M&A lawyer: Obama win means more deals  November 7, 2012: 11:30
AM ET  Is it finally time to make some deals?  FORTUNE -- What
does President Obama's reelection mean for the future of deal-
making activity? To get some thoughts, I spoke with Bill Lawlor,
a veteran M&A attorney with Dechert LLP.  What follows is an
edited transcript.  FORTUNE: What do yesterday's election
results mean for the M&A markets?  BILL LAWLOR: If Romney had
won there would have been an unleashing of animal spirits in M&A
that we haven't seen since the Reagan years. But, now that we
know its Obama, we expect to see a steadier, flatter arc to
increased M&A activity.  Let's break that out a bit. Are you
expecting significantly increased in the final weeks of 2012?
Yes, our phones are ringing off the hook. The reason is the
expiration of the Bush tax cuts which are, at the margins,
pushing deals to get done this year because of expected capital
gains tax increases. Not just M&A, but also a rash of dividend
recapitalizations in which compa