<p>What are the lawyers in Washington DC that are retained by large companies (ie. oil and gas) to help smooth mergers?</p>
<p>How would one go about becoming one?</p>
<p>(the specific example I'm looking at is from the movie Syriana, not sure if that's realistic at all)</p>
<p>the field of law is “mergers and acquisitions” (M&A). Most M&A lawyers work for big firms. Companies hire the firms. Some companies also have their own lawyers (in-house counsel) who do some of the legal work themselves and are in charge of hiring/dealing with the firms.</p>
<p>Some firms also have “oil and gas” practices–they do lots of things, like lobbying on behalf of those companies, advising companies on federal regulations, etc.</p>
<p>There are antitrust laws in this country.</p>
<p>So let’s say Target merged with Walmart. (not so unthinkable—look how all the banks wind up merging)</p>
<p>The government might say that the combined company has too much of a market share in a particular city, and that the new company must therefore divest itself of some of the stores in that city.</p>
<p>And let’s say Target gives Walmart’s large stockholders stock in Target, in exchange for their Walmart shares. Such shares often have restrictions—such as they can’t be sold for a number of years. </p>
<p>And there are tax consequences, depending upon how the deal is structured. Should Target buy the outstanding Walmart stock out there in the marketplace. Or simply buy Walmart’s assets. Should the company become one company, or should Walmart become a wholly owned subsidiary of Target?.</p>
<p>There are probably many many more issues.</p>
<p>Yes, mergers and acquisitions,which was my specialty at IRS when I worked there, involves knowledge of tax, corporate law and anti trust. You don’t usually have to be an expert in all these areas since most of these deals involve several lawyers handling each area. For example, only tax lawyers came in for private rulings,which are usually a “Must” for big mergers. However, having a decent knowledge in all these disciplines won’t hurt.</p>