Kevin McCauley, business law attorney, Godfrey & Kahn, S.C.
Name: Kevin McCauley
Title: Business Law Attorney
Company: Godfrey & Kahn, S.C.
City of Residence: Whitefish Bay, WI
Family: Wife; child; cat
How does the market look to you? "Despite the tightening of the credit markets and the general slowdown in the economy, there are still a lot of funds and strategic buyers looking to do acquisitions, especially in the lower middle market space. Deals are becoming a bit more difficult to get to closing because of increased financial due diligence and scrutiny, but we nonetheless are still getting deals done."
What are you working on now? "I am primarily working on three different buy-side asset purchase transactions, two of which involve the acquisition of manufacturing companies and one of which involves the acquisition of a software company. In addition, I am working on various general corporate (e.g., equity incentive plans, operating agreements, employment agreements) and commercial contract matters."
What was the best deal you’ve been involved in? "We helped a client sell the company he founded to a Silicon Valley company, but we structured the transaction with the idea that there potentially would be an opportunity to buy it back. Sure enough, less than eighteen months later, we helped management and the founder buy essentially the same company for a fraction of what the initial buyer had paid."
What was the funniest or most interesting moment of your career? "The assistant to a lawyer with whom I was interning in Chicago once explained to me that the lawyer liked his documents stapled a certain way (vertical/parallel to the left-hand margin), and because I had stapled a stack of documents with the staples on an angle, I was forced to re-print and re-staple the documents. At the time, the incident seemed somewhat absurd (and it still does), but it did impress upon me the need to pay attention to detail and to be flexible enough to deal with a variety of personalities (no matter how quirky)."
