Robert C. Emerson

Robert C. Emerson is a partner in Goodwin’s Private Equity and Private Investment Funds practices, where he advises private equity firms and their senior management on a wide variety of legal, compliance, and business issues. Rob also serves as a co-leader of Goodwin’s Secondaries practice, which brings together an international team of lawyers with extensive experience in domestic and global cross-border secondaries transactions.

Rob counsels clients on fund transactional projects, having led numerous secondaries and strategic transactions on both the buy-side and sell-side in connection with portfolio companies, co-investments, and sponsor level transactions. In addition, he has significant experience in managing and negotiating strategic relationships, joint ventures, minority sales, spin-outs, and innovative co-investment regimes.

In addition to fund transactional matters, Rob is well-seasoned in traditional fund formation activities by having led fundraises for both foreign and domestic based products that scale to over $15 billion in size. As part of this role, he actively counsels sponsors in managing their ongoing governance, structuring and economic arrangements as well as guiding their platforms through the ever-evolving regulatory environment applicable to the private equity industry and registered investment advisors.

Rob devotes significant time to volunteering in the community through the Boy Scouts of America program, including serving on the Board of Directors for Connecticut Yankee Council, the local organization where he previously received his Eagle Scout.

Prior to joining Goodwin, Rob was a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP. He also practiced previously at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP and Ropes & Gray LLP.

Rob has been recognized multiple years as a “Rising Star” by Super Lawyers.

While in law school, he received the Archibald R. Murray Public Service Award and was a member of the Fordham Journal of Corporate and Financial Law.

Speaking Engagements

• Moderator, “Engaged Discussion: Preferred Equity: Evolutions in Secondaries and GP Strategic Situations,” SuperReturn Conference, Berlin, June 2023

Rob is frequently interviewed about the growing fund transactional practice, including:

• Quoted, “Continuation Funds Favor 'Sliding' Carry, But Terms Vary Widely,” FundFire, April 24, 2024
• Quoted, “High Level Takeaways and Observations About the Potential Impact of the Final Private Fund Reforms,” Private Equity Law Report, February 8, 2024
• Co-Author, “A preferred approach? Assessing preferred equity as part of the financing toolkit,” Global Legal Insights Fund Finance, 2024
• Quoted, “The pipeline is full for secondary deals in 2024,” PitchBook, December 12, 2023
• Quoted, “Continuation Funds Provide GPs Options in Difficult Deals Market,” Mergers & Acquisitions, October 25, 2023
• Quoted, “Final Private Fund Reforms: Issues to Monitor in Preferential Treatment, Adviser Led Transactions and Annual Audit Rules,” Private Equity Law Report, October 19, 2023
• Quoted, “ILPA Guidance Promotes Equitable Framework for Continuation Fund Transactions,” Private Equity Law Report, July 2023
• Quoted, “ILPA Guidance promotes Equitable Framework for Continuation Fund Transactions,” Private Equity Law Report, July 27, 2023
• Quoted, “Valuation disconnect stands in the way of secondaries dealmaking,” PitchBook, July 21, 2023
• Quoted, “Apollo Aims New Secondaries-Focused Fund at Advisor Market,” Fund Fire, May 31, 2023
• Quoted, “LPs seek refuge in secondaries market,” PitchBook, November 2022
• Co-Author, “A Comparison Between Two Liquidity Solution Tools: Preferred Equity and NAV Facilities,” Private Equity Law Report, 2020