Shartsis Friese LLP

Investment Funds & Advisers

Counsel

Kat Peters-Miller is a skilled and steady attorney to investment advisers, providing strategic counsel to clients navigating complex investment fund and securities regulations.

With a deep focus on private funds, Kat advises on the wide range of regulatory issues affecting domestic and offshore private fund managers, helping clients manage risk and optimize growth opportunities in a constantly evolving regulatory landscape. She has extensive experience in fund formation that spans hedge, venture capital, private equity, fund-of-funds and hybrid private funds.

Kat advises clients on all aspects of the lifecycle of an adviser’s business, including formation, registration, operations, M&A transactions, seeding arrangements, separately managed account agreements, business continuity planning and ongoing compliance. She enjoys working with emerging managers and regularly advises on various exemptions and structure considerations that are key to starting an investment adviser firm. Kat also specializes in helping advisers comply with overlapping state and federal data privacy regulations and ensuring registered investment advisers conform their marketing materials to the SEC’s nuanced advertising rules.

Prior to becoming Counsel at Shartsis Friese in 2022, Kat worked with many institutional investors in the Asset Management and Investment Funds practice at K&L Gates, learning the needs of governmental plan investors and educational endowments, experience that has helped her advise clients on secondary fund transactions, including the purchase or sale of private fund interests, side letter negotiations and co-investment terms.

Beyond investment funds, Kat’s legal experience includes corporate M&A transactions and other general business counseling, which gives her a unique insight when helping investment advisers with employment agreements, cybersecurity and data privacy, strategic planning considerations and business negotiations.

American Bar Association, Business Law Section - Federal Regulation of Securities: Co-Vice Chair of the Subcommittee on Private Funds, 2025 - present; Oregon Bar Association - Business Law and Securities Regulation Sections: Member of the Executive Committee of the Securities Regulation Section of the Oregon State Bar Association, 2024 - present; Portland Alternative Investment Association: Director on the Board of Directors & Pro Bono Counsel, 2018 - present; Portland Women in Investment Management: Member and Pro Bono Counsel, 2021 - present; Help for Children, San Francisco: Planning Committee Member for PE/VC Cares, an annual art battle fundraiser for the prevention and treatment of child abuse, 2022 - present; University of California Law San Francisco Alumni Mentor Program: Volunteer Attorney Mentor, 2021 - present; Clackamas County Water Environment Services Advisory Committee, Oregon, 2020 - present; Oregon Women Lawyers - Dragonflies, Dragon Boat Racing Club Team, 2019 - present; University of California Law San Francisco, Startup Legal Garage: Volunteer Supervising Attorney, 2015-2017; Association of Women in Alternative Investing, San Francisco: Secretary and Steering Committee Member, 2014-2017; Washington Bar Association - Business Law Section; California Bar Association - Business Law Section

University of California Law San Francisco (formerly UC Hastings College of the Law); J.D., magna cum laude, 2013 | University of South Carolina, Honors College; B.A., political science and art history, summa cum laude; 2008