (I could use a good laugh).

From what I've read online, corporate lawyers want to make sure that large M&A transactions, IPOs, or other sorts of corporate "events" will be legal and that a party on either side of the transaction won't be hammered with millions or even billions of dollars worth of lawsuits after the event takes place. To me, that sounds like the lawyers play a very instrumental role in the deal, as without the expertise of the lawyers, parties could be liable to these lawsuits, and it's this "defender" aspect of being a lawyer that makes it sound appealing. I've also heard that lawyers have to focus very intently on individual words and details in contracts and spend countless hours reviewing hundred page long documents. That doesn't sound like too much fun, but the impact it has on the deal (where even one misplaced or forgotten word could mean tremendous legal liabilities for the client) makes the work done by corporate attorneys seem very meaningful and interesting, to some extent.

Of course, my above understanding may be completely naive and far off from what actually happens on a day to day basis.

[Yulilo]

I'm a mid-level M&A/PE associate at a top firm. I'd really like to hear what you think would be interesting about working on the legal side of M&A deals (I could use a good laugh).

From what I've read online, corporate lawyers want to make sure that large M&A transactions, IPOs, or other sorts of corporate "events" will be legal and that a party on either side of the transaction won't be hammered with millions or even billions of dollars worth of lawsuits after the event takes place. To me, that sounds like the lawyers play a very instrumental role in the deal, as without the expertise of the lawyers, parties could be liable to these lawsuits, and it's this "defender" aspect of being a lawyer that makes it sound appealing. I've also heard that lawyers have to focus very intently on individual words and details in contracts and spend countless hours reviewing hundred page long documents. That doesn't sound like too much fun, but the impact it has on the deal (where even one misplaced or forgotten word could mean tremendous legal liabilities for the client) makes the work done by corporate attorneys seem very meaningful and interesting, to some extent.

Of course, my above understanding may be completely naive and far off from what actually happens on a day to day basis.

You've nailed the job description of an M&A Lawyer. Aside from structuring the transaction, lawyers are chiefly responsible for balancing risks between the parties, which means documenting the transaction to the finest detail. I'm speculating, but the above poster is probably one of the many M&A attorneys who went to law school for the wrong reasons and are better suited for the business side. Lawyers do play an important role in any transaction,(we're not fucking accountants after all), but the work is certainly not for everyone. BUT like the others said, if you enjoy banking, it's probably not worth the debt and three years of lost income to become a lawyer.

[dabigchina]

That doesn't sound like too much fun, but the impact it has on the deal (where even one misplaced or forgotten word could mean tremendous legal liabilities for the client) makes the work done by corporate attorneys seem very meaningful and interesting, to some extent.

Right, but clients rarely (see: never) care about the corner cases that lawyers run up the bill arguing over.

[rgwen]

For those that are working on the legal side of corporate finance, do you feel you have a enough understanding of the actual transactions to feel like you understand your impact? I currently work in IB, but on the S&T side and fairly regularly deal with our lawyers. I can tell that many of them very understandably don't have a sound understanding of trading (derivates are complicated...) or trading vehicles (so are electronic trading/algos).

I think it would be frustrating to work countless hours on docs and not really fully understand the larger picture. Transitioning to law, I know I don't want to work on the legal side of what I am doing now and would be worried if I went corporate that I'd find myself in a similar boat in any other space. As a result, I think I'm more interested in litigation as it seems to be event driven with each side needing to dig deep into the topic to prove their position is correct.

[anonbanker]

For those that are working on the legal side of corporate finance, do you feel you have a enough understanding of the actual transactions to feel like you understand your impact? I currently work in IB, but on the S&T side and fairly regularly deal with our lawyers. I can tell that many of them very understandably don't have a sound understanding of trading (derivates are complicated...) or trading vehicles (so are electronic trading/algos).

I think it would be frustrating to work countless hours on docs and not really fully understand the larger picture. Transitioning to law, I know I don't want to work on the legal side of what I am doing now and would be worried if I went corporate that I'd find myself in a similar boat in any other space. As a result, I think I'm more interested in litigation as it seems to be event driven with each side needing to dig deep into the topic to prove their position is correct.

All this is fair but I would argue applies to the IB side as well. I sell companies that I don't have a very sound understanding of, and that's totally fine.

I have my discrete area of expertise, and when I need a tax answer I go to the tax guy, a marketing answer the marketing guy, and so on. We're all specialists to some extent, and I suspect that would be true on the litigation side as well

[RedGiant]

@cluelessbanker

I was a banking analyst, then worked at Cravath as a legal assistant, then went to b-school, then was a hedge fund trader, then was a paralegal, finally went to law school at 34 and am 40 and in-house after a few years in biglaw.

I was very on the fence about a JD/MBA. I always was both a fuzzy and a techie. I can do numbers, I can do words.

First, because you are an incoming banking analyst, you should give banking a fair shake. You may like it more than you think. There's lots of flavors of finance--cap mkts, FP&A, banking, PE, prop trading, etc.

Second, if you do find you're more jazzed by the legal docs that describe your deals and not the excel models, maybe law school is for you.

I have always done transactional law. I understand nearly any type of deal put in front of me nowadays because I have a deep finance background. My background is valuable and valued.

There are some very, very cool subsets of law (restructuring, vulture investing, bankruptcy) where having a deep understanding of both law and finance is essential. Keep your eyes out for these things. Read Money Stuff by Matt Levine--he's a finance-JD guy (ex-GS, ex-Wachtell).

Don't listen to the 20 year olds on these boards who are telling you that you're crazy. You're not. There's a path for you.

Know that my (few) friends who stayed in finance are absolutely millionaires, and I am not. But I make excellent money and have a decent quality of life.

Keep your options open and definitely chat with every JD/MBA you come across. I got some excellent advice by tapping my (nascent) network.

Best of luck. If you can figure out how to PM, feel free to do so over the next few years.

[Necho2]

For those that are working on the legal side of corporate finance, do you feel you have a enough understanding of the actual transactions to feel like you understand your impact? I currently work in IB, but on the S&T side and fairly regularly deal with our lawyers. I can tell that many of them very understandably don't have a sound understanding of trading (derivates are complicated...) or trading vehicles (so are electronic trading/algos).

I think it would be frustrating to work countless hours on docs and not really fully understand the larger picture. Transitioning to law, I know I don't want to work on the legal side of what I am doing now and would be worried if I went corporate that I'd find myself in a similar boat in any other space. As a result, I think I'm more interested in litigation as it seems to be event driven with each side needing to dig deep into the topic to prove their position is correct.

This is a relatively small niche, but NY/Chi prop trading firms and the law firms that support them have a fairly small number of attorneys who know this shit inside and out. It's very geographically limited, but if you like law-style practice and want to dig into the specifics of this type of work there's definitely a regulatory/litigation blend that's appropriate, but you'd need to affirmatively seek it out, and probably target firms that do this particular work rather than have the highest Vault rating.

And again, if you're happy to stay in those areas, there's a pretty solid in-house network where this domain specific expertise is valuable.