Levine:
There are two sorts of lawyers in the world,[2] litigators and deal lawyers. Deal lawyers do things like negotiate merger agreements and debt financing, and make sure that all the funds flows and paperwork are right for the closings of those mergers and financings. One part of their job is to think about how the other side might try to betray them, and write protections against that into the contract. But another big part of the job is to work with the other side in a cooperative way to make everyone happy, so that the deal moves smoothly and feels like, and is, a win for both sides. And then most of the time the deal closes on schedule and everyone really is happy.
Every so often a deal goes wrong, and then the litigators come in to do the lawsuit. The litigators are trying to win: When the deal has become a lawsuit, the possible outcomes are much more zero-sum than they were when it was a deal. Litigators fight. ...
The deep point of the stay in this case is to make the litigators go away. They have been punching each other in the face for months, because that is their job and because they enjoy it, but now they have to stop, so the deal lawyers can come back and actually close the deal.
