Investment Banking Relationships with Law Firms for Private Equity Deals

When investment banks work on transactions involving private equity, do they often use the same law firm to close the deal? I probed the data to find out…

The answer is – yes, some investment banks seem to consistently use the same law firms in their PE deals (and probably in their non-PE deals as well, but this was not part of the data that I studied). For example:

• Jefferies, Goldman Sachs, William Blair & Company, Houlihan Lokey and RBC Capital Markets often use Kirkland & Ellis.
• Lincoln International seems to split between Kirkland & Ellis and Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn.
• Robert W. Baird & Co. often uses Hogan Lovells.
• Harris Williams & Co. often use Ropes & Gray.

This suggests that the investment banking firm often informs the decision for which law firm to use on their transactions – even when the transaction is for a PE deal.

For law firms working on M&A deals in the private equity space, the data suggests that it would be smart to also build relationships with key investment banks consistently doing deals in the PE space.

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