Breaking News? Less M&A Work for Lawyers in Q1

[WSJ_law_blog]

OK, as far as Law Blog art goes, that plummeting line to your left is neither cool, nor handsome, nor to scale. But it gives a sense of what’s happened to the M&A market in the first quarter of 2008. While the final numbers aren’t in yet, the folks at Dealogic gave us a sneak peak at preliminary Q1 law-firm M&A rankings, with the official figs expected tomorrow.

In at least a couple regards, the charts for this year’s Q1 look similar to last year’s rankings: S&C still reigns supreme for both U.S. and global advisory. And S&C, Skadden and Simpson Thacher still dominate the top two spots for both domestic and global categories.

The difference from last year — surprise, surprise — is that deal work is down. Way down. By this time last year, the top 10 firms in the global category had 662 representations on deals, while the top 10 firms in the domestic category had 302 representations on deals. (Global includes domestic.)

This year, however, the figures are far lower — 180 representations in the global category and 141 domestic. The stats reflect firms that advise acquirers, targets and advisors.

LB’ers: M&A lawyers, please share — do you have enough work to keep you busy? Are you “redeploying” or just enjoying more free time?