As an M&A lawyer, Daniel Litowitz has spent his career watching clients combine businesses after the close of mergers and acquisitions that he’s helped craft. Litowitz, a partner and U.S. deputy co-head of M&A at Allen Overy Shearman Sterling LLP, said that process has given him “unique insight into what we’ve faced over the last year,” as A&O Shearman has worked to mesh Allen & Overy LLP and Shearman & Sterling LLP into a fully integrated law firm.

“Even the best and most successful mergers — and I think to date our merger has been quite successful — are challenging and require patience and a lot of work,” Litowitz said, which is especially true for human capital businesses such as a law firm.

Litowitz also discussed the work he’s done over the years for Paramount Global and related entities, from Viacom Inc.’s 2004 spinoff of Blockbuster Inc., the separation of Viacom and CBS Corp. later that year and their 2019 merger to form ViacomCBS Inc. The company was rebranded as Paramount Global in 2022 and sold to Skydance Media LLC for $8 billion in a deal that closed this month, forming Paramount Skydance Corp. (PSKY). And he talked about how the regulatory environment for dealmaking has changed since President Donald Trump was inaugurated in January.

Listen to the podcast with Daniel Litowitz below:

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