Ex-SEC Lawyer Stacey Song Joins Cooley’s Funds Group in New York

Cooley LLP is expanding its fund formation practice, hiring former Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer and Fried Frank partner Stacey Song.

Song, who will be a partner in Cooley’s New York office, advises on compliance and regulatory matters for private fund management and other alternative investment vehicles. She worked on a new marketing rule for investment advisers that was devised during her time at the SEC.

The addition gives Cooley 19 fund formation practice partners. The San Francisco-founded firm’s clients include Amplify Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm in Menlo Park, Calif., which announced last month the formation of two new funds with a combined $700 million in capital.

Also in June, Cooley said it had advised Obvious Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in early-stage entrepreneurs on its raising two new funds representing a combined $461 million in fresh capital.

Stacey Song

Cooley closed more than 490 funds last year, raising more than $61 billion, John Dado, the firm’s fund formation practice head, said in an interview. By mid-June, the firm was on pace to match 2021, but Dado said that the firm “may or may not reach” the same record-breaking level this year.

At Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, Song focused on securities regulation, advising investment advisers, private funds and broker-dealers as well as structuring and management of private funds and other alternative investment vehicles.

Song adds regulatory expertise to the fund formation practice as the investment world faces new regulation, Dado told Bloomberg Law. “Having the regulatory component she brings is absolutely critical,” he said.

The SEC has “a ton of other private fund rulemaking on its rulemaking list, and all of those could impact investment advisers,” Song said.

Cooley, with some 1,700 lawyers around the globe, said it, is primary fund counsel to more than 500 investment fund organizations. The firm’s fund formation practice works with Cooley’s emerging company group.

Cooley in December added Lina Zhou from Kirkland & Ellis as its first fund formation partner in the firm’s New York office.

The firm reported just under $2 billion in gross revenue last year, making it the 16th largest law firm, according to data compiled by the American Lawyer.