Corporate firms in CT Forum

[Anonymous User]

Considering a move from NYC to CT for family reasons. Wanted to get a sense of the CT legal market with respect to corporate shops (specifically M&A). Would be great if someone can provide a list of top firms in CT.

[Anonymous User]

The most sophisticated/complex M&A work is probably done by a firm called Finn Dixon. Starting salary is around 155k. Biggest firm overall is Day Pitney. Other firms to look at are Shipman, Wiggan and Dana, and Robinson & Cole. There are a few other firms in Hartford but I don't know a lot about them.

[Anonymous User]

Agree with the above about Finn Dixon. I interviewed there and a lot of the associates are former V10 associates who wanted some downtime. They said Finn Dixon is still very demanding because it still has large ($500m+) deals.

[Anonymous User]

I've worked across from Shipman on multiple deals. They were very good. Not to sound like a snob, but they knew their $hit. You should def have them on your list.

[FND]

I've worked across from Shipman on multiple deals. They were very good. Not to sound like a snob, but they knew their $hit. You should def have them on your list.

not a snob comment. I know a lot of attorneys who don't know their $hit. I know plenty of attorneys who miss tiny little things. And I also know plenty of attorneys who aren't all that smart.
In a transactional setting, that means there are a million little things you can do to make life a lot better for your client without opposing counsel ever realizing what you've done. (the kind of things that don't matter immediately, but if things go wrong, can have a huge impact).

I've also on multiple occasions had to fix stupid stuff done by other attorneys. And that includes the biggest biglaw firms making silly mistakes. Once upon a time I had to spend a week figuring out how to save a deal, because the prior (very prestigious) law firm had missed a chain-of-title issue, so one of the assets in the portfolio might have been unmarketable/toxic, and it was an all-or-nothing situation for our buyer.

Worst for me was where an attorney had screwed up on a rather simple matter that affected many parties, one of which retained me. Said attorney didn't realize he screwed up, and was resisting every solution that I was offering. I was doing my utmost best to prevent lawsuits, and I know that once those started flying, the attorney who screwed up would be sued. Pretty sure said attorney is now 'retired'

[1styearlateral]

I've worked across from Shipman on multiple deals. They were very good. Not to sound like a snob, but they knew their $hit. You should def have them on your list.

not a snob comment. I know a lot of attorneys who don't know their $hit. I know plenty of attorneys who miss tiny little things. And I also know plenty of attorneys who aren't all that smart.
In a transactional setting, that means there are a million little things you can do to make life a lot better for your client without opposing counsel ever realizing what you've done. (the kind of things that don't matter immediately, but if things go wrong, can have a huge impact).

Anyone who has practiced more than a year knows that attorneys with decades of experience or even from the most prestigious firms make boneheaded mistakes.

I’m interested in the last point, though. Seems like an opportunity to learn something.

[FND]

I've worked across from Shipman on multiple deals. They were very good. Not to sound like a snob, but they knew their $hit. You should def have them on your list.

not a snob comment. I know a lot of attorneys who don't know their $hit. I know plenty of attorneys who miss tiny little things. And I also know plenty of attorneys who aren't all that smart.
In a transactional setting, that means there are a million little things you can do to make life a lot better for your client without opposing counsel ever realizing what you've done. (the kind of things that don't matter immediately, but if things go wrong, can have a huge impact).

Anyone who has practiced more than a year knows that attorneys with decades of experience or even from the most prestigious firms make boneheaded mistakes.

I’m interested in the last point, though. Seems like an opportunity to learn something.

Well, the obvious one is who gets the daily interest for funds held in escrow. Might not seem like much, but on a billion dollars, that's over $40k per day.

Really, though, with transactional work, most of the time the only thing that matters is that the deal goes through and everyone gets what they're expecting. What's incredibly rare, but far more important, is what happens when something goes wrong. But you can work on a hundred transactions without one ever going belly-up.

Real example: I worked on a secured lending and arbitrage structure where on every deal there was the bank, the aggregator, the originator, the borrower, and two providers of financial products. We did about 100 deals in a year. One deal was funded before anyone realized it was supposed to be backdated. Someone had to take an immediate upfront hit of around $60k. Someone got cursed at - but it wasn't me

Related: we had another deal that was running right up to the deadline. Final due diligence was still underway when the instructions to wire the funds had to be submitted, or the deal would fall apart. I authorized the deal, millions of dollars out the door, when someone caught that the deal had been backdated to a Sunday. Financial product got issued for the Friday before. Idiot on the other side says it's all screwed up, all the documents need to be re-signed (multiple parties in multiple states, in 10-15 minutes) and it's too late to get the money back. I ask calmly, what's the discrepancy -> approximately $1,000. I call the bank and offer to literally run over to their office and pay the difference in cash; no way am I letting a deal collapse over a measly thousand dollars - especially after I authorized the funds to be released. As I'm getting ready to run over, I get a call from stupid attorney, sheepishly saying it's ok. My guess is, his boss reamed him not to let a deal collapse over chump change.

I once helped out on a secured lending arrangement on an energy deal. Not my area of expertise, so I didn't really understand some aspects that are unique to energy, but the attorney I was assisting knew it through and through. In energy transactions, there's something called a lockbox, and the attorney I worked with explained how the lockbox provision in the documents were intentionally drafted a little screwy. If I understand the gist, it meant that the lender could take deposits that were held in escrow for the borrower without the borrower's permission (i.e. if the lender was worried the borrower was gonna mess up, they could prematurely yank the money out)