DAN SPIES is a partner and the co-leader of Sidley’s New York Investment Funds practice. He has more than 20 years of experience focusing on private investment funds and their investment advisers in connection with formation, corporate, regulatory, and compliance matters. Dan regularly advises clients on the formation and operation of hedge funds, digital assets funds, private equity funds, private credit funds, hybrid funds, commodity pools, funds of funds, managed accounts, and single investor funds. He also assists his clients with the formation and operation of their management entities, including compliance with the Investment Advisers Act and the Commodity Exchange Act. Dan has deep experience advising clients on seed capital and acceleration capital arrangements as well as minority stakes transactions involving asset management firms. Dan’s clients range in size from startup managers to large institutional asset management firms.
Dan is ranked in the 2023 edition of Chambers Global and the 2023 edition of Chambers USA for Investment Funds: Hedge Funds. Chambers notes that Dan is described as “fantastic” and a “very client-focused and commercial lawyer.” Chambers further notes that Dan “has broad and current knowledge of the market.” Dan has also been recognized by IFLR1000, The Legal 500, and Legal Media Group for Investment Funds, and he was named as one of the “29 people to know when launching a hedge fund” by Business Insider.
Sidley’s award-winning Investment Funds group provides top-tier service to all aspects of the private funds industry. Chambers USA awarded the group top band rankings in Hedge Funds every year since 2008. Sidley has also been named “Law Firm of the Year” in Private Funds/Hedge Funds Law in U.S. News – Best Lawyers 2022 “Best Law Firms.”
Dan joined the firm in 2003 after having served as a law clerk for Vice Chancellor Stephen P. Lamb of the Delaware Court of Chancery. He earned his law degree from the University of Michigan Law School, where he graduated cum laude, and his undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis, where he graduated summa cum laude. Dan is also a Certified Public Accountant in the State of Illinois.