Plenty of dealmakers expect a boom in M&A activity next year, anticipating a business-friendly Trump administration will rekindle animal spirits. That may mean private-equity firms will unload companies they've held for years. Traditionally, that means Big Law firms will have a flood of work. But it may also mean less of a certain type of complex transaction that has been occurring over the past year: Private equity companies selling pieces of businesses between themselves. On this episode of our podcast, On the Merits, Bloomberg Law’s Roy Strom spoke with Neil Barlow, a private equity partner at Clifford Chance, about what this environment could mean for Big Law's M&A fortunes. The upshot is that lawyers could be trading more complex deals for a greater volume of them. Either way, the trends highlight how important the private equity business has become for global law firms' success. Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.