Relative intelligence

Private equity lawyers are some of the smartest people out there. Don’t believe us? You try negotiating an escrow agreement with separate accounts, or structure a special purpose vehicle to the satisfaction of a needy LP. These folks don’t land that work on looks alone, they have to earn it – and shine on the bar exam first of course, which lands them that interview at a premier corporate law firm.

We may be headed for a shortage of M&A attorneys soon then. The National Conference of Bar Examiners, which scores the multiple-choice part of the test, says that last year’s scores were abysmally low. Bloomberg reports that test scores registered their largest single-year drop in the four-decade history of the test. If lawyers are getting dumber, we may have a solution to the problem: dumb down the M&A work. From here on out, everyone signs simple one-page agreements that lists the deal price, acquisition date and the promise to “keep things fair” should anything else arise. As journalists who sometimes spend late nights struggling to read these complicated agreements, we find it the perfect solution ourselves.