For the past few years, the ABA M&A Committee and Hotshot (a video-based learning platform for lawyers) have worked together to give ABA Business Law Section members access to market-leading, bite-sized videos on a range of M&A provisions. Now, they’ve expanded that collaboration to make these videos available for free on the website of the Section’s digital publication Business Law Today to help train and educate even more lawyers. The videos and related resources can be found here.
This collaboration started with an idea by Wilson Chu, who at the time was chair of the M&A Committee. He wanted to keep the committee on the cutting edge of training and education, add even more value for members, and appeal to the new generation of lawyers and law students. What resulted was an innovative collaboration between the committee, the Business Law Section, and Hotshot.
Together, they created the collection of videos on a range of M&A topics. The videos help lawyers learn about and keep current on important M&A trends, provisions, and concepts, and firms use them to run innovative training programs. The videos also provide insights on data from the M&A Committee’s renowned Private Target M&A Deal Points Study.
“These videos let the committee share practical thought leadership with tens of thousands of business lawyers and, via Hotshot’s platform, untold numbers of future members,” Chu said.
More and more people are turning to short videos to learn what they need to know, when they need to know it. “Powered by Hotshot, we’re delighted to be delivering our content to them at the office, at home, on the beach, or anywhere in the world they happen to be working,” said Chu.
“Bottom line, the best firms in the country trust Hotshot to provide content to train their lawyers, so working with them on this project was a no-brainer,” he added.
In addition, the collaboration was supported by U.S. Bank—a longtime supporter of the M&A Committee and its members. “We’re thrilled to be part of this collaboration and help lawyers get access to this great content,” said Lars Anderson, SVP and National Sales Manager at U.S. Bank.
After positive feedback on the videos from section members, the Business Law Section has expanded this collaboration to give free access to the videos for a limited time to anyone who visits Business Law Today. In addition, all Business Law Section members continue to receive free access as part of their membership.
Every two months for the next year, a different series of videos will be featured on the Business Law Today site for free. These series cover topics such as fraud carve-outs, materiality scrapes, and sandbagging, to name just a few.
The videos explain concepts and provisions, provide tips and strategies for drafting and negotiating, share buyer and seller perspectives, and analyze current market trends from the Deal Points Study.
The videos can be used to support on-the-job learning, and they also come with printable summaries as well as training guides to help firms run engaging group training programs.
A good example of how the videos can be used to help train lawyers comes from Craig Menden, former Chair of the Market Trends Subcommittee of the M&A Committee and Partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher, who co-created a series of videos on Materiality Scrapes.
“We wanted to cover a lot of ground when we were all together on a call, so we assigned the Hotshot videos as prework,” Menden explains. “The videos are a quick and engaging way for associates to get up to speed before the session.” The plan was for the presenters to build on the prework with “war stories” and the firm’s specific approach to the issues.
You can read a case study about this here.
Available Content
There are over 20 short videos that will be featured in the collection, all of which were created by partners from the M&A Committee and Hotshot. Topics cover various M&A provisions and concepts and currently include:
- Materiality Scrapes – featuring Craig Menden from Willkie Farr & Gallagher and Rita O’Neill from Sullivan & Cromwell
- Claims “If True” – featuring Joanna Lin from McDermott Will & Emery and Jessica Pearlman from K&L Gates
- Sandbagging – featuring Nate Cartmell from Pillsbury and Lisa Hedrick from Hirschler
- Fraud Carve-Outs – featuring Tali Sealman from White & Case and Glenn West from Weil, Gotshal & Manges (retired)
- Indemnifiable Losses – featuring Leigh Walton from Bass Berry and Scott Whittaker from Stone Pigman Walther Wittman
- No-Shops – featuring Jenny Hochenberg from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Igor Kirman of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz
- Updating Disclosure Schedules – featuring John Clifford from McMillan and Ann Beth Stebbins from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom
Jenny Hochenberg, M&A Committee member and partner at Freshfields who is featured in the “No-Shop” video series with Igor Kirman from Wachtell, said, “The videos are a fantastic opportunity to get a primer on the key issues associates will encounter and be called up to negotiate and draft. They are ‘stackable’ content—to use one of my favorite phrases from Peloton—that gives you all the highlights you need to know in a quick and super accessible format.”
Michael O’Bryan, the current Chair of the M&A Committee and partner at Morrison Foerster, said, “In addition to the benefits to viewers, the videos provide opportunities for members of the M&A Committee to share their insights in an engaging format designed to reach a large audience with interest in M&A, including younger lawyers and those who don’t practice full time in M&A. We expect the platform to expand to allow more discussion of current issues and trends as well as the fundamental building blocks for M&A.”
For more information about the videos and how you can use them at your firm or practice, please contact Ian Nelson, Co-Founder of Hotshot, at [email protected]. The videos can be accessed here.
