For individuals who’s practice area is mergers and acquisitions, can you comment as to the work life balance and possibly and an example of a normal day or work?

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Junior corporate associate doing M&A and general corporate in a major market here. It’s hard to say because it varies so much. At its worst, I find that there is no work life balance the week or two before a signing/closing (i.e. for me it’s usually working through the weekend(s) and my week will be about four to five 11-16 hour days in a row) and it can be really rough. If on the sell side, that would include finalizing disclosure schedules, trading drafts on ancillary document, leading the client through the disclosure schedules (sometimes on a zoom call at 10pm on a Sunday night ugh), keeping the closing checklist updated, attend multiple closing checklist calls, keep track of the funds flow/wire instructions, closing the loop on open items, and putting out any fire drills. Oh and don’t forget about the other deals/matters that are inevitably going to fire drill during this time too. If on the buy side, it’s similar but more focus on making sure the seller did everything right. The night before closing everyone junior is also going to be preparing fully compiled/executed copies of all of the deal documents too. That can take a surprising amount of time and could be a little complicated depending on the number of documents/signatories.

Outside of a signing/closing, the days can still be long, but I find those are limited to getting a 50-300pg (varies by deal) diligence memo out the door (collect memo sections from specialists, edit that section, edit so that it’s consistent with the rest of the memo, ask specialist if the edits you made are fine, keep track of supplemental requests, send memo to partner for review, make partner’s edits, finally send draft to client) or days in which there are multiple matters that need things to be done that day.

A non-closing day for me looks something like: attend call with partner to discuss open items on deal #1 with client and/or other side’s counsel, review NDAs for a completely different matter (deal #2) that just showed up in my inbox (surprise!) that I didn’t even know I was on and give comments that were needed an hour ago, couple of hours of due diligence on deal #3, draft a couple board consents for a random matter (deal #4) take multiple calls from someone even more junior about reviewing contacts for deal #1 and inevitably get an email at 7pm from partner on deal #3 asking for something to be done in the next day or so.

Curious to hear what others think but point is there is a ton of juggling at all times and it’s a luxury to be able to focus completely on one deal.

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Not on topic, but this also describes how things are for commercial real estate transactions attorneys.

I do healthcare M&A and occasionally non-healthcare transactions of various sizes. I shoot to bill 8-9 hours per day, which can go up to ~12 or slightly more depending on the stage of a transaction or a particular assignment. Goal is 1900 hours for the year but ideally more for better bonus.

My firm gives us a lot of flexibility as long as we hit our hours and get our work done on time so generally I work 8:30-3pm in the office and then work another couple hours until dinner with my wife, and then work from 7/7:30ish to 9/10 or so depending. Some days, like today, I work from home which is generally at my discretion subject to any meetings or input from the partners. If I need to run to the store, help my wife with something, or eat lunch/dinner it’s generally not a problem. I have weekends off except for rare occasions. If there’s a signing/closing/time sensitive client demands things can be a bit more demanding.

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PM me if you want and I’ll send the website. I can’t guarantee anything but it couldn’t hurt to look into it.

There is no work life balance in M&A

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In house, government, banks.

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