With a long-established Private Investment Funds (PIF) platform, Goodwin advises sponsors across private equity and adjacent strategies, pairing core fund formation with GP-led liquidity events, restructurings, secondaries and bespoke co-investment and managed-account arrangements. The team is led by Mandee Gruen in New York and Paul Verbesey in Washington, D.C., and is underpinned by integrated tax, regulatory and finance support to help managers raise and deploy capital across US and cross-border structures. New York’s John Ferguson advises on fund formation, partnerships and investment matters, while Silicon Valley-based Robert Fore is noted for his fund formation and operational experience. Boston’s Lynette Elam and San Francisco’s Ian O’Donnell are also recommended.
Legal 500 Editorial commentary
Accolades
Client satisfaction: Lawyer & team quality
Testimonials
Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.
- 'Rob Fore - lead partner during the engagement. Rob has such extensive knowledge, and comes at discussions from such a helpful problem-solving perspective. He favors simplicity and elegance over complexity for complexity's sake. Simply always available and provided reliably high-quality counsel whenever we've engaged him.'
- 'We worked exclusively with Goodwin on Fund Formation. The lead and assistant partners on the deal showed wisdom, patience and provided expert counsel. We could not have completed the process without them. In addition, they are simply great poeple with whom we formed very close relationships.'
Key clients
- AEW Capital Management
- Recognize Partners
- Emergence Capital Partners
- Fairfield
- Cendana Capital
- KHP Capital Partners
- Lerer Hippeau
- Hanabi Capital
Work highlights
Represented AEW Capital Management in the successful raise of its 10th fund in the Partners series, which held a final close in June 2025 with total commitments of $1.86 billion.
Represented Recognize Partners in fund formation work for Recognize Partner’s second fund, Recognize Partners II/II-A, L.P. (“Recognize II”), with over $1.7 billion in total commitments.
Represented Emergence Capital in connection with the launch and successful raise of Emergence Capital Partners VII, L.P. (the “Fund”) with $1 billion in aggregate capital commitments.
Practice head
Mandee Gruen; Paul Verbesey
Other key lawyers
Robert Fore; John Ferguson; Lynette Elam; Ian O'Donnell