If you run through the splashiest tech deals of the last six months, Keith Flaum’s name comes up a lot. He advised Applied Materials in its $9.3 billion merger with Tokyo Electron in 2013. Then he helped Lenovo walk off with Motorola Mobility for $2.9 billion. And last month, he advised Facebook in the biggest Internet deal in a decade. Flaum, who started his legal career at Cooley, joined Weil, Gotshal & Manges in 2012 after the collapse of Dewey & LeBoeuf.

Q: How’d you end up at this job?