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Legal counsel: a buyer's guide
What we list in this category, where each entry came from, and the questions worth pressing on before you commit.
Every entry below was recorded from a page we opened, and each carries the source we read. Where we could not establish something it is left blank rather than guessed. Read how this site works if you want the detail.
What we list
Every firm we hold in this category, in one list. A supplier that has run in production for twenty years and one that launched last year appear together and carry the same fields, because that is the comparison a buyer has to make. Each entry's founding year and owner are on its company page where the company states them, and both bear on continuity: long service is evidence a supplier will still be there, and a young supplier may offer capability and pricing the incumbents do not while carrying fewer references at your size.
- Appleby — Funds & Investment Services — Advises investment managers, institutional investors, family offices, administrators and custodians on the formation, registration, launch and operation of offshore private equity, hedge fund and managed account structures. source
- Carey Olsen — Investment Funds — Offshore counsel on fund formation, listing, regulation and winding up in Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Guernsey and Jersey, across hedge, credit, real estate, private equity, venture and infrastructure strategies. source
- Cole-Frieman & Mallon LLP — Hedge Funds / investment management practice — West Coast boutique for startup and established hedge fund managers, noted for digital asset and cryptocurrency funds. source
- Conyers — Investment Funds — Offshore counsel for funds domiciled in Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands, from establishment and structuring through to a fund's continuing regulatory and compliance obligations. source
- Debevoise & Plimpton LLP — Funds/Investment Management — Private fund formation and structuring, investor-side representation, continuation vehicles and funds regulatory work. source
- Dechert LLP — Private Funds — Fund formation across US, European and Asian jurisdictions, with the page stating clients run from first-time managers to some of the largest money managers. source
- Foley Hoag LLP — Hedge Fund Formation — Helps emerging managers launch a first fund and build the management company and compliance programme, and also acts for large established managers. source
- Gunderson Dettmer — Law firm for venture capital funds, emerging companies and their investors. source
- Harneys — Offshore law firm advising on fund and corporate matters in BVI, Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, Jersey, Bermuda and other jurisdictions. source
- Kirkland & Ellis LLP — Investment Funds — Very large fund formation and GP advisory practice, with over 620 dedicated funds attorneys and separate offerings for first-time sponsors and for institutional investors. source
- Kleinberg Kaplan — Law firm with a private funds and investment management practice representing hedge fund, private equity and real estate fund managers. source
- Lowenstein Sandler LLP — Investment Management Group (including an Emerging Managers practice) — Over 100 lawyers on hedge, credit and private equity fund formation and adviser compliance, with a named Emerging Managers sub-practice for launches. source
- Maples Group — Funds & Investment Management (legal services) — Offshore and onshore fund counsel covering the whole life cycle of a fund, advising on British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Ireland, Jersey and Luxembourg law. source
- McDermott Will & Schulte — Investment Management — Global law firm with an investment management practice; the former Schulte Roth & Zabel web address now redirects to this firm's site. source
- Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP — Private Investment Funds — Fund formation, separate accounts and adviser compliance, with the page saying it acts for hedge funds from startups to well established managers. source
- Mourant — Investment Funds — Advice on fund domiciliation and structuring across the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, Jersey, Guernsey and the British Virgin Islands, covering hedge, real estate, infrastructure, private equity, venture, credit and listed funds. source
- Ogier — Investment Funds — Offshore law firm advising on hedge fund and private equity fund formation across BVI, Cayman, Guernsey, Ireland, Jersey and Luxembourg law. source
- Paul Hastings LLP — Private Investment Funds — Over 70 professionals advising sponsors and institutional limited partners on fund formation, adviser registration, subscription lines and ongoing compliance. source
- Proskauer Rose LLP — Private Funds — More than 275 lawyers covering fund formation plus secondaries, GP stakes, continuation funds and fund finance across buyout, credit and hedge strategies. source
