Since Thanksgiving, Silicon Scene has reported on a host of lawyers who got cranberry sauce on their Blackberries and their only holiday buzz from a cell phone as they closed big transactions.
Attorneys at Fenwick & West and Morgan Lewis & Bockius skipped turkey day festivities in favor of closing Intuit's $1.35 billion acquisition of Digital Insight Corp, which was announced Nov. 30.
Then came Cisco Systems Inc.’s $830 million acquisition of IronPort Systems that had one Heller Ehrman attorney working out of his father-in-law’s office over the Christmas vacation.
But Leif King, a Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom Palo Alto partner, brought holiday homework to a whole new level.
Advising on a $1 billion investment in a Bermuda insurance company, King spent every day of his two-week holiday vacation, except Christmas, working in an office he all but constructed at his in-laws’ Atlanta home.
“I built it myself over time just for that purpose,” King said casually. “I bought all of the equipment, set it up, [and] hooked up wireless Internet access in an extra room in the house.”
King added that his mother-in-law was instrumental, bringing him “meals and caffeine of every form” during the deal negotiations.
No doubt she understands her son-in-law’s behavior, since her daughter, Ivonne Mena King, is a partner in Foley & Lardner’s Silicon Valley office and vice chairwoman of the firm’s white collar defense & corporate compliance practice.
— Zusha Elinson
Comments