Leading the elite Wall Street firm Cravath, he became a go-to adviser on mergers and acquisitions — “all the big deals that were going on in the ’80s and ’90s.”

Samuel Butler, a Midwesterner who became a top figure of the Wall Street legal world, advising on transformative takeovers and leading city institutions like the New York Public Library, died on Jan. 4 at his home in Manhattan. He was 94.

His family confirmed his death in a statement.

Over a nearly five-decade career as a lawyer — 18 of those years as presiding partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, one of Wall Street’s most elite firms — Mr. Butler became a go-to adviser on major mergers and acquisitions, helping to create some of today’s corporate giants.

He was also credited with helping Cravath, long known as a law firm to blue-chip companies like J.P. Morgan, get a piece of the deals boom that

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