Law Firms Leading the SPAC Boom Forum

[Anonymous User]

Just wondering whether anyone has any insights into the recent SPAC boom? It just seems like every law firm partner/associate I talked to claim that their firms are leading the SPAC boom, but surely they cannot all be market-leading. Which firms are truly market-leading in this space?

Anon because I am at one of the firms which claims to be leading the SPAC boom, and am doing a few right now...

[Anonymous User]

https://www.spacresearch.com/legal

lol at firms vying to claim leadership in a dumb-money bubble / regulatory arbitrage that is about to collapse

[ExpOriental]

https://www.spacresearch.com/legal

lol at firms vying to claim leadership in a dumb-money bubble / regulatory arbitrage that is about to collapse

T-minus 6 months or so until they're vying for leadership in SPAC-related securities litigation

[Anonymous User]

SPAC sucks name one good product that came out of it

[lolwutpar]

I've successfully managed to avoid most SPAC work thus far. SPACs are dumb and I'm glad the SEC is starting to tighten the regulatory regime and hopefully fuck them. lol @ partners bragging that they lead SPAC work. It's like bragging you're the leader in mortgage backed securities in late 2006.

[Ultramar vistas]

I've successfully managed to avoid most SPAC work thus far. SPACs are dumb and I'm glad the SEC is starting to tighten the regulatory regime and hopefully fuck them. lol @ partners bragging that they lead SPAC work. It's like bragging you're the leader in mortgage backed securities in late 2006.

I don’t think any associates will be sad to see the back of the SPAC boom but, even ignoring the dubious analogy between MBS and SPACs, isn’t the very fact that you can’t easily think of the firms that were involved in the MBS work exactly the reason that partners don’t give a damn? Banks get blowback because their names are all over the work, but lawyers never seem to get tainted by association with bad deals, whether economically bad or sketchy bad. Shit, even V&E got past being Enron’s attorney with barely a blip.

Partners are bragging about leading the SPAC work because it’s bringing in huge billables - when it collapses, it’s on to the next one. Not saying that’s appropriate, but it is the business.

[Anonymous User]

Kirkland, Debevoise, other firms in that tier, etc..

[ExpOriental]

Kirkland, Debevoise, other firms in that tier, etc..

I'm generally not one for anon-policing, but the persistent Debevoise trolling is so painfully unfunny that I have to call for it here

[Anonymous User]

Kirkland, Debevoise, other firms in that tier, etc..

I'm generally not one for anon-policing, but the persistent Debevoise trolling is so painfully unfunny that I have to call for it here

I’m not sure why you insist on calling it trolling every time I mention Debevoise and Kirkland, firms with which I have familiarity (which is why I bring them up).

[Anonymous User]

Kirkland, Debevoise, other firms in that tier, etc..

I'm generally not one for anon-policing, but the persistent Debevoise trolling is so painfully unfunny that I have to call for it here

I’m not sure why you insist on calling it trolling every time I mention Debevoise and Kirkland, firms with which I have familiarity (which is why I bring them up).

[ExpOriental]

Kirkland, Debevoise, other firms in that tier, etc..

I'm generally not one for anon-policing, but the persistent Debevoise trolling is so painfully unfunny that I have to call for it here

I’m not sure why you insist on calling it trolling every time I mention Debevoise and Kirkland, firms with which I have familiarity (which is why I bring them up).

Because it's forced and not funny.

I'm also curious why the mods are still signing off on your shitty anonymous trolling when I'm not even the first to call it out:

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=309283&p=10468664& ... #p10468664

[Anonymous User]

Kirkland, Debevoise, other firms in that tier, etc..

I'm generally not one for anon-policing, but the persistent Debevoise trolling is so painfully unfunny that I have to call for it here

I’m not sure why you insist on calling it trolling every time I mention Debevoise and Kirkland, firms with which I have familiarity (which is why I bring them up).

Because it's forced and not funny.

