AbovetheLaw 
Michael Allen Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts from Lateral Link’s team of expert contributors. Michael Allen Michael Allen is the CEO of Mainspring Legal. He is based in the Los Angeles office and focuses exclusively on Partner and General Counsel placements for top firms and companies. Prior to founding…
Many in the legal profession may never have heard of Gerson Lehrman Group, even though it is the world’s largest company providing expert consultants to investors and business professionals in virtually every sector. But over the last five years, the company has quietly expanded into the legal world, providing experts and expert witnesses for litigation and…
As the equities world increasingly moves towards passive equity allocations, investors and fund managers who once focused on finding market inefficiencies among stocks may need to move to greener pastures. The law offers one such pasture. Litigation finance is growing rapidly and shows no sign of stopping anytime soon. For evidence of that, one need look…
Who doesn’t want to run an investment fund? In my role as a consultant to fund companies, I’m asked this question all the time. The financial press around fund managers like Jim Simon, Steve Cohen, and Ray Dalio often leads many aspiring fund managers to believe that all it takes to become fabulously wealthy is getting…
For portfolio managers, raising capital is one of those strange catch-22s – new fund managers often have a tremendously difficult time raising money, while fund managers with a long track record find themselves swamped with too much cash and often begin turning down new investment requests (see Exhibit A – Renaissance Technologies). For both securities lawyers…
There is a lot of interest in Big Data, Business Intelligence, Predictive Analytics, and other data-related fields these days. Whether in distinctly non-legal areas like the Internet of Things or legal areas like jury selection, litigation finance, textual analytics, and hedge fund replication, techniques for using data are clearly changing many aspects of the business world.…
Before we get started here, I have a confession to make: I love Christmas music. I play it before Thanksgiving and I DON’T CARE. Sometimes I just need a little Christmas. And once Jack Frost is nipping at your nose, forget it — all bets are off. You see, for some people, the music is not…
As the hedge fund market continues to evolve, new investment opportunities are evolving with it. Attorneys need to understand these products and how they work in order to help with providing legal advice, compliance aid, and fund start-up document creation services. In past columns I have discussed litigation finance, an area that I believe is poised…
Ever since the legislation of the 1930s and 1940s created the SEC and defined the expectations of legal and illegal investment behavior, investors have been looking for grey areas. In all areas of the investing world, from hedge funds to private placements, the industry has shifted over time, with regulators eventually adapting by adopting new rules.…
