Brandon Van Dyke On The High Stakes Deal

Brandon Van Dyke

Firm: Skadden

Title: Partner

Forbes List: America’s Top M&A Lawyers 2025

Brandon Van Dyke has helped guide some of the most complex and transformative corporate transactions of the past two decades. His portfolio is as expansive as it is impressive—from Disney’s $70 billion acquisition of 21st Century Fox, to Union Pacific’s $85 billion drive to create a transcontinental railroad, to the landmark $130 billion Dow-DuPont merger, which was followed by an intricate three-way separation of the combined company.

In 2024 alone he led six deals valued at nearly $74 billion. But like other M&A lawyers in his league and on Forbes’ Top M&A Lawyers list, Van Dyke is motivated not by the size of the transaction but the quality of the collaboration—a key factor that also helps drive long-term business. His relationship with DuPont, spanning more than 20 years and 50-plus transactions, underscores his belief in consistency and trust.

“Clients are looking for lawyers who are above all invested in helping them meet their challenges,” Van Dyke says. “They want genuine interest, dedication and a personal connection so they can be confident their advisor can anticipate and see around corners and identify issues and communicate with them, and oftentimes a board of directors.”

Van Dyke’s interest in the world of mergers and acquisitions came early—in a corporate law class at Harvard, where a professor’s deep dive into the takeover battles of the 1980s caught his imagination. Now a corporate partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, he specializes in industrial and media companies, with unique expertise in complex spinoffs—deals that require untangling decades of assets and liabilities to create new stand-alone businesses.

He finds all of it rewarding, particularly the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues who have subject-matter expertise, negotiate with counsel on the other side, and advise clients resolving matters that impact their business—and often the broader economy.

“The best outcomes come from people who hold themselves to the highest standard—who are dedicated to performing at their best all the time,” he says. “That’s what keeps the work fulfilling, deal after deal.”

For the full list of America’s Top M&A Lawyers, click here.