- Riveles Wahab LLP — Riveles Law Group, the firm's hedge fund practice — Boutique that launches small and emerging hedge funds on flat fees, covering offering documents, offshore entities and adviser registration; its page cites client funds of $1m to $300m. source
- Ropes & Gray LLP — Investment Funds — Private fund formation and fund management advice for sponsors, advisers and investors, including sovereign wealth funds and state-owned investors; cited to Chambers because the firm's own site refuses our verifier. source
- Sadis & Goldberg LLP — Investment Funds — Boutique financial services law firm that states it has created and launched more than 1,000 private funds, including digital asset and independent sponsor structures. source
- Seward & Kissel LLP — Investment Management — Fund formation, tax structuring and regulatory counsel for launches, stating it acts for first-time and early-stage firms as well as multi-billion-dollar institutional managers. source
- Sidley Austin LLP — Investment Funds — About 150 lawyers covering hedge fund formation, adviser and derivatives regulation, trading documentation and registered fund work. source
- Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP — Private Funds — Organises private equity, hedge, credit, real estate and infrastructure funds, with dedicated fund formation teams in 13 offices and a stated focus on large institutional sponsors. source
- Walkers — Asset Management & Investment Funds — Offshore law firm whose funds practice sets up and advises fund vehicles from offices in Bermuda, BVI, Cayman, Guernsey, Ireland, Jersey, Dubai, Hong Kong, London and Singapore. source
- Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP — Private Funds — Fund formation, regulatory, tax and ERISA advice for sponsors, plus GP-led and LP secondary liquidity work. source
What to ask
These come from the same question bank our request-for-proposal process uses, so a guide and an RFP never drift apart. The four sections below carry the most weight in that bank.
Functional fit
Whether the system does the job for YOUR instruments, markets and volumes — not for the demonstration portfolio. The questions separate what runs in production today from what is on the roadmap, because that distinction disappears in a sales meeting and reappears during implementation. It also asks what still has to be typed in by hand, which every system has and few volunteer.
- Which asset classes does the product support in production today?
- Is there a full audit trail of who changed what and when, and can it be exported?
- Does the system enforce segregation of duties between front and back office?
- Is maker-checker approval supported on material actions, and is it configurable by action type?
- Can a valuation be sourced and approved independently of the people who trade?
Security and resilience
Whether the vendor's security is independently attested or merely asserted. The questions ask for certifications you can read, penetration tests you can see the summary of, and recovery objectives that are written down. Incident history is asked directly, because a vendor that has handled a breach well is often a safer choice than one that has never been tested.
- Which independent attestations do you hold currently?
- Will you provide the most recent report under a non-disclosure agreement?
- Is data encrypted in transit and at rest?
- Is single sign-on supported, and is multi-factor authentication enforced?
- Can your own staff see our data, and is that access logged and reviewable by us?
Compliance and regulatory
Whether the system stands up to your regulator and your auditor. Covers the reporting regimes the product supports directly, whether it can evidence who saw or changed a record, how long records are retained, and where in the world your data physically sits — which is a hard constraint for many firms rather than a preference.
- Can the system evidence to an auditor who saw or changed a given record, and when?
- In which jurisdictions is our data stored and processed?
- Are there any pending criminal matters or debarment proceedings involving the firm, its officers or its managers?
- Which regulatory reporting regimes does the product support directly?
- When a regime changes, is the update included in the licence or charged separately?
Clients and references
Whether they have done this for a firm like yours, and whether those firms stayed. Vendors present client counts and logos readily; they present ATTRITION reluctantly, which is why this section asks for clients lost and migrations completed as separate questions from clients won. Size fit decides more failed implementations than feature lists do, so it is asked directly.
- How many client firms use this product in production today?
- How many of those are of a similar type to our firm?
- How many are within our assets-under-management band?
- How many clients did you LOSE in each of the last three years?
- How many implementations begun in the last three years were abandoned before go-live?
You can send all 167 of these questions to the vendors you choose, and get every answer back side by side. Run an RFP — it is free to you and free to them.