Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
Scotty Snively, a partner at Ice Miller, got his start in the mergers and acquisitions sector by first working in real estate transactions.
In the years since his segue into M&A, Snively has made a name for himself in the private equity sphere, serving as counsel on the sell side and the buy side of numerous M&A deals.
Throughout his career, Snively has worked on numerous deals of varying sizes. No matter the cost, however, he emphasized how they all essentially work the same.
“Our jobs, depending on which side we’re representing, is really to try to mitigate risk for our client and to identify potential exposures or liabilities and how to negotiate a contract that represents fair risk to your client,” he said.
Read on to see what lessons he’s learned in his career and what traits he believes aspiring M&A attorneys should have to find success.
What about merger and acquisition work interests you?
When I was younger and growing as an attorney, my interests were piqued in just learning about different types of companies and industries.
It’s really interesting to see the evolution of a company from formation until exit or acquisition. And I see it from both sides, how [they] analyze why they want to buy this company and how they could grow it bigger. And I see it from the family side and entrepreneur side, and all the blood and sweat they put into the company. So, it’s just very intriguing to me, the sophistication of the deals and just how people have taken risks to get to where they are.
What kind of M&A work are you best known for?
I think I’m best known in working on what we deem lower-middle market to middle-market transactions from both the sell side and representing private equity and independent sponsors on the buy side. Those deal ranges could be anywhere between $20 million to $250 million. And I think I’ve been known to be a strategic adviser to clients on both sides of the fence in that space.
What’s the biggest deal you’ve worked on?
I’ve worked on numerous transactions that are in the hundreds of millions of dollars, nearing $1 billion. The issues are the same in each transaction, whether it’s a $20 million transaction or an $800 million transaction.
What are the keys to closing a deal or what are the biggest lessons you’ve learned?
I think you learn in doing this type of work that you have to be really good at problem solving. You have to identify an issue. You have to identify what the potential risk with that issue is, and how do you navigate that so you can still get a deal done for one client or the other and being flexible…There’s always a learning curve in almost every deal and new issues that you’ve got to tackle and figure out how to solve so you can get a closing done for both parties.
You have to have attention to detail, you have to be very organized, and you have to be able to work quickly. We generally work on very tight timelines, under a lot of pressure to get transactions closed within the time frame necessary to accomplish the goal. Time is sometimes not your friend, because you don’t know what’s going to happen globally…whatever it might be, very different, external pressures that can really cause issues for a deal to close.
You can’t do this by yourself, so you have to have a very strong team that you’re working with that have been trained to do the responsibilities to be able to navigate all the different documents, issues, and complexities that might come within a deal.
What’s your best advice for aspiring M&A attorneys?
You have to have a few qualities to do this type of work. One is, you have really good attention to detail. Two, you have to be able to work well under pressure. Three, you need to understand the entire picture. Even though you might be given, as a young attorney, one responsibility for the transaction, you need to read all emails and all communications and understand how things fit together, which will make you a better-rounded M&A attorney.
What are your best M&A predictions for the coming year? What sectors do you think will heat up or cool down?
I think we’ve had sort of a slow or bumpy 2025 so far. I believe that there’s a lot of money on the sidelines with private equity and other sponsors and strategic buyers that are looking to find companies to buy. So, I’m expecting it to be a very strong fourth quarter that will hopefully build into a strong 2026. •
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.