Samuel Butler, an attorney who helped create corporate giants, dies at 94
He was 94. Naren Daniel, a spokesman for Cravath, Swaine & Moore, the law firm where Mr. Butler worked for 47 years, confirmed his death at home in Manhattan. He is also credited for helping Cravath, which was long known as a firm that represented blue-chip companies such as J.P. Morgan, to get a share of the 1980s deals boom. He advised the drug maker Squibb in its sale to Bristol-Myers in 1989, Time Inc. in its 1990 merger with Warner Communications, CBS in its 1995 sale to the Westinghouse Corporation, Capital Cities/ABC in its 1995 sale to Walt Disney, and Salomon Smith Barney in its 1997 sale to Travelers Group.
“When you think about all the big deals that were going on in the ’80s and ’90s, Sam was right there,” Faiza Saeed, Cravath’s current presiding partner, who worked with Mr. Butler on the Capital Cities deal, said in an interview.
Mr. Butler played down his mergers experience. “I don’t consider myself a classic M.&A. In a 2004 town-hall meeting at Cravath, he described himself as a “transactional lawyer”. “I would consider myself a relationship lawyer.”
That is perhaps most evident in the decades-long bond he has had with Warren E. Buffett, one of the most famous deal makers of our time. Buffett is the founder of Berkshire Hathaway. Both Midwest-born men, they formed a friendship which led to Mr. Butler’s most notable professional achievement. Mr. Buffett called him on July 27, 1995, a Thursday, saying he needed help with a transaction that was to be announced the following Monday: Disney’s takeover of Capital Cities, of which Berkshire was a major shareholder.
Mr. Buffett was worried that Capital Cities’ lawyers did not have enough experience with big-ticket transactions — and knew that Disney was led by Michael Eisner, a hard-nosed negotiator, Mr. Butler said in a 2007 interview with The Wall Street Journal.
When the Berkshire chief explained the situation to Mr. Butler, the lawyer cut him off, Mr. Buffett recalled, telling him, “We are taking the assignment.”
The two parties sprinted to finish the negotiations, and Disney’s takeover was announced as scheduled, on July 31.
“During Sam’s tenure at Cravath, everybody wanted him as their lawyer,” Mr. Buffett said in a statement. “Berkshire was lucky to have the opportunity to work with him.”
Samuel Coles Butler was born on March 10, 1930, in Logansport, Ind., to Melvin Butler, the business manager and co-owner of the Muehlhausen Spring Factory, and Jane (Flynn) Butler, a former schoolteacher.
During World War II, he attended Culver Military Academy, a preparatory boarding school in Culver, Ind., that he credited with challenging him academically. The headmaster of the school was a Harvard grad and convinced Samuel, who was in first place, to apply. He clerked under Supreme Court Justice Sherman Minton and served in the Army. She died in 2023. He is survived by their three children, Sam, Leigh and Elizabeth; nine grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.
After military service, Mr. Butler interviewed for legal jobs in Atlanta, Cleveland, Dallas and Houston, hoping, as a self-described small-town kid, to avoid moving to New York City. He realized that the best jobs in New York City were at Cravath and joined them in 1956. He became a partner in 1960.
Mr. Butler, who retired in 2003 after retiring as presiding partner, was well-known among his colleagues for his unprepossessing style and for promoting younger lawyers’ work. “He wasn’t just the eminence grase, and everyone else is just a bag-carrier,” Ms. Saeed stated. He devoted his time outside of the office to several nonprofit organizations, including his alma-maters Harvard and Culver as well as the American Museum of Natural History and Vassar College. A prolific fund-raiser, he helped the library pay for building renovations and the expansion of its digital resources.
“He devoted enormous time and energy to keeping the library strong,” Ms. Saeed said. “He saw that as his responsibility as someone who was fortunate to be successful in business.”
