Mergers and Acquisitions

[XYZZY]

Any insights into Mergers and Acquisitions as a specialty?

It sounds like this may still be a prestige whore profession run by I-bankers.  What I'm interested in knowing is if this is open to non-Ivy T1 lawyers.  If not, are there options for buying and selling in the sub $100 million transaction realm?

[lincolnsgrandson]

It's a good field to look into, because it's important money for the big firms, but you don't find many students saying that's what they want to do.

[XYZZY]

I'm looking into it, and to what capacity someone with a T20 JD can enter the field.  A prima facie appearance indicates a nice mix of business, operations, and law, but that is mostly superficial guesswork.  If BIGLAW or T20 isn't sufficient, then im curious of opportunities in the sub $100 million transaction range.

In interpretting your post, I hope the reason is more a lack of awareness of the field, than a genuine lack of interest.  I'm with a small group of friends with a startup and a desire to get bought out by a larger defense company, so naturally M&A became part of the language.  For most, this obviously becomes an issue later in life rather than as a recent Ugraduate.

[lincolnsgrandson]

Check the law firms with significant M&A Practices and look at the attorney's bios to see if they have MBAs.
Pay particular attention to young associates - their credentials are a good indiciation of what law firms are looking for now.

[cmedici]

This is exactly the area I am going to focus in Law School.  I know for a fact that whether or not you have an MBA doesn't really matter.  What you need is to intern in an M&A firm and get good work experience.  Read on the topic, at Amazon.com there are plenty of good books on M&A.  It's really quite interesting. 

I have dual citizenship and speak 5 languages, so I want to give that some usage and go into international M&A.  But there are many smaller M&A firms, local M&A, etc, and not many people go into this field so you can come from a not so great school and score a fabulous job.  Just make sure you get experience and seem interested.  Good luck!!!