McDermott Will & Schulte, a global law firm

Your investment platform needs more than execution – it needs structures that hold up under pressure and perform across market cycles. Our investment management lawyers help you design, launch, and manage investment vehicles that align with your goals and stand up to regulatory and investor scrutiny. We shape structures that work in practice, so you are better positioned to move capital with fewer disruptions and greater control over risk.

With more than 150 lawyers around the world, we provide integrated fund, tax, and regulatory advice across the fund life cycle. Our fund formation capabilities span private equity and credit, hedge, venture, infrastructure, and other specialized strategies. Our experience across credit and hybrid strategies positions us to address investor constraints, product design, and cross-border structuring considerations.

We combine fund formation capabilities with sophisticated tax, ERISA, and regulatory advice to structure vehicles for complex investor bases and cross-border operations. When sponsors face regulatory scrutiny, enforcement actions, or disputes, we provide strategic counsel aimed at protecting both the fund structure and the broader management platform.

We also help you navigate US and global regulatory requirements, from Advisers Act compliance to cross-border frameworks, and advise on management company formation, compensation structures, and strategic transactions involving investment managers.

Our investment management lawyers provide integrated legal and business advice at every stage, including:

• Fund formation and structuring
• Capital raising
• Investment transactions, including add-ons and restructurings
• Portfolio management and value creation
• Liquidity solutions, including secondaries and exits

Your ability to raise, deploy, and return capital depends on how your platform is structured. Our investment management lawyers help you integrate strategy, structuring, and compliance across the fund life cycle – so your fund can operate effectively under changing market conditions.

Disputes can disrupt your operations, drain resources, and create uncertainty that affects business performance. Our litigation and dispute resolution lawyers help you navigate high-stakes disputes while reducing uncertainty, managing risk, and protecting your long-term business interests.

Our litigation and dispute resolution practice is comprised of experienced litigators and trial lawyers throughout the US and Europe. Working across practices, we provide integrated counsel tailored to complex disputes. By combining industry- and practice-specific knowledge with trial and appellate experience, we assess how disputes are likely to evolve and adapt your strategy accordingly.

Our lawyers guide you through every stage of a dispute – from early case assessment through litigation, trial, and appeal. With a dedicated appellate practice that has handled hundreds of appeals, including matters before the US Supreme Court, we approach cases with trial and appellate strategies aligned from the outset.

When litigation is not the most effective path forward, we partner with you to resolve disputes through arbitration and mediation. Our lawyers represent you in proceedings before the American Arbitration Association (AAA), the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), and other arbitral bodies – helping you control risk, maintain confidentiality, and preserve business relationships.

In addition to commercial disputes, we advise you on sensitive investigations and government enforcement actions. We conduct internal investigations involving allegations of misconduct, compliance issues, and potential regulatory violations. We also represent you in proceedings involving the US Department of Justice (DOJ), the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), self-regulatory organizations, stock exchanges, and other state and federal agencies.

Our litigation and dispute resolution lawyers understand how disputes can affect your business and reputation. By combining litigation experience with practical business insight, we help you assess risk, reduce uncertainty, and determine the most effective path forward – whether through litigation or strategic resolution outside the courtroom.

A well-defined but flexible M&A strategy is critical for staying competitive in the global marketplace – and complex transactions require experienced mergers and acquisitions lawyers who understand your goals. Our corporate M&A team combines deep market knowledge with precise deal execution skills to help you achieve your strategic objectives.

Many deals have a cross-border dimension, and with more than 150 M&A lawyers across 20 global offices, we have the resources and footprint to represent your transactional needs worldwide. Our industry knowledge in key markets, including energy, food and beverage, technology, chemicals, life sciences, and healthcare, ensures that your deals drive measurable business growth and market expansion.

We provide comprehensive, skilled guidance in regulatory, antitrust, tax, labor and employment, intellectual property, and financing matters – along with litigation, when the need arises. Our M&A practice also focuses on IT outsourcing, merger integration, and ensuring seamless transitions that protect your operational continuity and financial value.

We advise on negotiated and unsolicited acquisitions, such as competitive auctions, tax-driven transactions, and cross-border deals. From our experience representing clients from publicly listed companies to private equity and family offices, we can anticipate different deal perspectives. Our approach ensures that you deploy the right strategy for any given situation, securing favorable terms and driving long-term profitability for your organization.

