Richard E. Climan

Climan has led industry-changing acquisitions in the technology and life sciences sector for more than three decades. He’s also a teacher.

An adjunct faculty member at UCLA School of Law, Climan has also lectured at Harvard Law School, Columbia Law School and UC Berkeley School of Law.

“Teaching gives me the opportunity to illuminate the most intriguing elements of an M&A practice for potential future dealmakers. It gives me the opportunity to train the next generation of M&A lawyers,” Climan said. “That’s why I like it: it allows me to give something back.”

This summer, Climan and his M&A partner and colleague Keith Flaum, debuted the first two animated “M&A Negotiating Cartoons” at Hogan Lovells’ basic training program for more than 200 law students and junior associates.

“Part of what has helped me grow is the teaching and lecturing I do. To be an effective teacher, you have to develop a real mastery of your field,” Climan said. “Teaching forces you to think things through at a higher level and develop a higher degree of intellectual understanding than merely going through the motions of processing documents to do a deal.”

Climan has indeed developed a mastery of legal concepts, often leading large deals and overseeing multiple work streams in different time zones. One example is his counsel to Walmart Inc. on its approximately $16 billion purchase of a majority stake in Flipkart, an India based e-commerce company. The deal closed in May 2018. He also led the team representing Marvell Technology Group in its $6 billion acquisition of chipmaker Cavium Inc., closed in November 2017.

Being a lifelong learner has also helped Climan in a practice that requires expertise in many different disciplines, such as corporate law, intellectual property, tax law, employee benefits, accounting, securities law and even investment banking, he said.

“You have to have a significant level of intellectual curiosity to do this successfully. It is most definitely not a ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ exercise,” Climan said. “I’ve been doing this for over three decades and I still learn a great deal from every transaction I handle. Every new deal is a new challenge, and that’s exciting to me.”

— Alexandra Applegate