The Corporate Deal Tracker is a database produced by The Texas Lawbook that collects information on M&A deals and capital markets offerings handled by Texas-based lawyers. This means the transaction must have either been led by a Texas-based lawyer or involved a contribution by a firm’s Texas-based lawyers.
The Lawbook analyzes the data reported to the Deal Tracker and publishes various in-depth reports. Those reports include not only rankings for Texas-based lawyers and their firms, but also analyses on the range and type of businesses that are paying for work by those lawyers.
Because we track actual economic data derived from these submissions, our submissions are more detailed than those of other league tables. But the work of Texas lawyers is always the basis of any request.
What we accept
M&A transactions:
- Mergers
- Acquisitions
- Divestitures
- Joint ventures
- Private equity/venture capital investments
- (Note: we do not accept M&A tender offerings)
Capital Markets transactions:
- IPOs
- Follow-on public offerings (equity or debt)
- Private equity stock offerings
- Private debt offerings
- Exchange offerings
- At-the-market offerings (or ATMs)
What we DO NOT accept:
- Deals that do not include the names of lawyers involved
- Deals already credited
- Deals that are undated
- Deals inadequately described
- Deals where all parties are undisclosed (see “Confidential Deals and Values” below)
- Deals that misrepresent firm participation
- Deals that misrepresent Texas lawyer participation
The Lawbook periodically produces master lists from the database. No deal will be credited in more than one calendar year. Deals that are announced at the end of one year and closed during the next can be credited for the year of closing — but only if they had not been previously announced or credited to the firm. Such submissions are credited on a case-by-case basis.
Crediting methodology (M&A/Capital Markets)
Unlike other databases, the Corporate Deal Tracker collects information based on where the lawyer is located, not the company. This means that it doesn’t matter whether a Texas-based lawyer led a deal for a Houston company or a Chinese company; the lawyer and his or her law firm will still receive appropriate credit.
A law firm can receive credit for a CDT transaction even if a deal was led by a firm’s non-Texas office. The firm will still receive credit if a Texas-based lawyer was on the deal team and played a significant role in the transaction.
Because deal value does not dependably measure the work of Texas lawyers, The Texas Lawbook places particular importance on deal volume. Deal rankings are calculated by both deal count and deal value together. Rankings by deal count include a subordinate ranking by deal value; rankings by deal value include a subordinate deal count. Thus, one is a tiebreaker for the other.
In addition, special attention is given to deals that are “Texas-led” — defined as deals led by Texas lawyers for clients who are principals in the deal. The term “lead lawyer” (or “co-lead lawyer”) applies to lawyers leading deals for clients on behalf of the entire firm (not just the firm’s Texas office or a particular practice). A “principal” is a buyer(s), seller(s) or target(s). Representation of ancillary parties (i.e. financial advisors, conflict committees, etc.) qualify for the overall firm rankings, but do not qualify as Texas-led. Moreover, advising as lead for a particular practice specialty (i.e. tax, employee benefits, anti-trust, etc.) does not qualify as “Texas-led.”
Our submission form allows firms to designate no more than two lead lawyers. It also allows a list of other team members without limit.
We have recently changed our policy on the securities side after receiving strong feedback from readers advising us that it is widely discouraged from a regulatory standpoint for a law firm to have only one lead attorney listed on an S-1 filing.
Representing the financial advisor that advised the buyer or seller is not regarded as representing a principal.
The same standards for “Texas-led” transactions are applied to capital markets submissions. Credit is allowed to firms and lawyers representing principal parties, which include Issuers, Deal Managers and Lead Underwriters (and again, not committees or financial advisors).
Fundings and Credit Facilities
Fundings and Credit Facilities are currently accepted for publication in the Corporate Deal Tracker Roundup and are added to the Corporate Deal Tracker database, but are not credited, respectively, as M&A or Capital Markets transactions. Both are archived as deal data for future analysis and editorial reference.
Confidential Deals and Values
We no longer accept confidential deals, but we do accept deals on a confidential basis.
Nearly half of the deals submitted to The Lawbook include some information deemed confidential; in most cases that means that they include an undisclosed deal value or an undisclosed party. These deals still have statistical value and are acceptable. We no longer accept submissions in which all parties and values are undisclosed.
We accept some confidentiality as common practice for the benefit of firm clients. Deals reported without disclosed values will be counted in terms of volume but, obviously, cannot accrue to the aggregated value of a particular firm’s deals.
However deals for which values cannot be publicly disclosed can receive full credit if they are disclosed to The Lawbook on a confidential basis. Our system now allows us to record and aggregate values confidentially submitted while assuring that those specific deal values will not be published, even if other deal information (Buyer, Seller/Target, Business Sector) is published as part of our master lists.
Moreover, deals can now be fully submitted on a DO NOT PUBLISH basis, which allows firms (and their lead lawyers) to receive credit-in-full for an otherwise confidential deal. Our firm-credit algorithm accrues the deal to the appropriate deal count and deal value without publication.
Conversely, on the securities side, we do not accept confidential capital markets submissions for credit. However, if a transaction is disclosed to state or regulatory authorities, it should be disclosed, for credit, to The Lawbook. That said, if a firm client asks that their specific participation not appear on our master lists, we will oblige.
The Texas Lawbook is constantly updating our data collection and our analytic capabilities, but we are a small team that is willing to work with firms to provide the most specific information possible on the work of Texas lawyers. Please reach out if you have a specific question or problem.
For more information on Corporate Deal Tracker, please contact the Corporate Deal Tracker team at CDTRoundup@texaslawbook.net.
How to submit
To submit a transaction to our database, please use our online form found here. Feel free to peruse the form to see the criteria or download a .pdf file of the specific information we are requesting here.