At Penn Law today, many aspiring dealmakers see the value of complementing their legal education with a deep knowledge of business. “We have the programs for the students who are interested,” says Michael L. Wachter, the William B. Johnson Professor of Law and Economics and co-director of the Institute for Law and Economics. Penn Law students now can earn a Certificate of Study in Business and Public Policy at the Wharton School. That’s in addition to M&A courses and Wachter’s popular corporate finance course, a prerequisite for upper level Wharton classes.

Wachter sees a trend in students preparing themselves, even as undergraduates, for dealmaking careers by studying law and economics. The combination is becoming increasingly vital. “The amount of dealmaking in American society is a critically important and huge-volume business,” says Wachter. “Leaders who can integrate the material learn high church from two cathedrals.”

Trained from both pulpits, Jim McKenzie was well-positioned for the AFRT deal. With Penn Law colleague and Morgan Lewis senior associate Justin W. Chairman C ’92, L ’95, McKenzie made a successful pitch to AFRT’s CEO. McKenzie enlisted the expertise of his colleagues from throughout Morgan Lewis to manage different parts of the deal — real estate transactions, debt financing, employee benefits agreements — which would yield the largest IPO for a real estate investment trust in the country in 2003 and the second largest IPO of any kind in the country in 2003 at $804 million.