As a leading provider of M&A legal services, we have developed client-focused tools designed to streamline the transaction process and reduce your overall costs. We bring a practical approach to every matter, delivering efficient solutions that enhance your bottom line.

What would you do if your company faced shareholder class action and derivative lawsuits, a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation or a corporate governance dispute? What if you encountered all three simultaneously? With the complexity of securities and governance law, you need a trusted partner by your side who understands both the legal and business implications of the issues that are raised by shareholders and regulators.

You can count on our dedicated securities & corporate governance litigation team to protect your legal and business interests in high-stakes cases and sensitive governance matters. Whether you face accusations of accounting irregularities, inadequate disclosures, breaches of fiduciary duty, market manipulation, insider trading or valuation irregularities, we are well-versed in litigating a broad range of these substantive issues to help you navigate it all.

With a nationwide network of collaborative practitioners, including a significant presence in New York, Delaware, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington DC, we’re able to support your needs regardless of jurisdiction. The group also includes dedicated corporate governance litigators, including in our Delaware office. Our experienced team includes Board and Fund Counsellors, trial lawyers, corporate governance litigators, former SEC regulators, federal prosecutors, in-house lawyers, and federal and Delaware law clerks. Additionally, our sophisticated counsel helps you manage any governance, disclosure, regulatory and trading issues.

We have an extensive and successful track record in shareholder class action litigation filed pursuant to the Securities Act of 1933 and Securities Exchange Act of 1934. In addition, our team regularly represents a wide range of clients in the investment management industry in connection with a myriad of complex commercial litigation and regulatory matters. Corporate clients include investment banks, accounting firms, hedge funds, funds of funds, and private equity funds, as well as their principals and portfolio companies. We also regularly represent individual issuers, directors and officers, Board Committees.

Because of this collective knowledge and passion for the practice, our team has achieved highly favorable results stemming from litigation, negotiated results, investigations, and enforcement proceedings.

Tax considerations shape how your business structures transactions, financings, and international investments. Our lawyers advise you on global tax compliance and design tax strategies that support growth, help mitigate financial exposure, and strengthen your business operations across jurisdictions.

Our tax lawyers represent financial institutions, investors, and businesses – including more than half of the Fortune 100. Working across the US, Europe, and other major markets, we align tax strategy with your global business strategy while helping you anticipate regulatory and controversy risk.

Tax strategy is most effective when integrated early into decision-making. Our tax lawyers advise you on federal, state, local, and international tax laws that affect your transactions, investments, financings, restructurings, and cross-border operations. We also help you evaluate the tax implications of evolving business models, supply chains, and operating structures as your business expands internationally.

Our tax law practice includes advising on transfer pricing planning, advance pricing agreements, and cross-border tax controversies. We handle sophisticated transfer pricing disputes worldwide and engage with taxing authorities and organizations involved in international tax policy and enforcement – including the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and tax authorities throughout Europe and globally.

Tax disputes can affect enterprise value. Our team includes former IRS administrators, Department of Justice (DOJ) Tax Division lawyers, Tax Court clerks, and legislative advisors who understand how tax policy is developed, interpreted, and enforced. This experience strengthens our ability to advocate before taxing authorities and guide you through examinations, administrative appeals, and litigation before trial courts, appellate courts, and the US Supreme Court.

Our litigators have extensive experience successfully representing private funds, other shareholders and directors in board and investor conflicts, including M&A disputes, change-of-control provisions, board elections, and management deadlocks. Our shareholder disputes work includes both private and public companies, as well as control of investment funds and other financial services entities.

Our litigators are an integral part of the firm’s market-leading shareholder activism practice, and we have a particularly strong track record in litigation undertaken as part of shareholder activism efforts. We counter management attempts to curtail shareholder rights and help lead coordinated campaigns that unfold in shareholder meetings, boardrooms and courtrooms. This includes the aggressive use of advance notice bylaw provisions, reopening nomination windows, ensuring recognition of valid nominations and contesting shareholder votes.

We have successfully fought in the Delaware Court of Chancery and in federal and state courts. We also draw on our courtroom experience to advise shareholder activists on best practices to minimize their vulnerability to legal challenges.