Summertime isn’t the safe haven from responsibility it once was, and private equity attorneys who are expected to spend the dog days of summer helping clients clinch deals and close funds need to find ways to stay focused without losing their cool.
It’s hot, your friends and colleagues and clients are out on vacation and the beach is calling your name, but private equity attorneys have no such thing as a summer slowdown. In fact, from 2013 to 2015, the average monthly volume of private equity-backed buyout deals in June, July and August actually exceeded the average of the other nine months of the year, 335 to 309, according to data from research firm Preqin Ltd. Private equity fundraising doesn’t feel a summer stagnation either, with 75 fund closings a month on average in the summer months in 2013-15 and 77 on average during the rest of the year, Preqin data show.
You might no longer get to have three months off like you did back in grade school, but you don’t have to spend your summer holed up indoors filling out paperwork and ruing the day you applied to law school. Instead, private equity attorneys should find unconventional ways to keep up their efficiency while enjoying the benefits of the summer season, experts say.
“A lot of success is, in addition to being on top of recent developments, thinking outside of the box and trying to be creative,” McCarter & English LLP partner Howard Berkower told Law360.