Daniel M. Niedzwiecki
Private Equity and Mergers & Acquisitions
Boston
J.D., Boston University School of Law, 2002
Before joining Weil in the March of 2007, Dan clerked for the Honorable Frank H. Freedman of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts and worked as a business law associate focusing on venture capital investments, mergers and acquisitions, Exchange Act reporting and general corporate matters at a mid-sized, Boston-based law firm.
The word “opportunity” is loaded with meaning, and while it imparts elements of chance and possibility, it also conveys notions of volition and action. As a law student or practicing lawyer trying to sift through a heap of preprinted clichés and interview sound-bites that sometimes bury the distinctions among seemingly-interchangeable law firms, you should realize that it is not just what opportunities you are likely to encounter at your next firm, but what you can do with those opportunities, that will carry the most significance in your career. Weil’s culture encourages each attorney to develop his or her talents and the skills necessary to be a practical, trusted, client-centric legal advisor, and while you are always in control of your career here, you are never left alone to figure out how to cultivate your development and realize your potential.
From the moment I walked through the doors here, my supervising attorneys have let me run with projects as far as I have dared. While intimidating at first, I grew comfortable with the responsibility, because it is expected of me and because there are talented people here who take an interest in me and have shown me how to fulfill that responsibility the “Weil way.”
Recently, I was the lead associate on a watershed deal for one of our private equity clients, Advent International, in its acquisition of a majority stake in the Fifth Third Processing Solutions business joint venture. Even though deal lawyers are generalists, we have overarching responsibilities, and in my role as the senior corporate associate on the deal, I personally oversaw most aspects of the transaction. Through my multifaceted involvement – ranging from drafting and negotiating the deal documents, to managing the due diligence team’s dive into the dataroom, to working with our financial services group to understand the payment cards processing business and to set up all of the necessary network sponsorship and commercial arrangements, to coordinating the litigation and antitrust teams’ exploration of the business and industry risks, to conferring with the intellectual property team to make sure the joint venture would acquire all of the assets and IP necessary to run the business – my role increasingly became “deal information repository,” “point of first contact” and “chief collaborator.”
As the official signing approached, there was an hour late one evening where I could not reach the top of my ever-expanding inbox even as I was furiously replying to emails, because so many people were counting on me to synthesize their views and provide answers. At that point, no one cared what class year I was, where I went to school or anything like that – it was my opportunity to demonstrate how trusted an advisor I am becoming.
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