Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day.
We think the first [Biglaw] deal will come from the Second Hundred, and we do think it’s going to come in calendar year 2026.
— Bob Maiden, an M&A adviser with Focus Investment Banking, in comments given to the American Lawyer, concerning the likelihood that a private equity firm will invest in a Second Hundred firm before the end of the year. “First of all, the cap table is smaller. In our world, that means that there’s fewer decision makers,” he said. “In the Second Hundred, you still have founders that are active in their firms. In some of them, they still have ownership. You might say, there’s 100 equity partners, but at the end of the day there’s only so many of those partners that really make the decisions.”
Staci Zaretsky is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Bluesky, X/Twitter, and Threads, or connect with her on LinkedIn.
