Our new Private Equity General Counsel Advisory Team provides strategic and operational advice spanning the entire private equity firm ecosystem, addressing everything from established workflows to bespoke transactions across fund, investment, management company, and portfolio company matters.
Drawing on extensive in-house experience, we combine deep operational knowledge of how private equity teams function with Goodwin’s full-service counseling and transaction capabilities. We go beyond traditional legal advice to provide practical, actionable guidance that unifies insights across multiple practice areas and considers your entire business.
With our firsthand experience at leading private equity funds and distinctive embedded advisory model, we become an extension of your in-house team to help strengthen your in-house legal function and enhance the value you receive from Goodwin across three interconnected domains:
- Design efficient legal functions that scale (including for firms without in-house legal professionals)
- Advise on team structure, roles, and hiring strategies
- Demonstrate the full value legal brings to the business and align legal services with business priorities
- Establish clear roles and collaboration models with other in-house teams (e.g. finance, HR, etc.)
- Provide mentorship and individualized training (e.g. to build expertise outside core practice areas)
- Facilitate access to peer networks
- Streamline workflows and embed best practices (e.g. firmwide external counsel guidelines)
- Develop standardized approaches through negotiation playbooks, checklists, and process improvements (e.g. to manage all aspects of M&A deal flow)
- Enhance knowledge capture, integration, and sharing (e.g. form creation, precedent management)
- Optimize legal tech stack and manage vendors
- Enhance other in-house teams’ understanding of when and how to engage legal to promote seamless partnership
- Navigate cross-functional initiatives (e.g. portfolio company onboarding toolkit)
- Address operational matters not covered by traditional law firm work (e.g. vendor contract management, maintaining auditor independence)
- Tackle questions that arise outside of routine legal workflows (e.g. investment committee best practices, new office openings)
- Proactive counsel on emerging regulatory developments, including resources and trainings for relevant stakeholders (e.g. legal, HR, investment teams, etc.)
- Understand how peer firms are approaching trending topics
- Build legal work into operational infrastructure
Our Private Equity General Counsel Advisory Team builds on our commitment to serving the full enterprise by delivering holistic, business-minded counsel designed to complement and enhance traditional legal services. By combining practical, operational expertise with world-class legal capabilities, we offer integrated support that unifies fund, investment, management company, and portfolio company perspectives to coordinate across all aspects of your legal needs.
Contact Stacy Clement to Learn More
Stacy is a Senior Attorney and Private Equity Legal Team Advisor in Goodwin's Private Equity group, and formerly Vice President & Senior Counsel at Vista Equity Partners. Her comprehensive experience spans funds (fundraising, structuring, fund level transactions), investments (M&A, credit, public equities), portfolio oversight, and management company matters (including corporate, commercial arrangements, litigation, tax, labor and employment, privacy, IP, and real estate). Prior to Vista, Stacy worked in the Private Equity group at another leading global law firm.
Contacts
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Stacy Clement
Senior Attorney & Private Equity Legal Team Advisor