Deal/merger litigation Forum

[Anonymous User]

Can anyone tell me what practicing in deal/merger/takeover litigation is like? Thinking about moving into that practice. It sounds exciting but there's not much information out there about working in it vs. general commercial lit. I imagine it's fast-paced, minimal discovery but what else?

[TTTooKewl]

I'm a student, and I don't know much, but I'll share what I know.

There's a few different types of deal litigation, each of which differ significantly. There's the activist side, like waging proxy contests in connection with a tender offer or, more common in recent years, in connection with influencing corporate policy (typically by hedge funds holding significant minority interests). Proxy contests in this context sometimes result in litigation. I'm not sure if this is a dedicated practice area. There's the plaintiff attorneys in Delaware who extort settlements from every public deal, although recent data suggests this field of law is drying up. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/23/busin ... zzled.html. Minimal or no discovery here, because the cases settle very quickly. And of course there's the defense side of the extortion plaintiffs.

[Anonymous User]

The minimal discovery assumption ITT is dead wrong. As a junior M&A lit associate, 75% of your job will be spent on expedited discovery in advance of hearings on motions for injunctive relief prior to a short-close deal (e.g., collecting and reviewing ~150,000 documents in advance of the PI briefing deadline one month from yesterday).

[Anonymous User]

The minimal discovery assumption ITT is dead wrong. As a junior M&A lit associate, 75% of your job will be spent on expedited discovery in advance of hearings on motions for injunctive relief prior to a short-close deal (e.g., collecting and reviewing ~150,000 documents in advance of the PI briefing deadline one month from yesterday).

This. M+A lit is fun for partners or for the senior associates that work directly with them (a lot of client contact, interesting war stories, get to see the business side of things somewhat more than your average lit partner) but for juniors it is discovery hell. One month is charitable for a lot of Delaware judges.