Courtesy photo.

Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo has hired funds attorney Loretta Shaw-Lorello, a private equity partner and vice chairwoman of the private funds practice at Covington & Burling, as a partner in New York.

Shaw-Lorello advises private equity fund sponsors on the formation and operation of venture capital funds, buyout funds, distressed funds, credit opportunity funds, and real estate funds. She also provides counsel to clients on Dodd-Frank and other regulatory compliance matters.

Her hiring comes just over two months after Mintz lost the co-head of its investment funds practice, Adam Gale, who joined Baker & Hostetler in November to head a new funds team there.

Overall, Mintz has been in expansion mode in recent months, including with two partner additions in New York. In September, the firm added Jason Halperin, former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and a former Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partner, as a white-collar investigations and enforcement partner in New York. Another addition that month was Daniel Conley, a former Suffolk County district attorney, who joined Mintz as a Boston-based special counsel and senior adviser to the law firm's lobbying arm, ML Strategies. Last May, Mintz welcomed David Siegal, a former co-chairman of Haynes and Boone's government enforcement and litigation practice, to its white-collar defense practice in New York.

Shaw-Lorello practiced law at O'Melveny & Myers for six years before joining Covington in April 2008 along with six colleagues, including Timothy Clark, who had been co-head of O'Melveny's private equity practice. (Clark left Covington for Sidley Austin in 2012.)

Loretta Shaw-Lorello of Mintz Levin. Courtesy photo.

While some law firms use metrics focusing on deal value and number of deals to pitch and promote their funds practices, and make much of their far-flung geographical presence, Shaw-Lorello said she sees market and regulatory expertise as among the most valuable attributes for funds counsel. Newer, early-stage clients, in particular, want to have confidence that their external counsel has made an investment in developing the relationship, she said.

“Obviously, deal size and number of deals are important, but you don't have to work for only the five or 10 largest fund sponsors and you don't have to do 500 deals a year to have a strong funds practice,” Shaw-Lorello said.

Bob Bodian, managing member at Mintz, said in a statement that Shaw-Lorello “combines extensive industry knowledge with the talent and ability to provide strategic advice to our clients. Loretta enhances and deepens our already significant footprint in the private equity and corporate space.”

Regulatory expertise is particularly critical in a post-financial crisis environment, where many fund sponsors are required to register with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as investment advisers, Shaw-Lorello acknowledged. However, the regulatory environment is complex, and compliance burdens are not uniformly more onerous everywhere in the industry than before the passage of Dodd-Frank. For example, sponsors working exclusively with venture capital funds can obtain an exemption from full investment adviser registration if they meet certain criteria, Shaw-Lorello noted.

“I think that fund sponsors have adjusted in many respects to the new realities and the amount of regulation that the industry is subject to,” Shaw-Lorello commented. “The industry has gotten more used to regulation and the SEC better understands the industry to some extent.”

Covington & Burling did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Shaw-Lorello's departure.