Last month the Wall Street Journal veteran with a knack for sniffing out deals-in-the-making announced that he would be joining the public relations firm Brunswick Group to do communications strategy for corporate clients in the U.S. "I was very intrigued by the prospect of being on the other side," says Lipin. "I am 38, and I thought now was the time to do it." Lipin broke into reporting at Institutional Investor's "Bond Week" in 1985, joined the Journal in 1991 and broke the news on a string of historic mergers, including Chemical Bank,Chase Manhattan and Daimler-Benz,Chrysler, before becoming finance editor last fall. His proudest moment came in January when The New Yorker reported that a Lipin story revealing that Michael Milken had received $50 million for advising Turner Broadcasting prompted the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether the onetime junk bond king had breached an agreement with the government. As for colleagues grumbling about his walk to the dark side, Lipin isn't losing any sleep. Says he: "Business journalists are not doing stem cell research or cracking the genomic code. It's a worthy profession , I did it for 16 years. But I have three kids, and the realities of life are a factor in making decisions."