I'm also curious why the mods are still signing off on your shitty anonymous trolling when I'm not even the first to call it out:

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=309283&p=10468664& ... #p10468664

Sorry

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

I've successfully managed to avoid most SPAC work thus far. SPACs are dumb and I'm glad the SEC is starting to tighten the regulatory regime and hopefully fuck them. lol @ partners bragging that they lead SPAC work. It's like bragging you're the leader in mortgage backed securities in late 2006.

I don’t think any associates will be sad to see the back of the SPAC boom but, even ignoring the dubious analogy between MBS and SPACs, isn’t the very fact that you can’t easily think of the firms that were involved in the MBS work exactly the reason that partners don’t give a damn? Banks get blowback because their names are all over the work, but lawyers never seem to get tainted by association with bad deals, whether economically bad or sketchy bad. Shit, even V&E got past being Enron’s attorney with barely a blip.

Partners are bragging about leading the SPAC work because it’s bringing in huge billables - when it collapses, it’s on to the next one. Not saying that’s appropriate, but it is the business.

To be fair, I (and others) can indeed tell you who did a lot of MBS work from 2004-2007 and I would say on average it's a bunch of firms who performed below average since then. This isn't because the firms got any kind of "blowback" for it but just generally because having a bunch of expertise and experience in your firm being in an area that completely dies is, unsurprisingly, not great for business.

But trying to predict when the bottom is going to fall out of an area is rarely worth foregoing huge business in the meantime. A lot of firms were really conservative into getting into areas in 2009-2014 that would later become really hot. Conversely, it seemed like three ago every firm was scrambling to hire people who knew anything about crypto/blockchain and AFAIK nothing major has cropped up from that (although maybe it will, give it time).

[dyemond]

I've successfully managed to avoid most SPAC work thus far. SPACs are dumb and I'm glad the SEC is starting to tighten the regulatory regime and hopefully fuck them. lol @ partners bragging that they lead SPAC work. It's like bragging you're the leader in mortgage backed securities in late 2006.

I don’t think any associates will be sad to see the back of the SPAC boom but, even ignoring the dubious analogy between MBS and SPACs, isn’t the very fact that you can’t easily think of the firms that were involved in the MBS work exactly the reason that partners don’t give a damn? Banks get blowback because their names are all over the work, but lawyers never seem to get tainted by association with bad deals, whether economically bad or sketchy bad. Shit, even V&E got past being Enron’s attorney with barely a blip.

Partners are bragging about leading the SPAC work because it’s bringing in huge billables - when it collapses, it’s on to the next one. Not saying that’s appropriate, but it is the business.

To be fair, I (and others) can indeed tell you who did a lot of MBS work from 2004-2007 and I would say on average it's a bunch of firms who performed below average since then. This isn't because the firms got any kind of "blowback" for it but just generally because having a bunch of expertise and experience in your firm being in an area that completely dies is, unsurprisingly, not great for business.

But trying to predict when the bottom is going to fall out of an area is rarely worth foregoing huge business in the meantime. A lot of firms were really conservative into getting into areas in 2009-2014 that would later become really hot. Conversely, it seemed like three ago every firm was scrambling to hire people who knew anything about crypto/blockchain and AFAIK nothing major has cropped up from that (although maybe it will, give it time).

The MBS work also wasn't that profitable; high volume, low intensity work product -- it's like muni bonds, states and cities issue like $5b of that shit per round and counsel submits a $50k invoice because if they don't someone else will do it for that much.

Having worked on MBS products in banking at the time they were being issued and doing some SPAC work now, there isn't much comparison in the slightest, but that's a different issue altogether.

[Anonymous User]

Do folks think it would be reckless for a first-year associate to join a non-V20 corporate group that currently seems to be powered largely by SPACs?

[Sackboy]

Do folks think it would be reckless for a first-year associate to join a non-V20 corporate group that currently seems to be powered largely by SPACs?

No. People are overhyping how bad SPACs are. All the firms participating in the SPAC boom have strong PE or strategic M&A practices (and sometimes both). If SPACs go away tomorrow, things just return to how they were a year ago in terms of deal making. It's no big deal.