01
Mergers & Acquisitions
Buy-side and sell-side deals, with the diligence, structure, acquisition financing, and carve-out mechanics that decide if the thesis survives closing.
Enter the practice: Mergers & Acquisitions →Capabilities
Counsel where the decision is hard.
A corporate, M&A, and private-capital practice with a full advisory platform behind it. We arrive before the rules are settled, and we stay through the moments that don't come twice.
Sixty-three attorneys, seventeen practice groups, and more than 175 focus areas: the ratio is lopsided on purpose. Hard questions in corporate work arrive in pairs: the acquisition that is also a tax position, the token that is also a security, the fund that is also somebody's estate plan. So the firm is organized around the question a matter raises rather than the department that holds it.
We lead with six transactional and capital disciplines. Behind them sits a full platform of eleven further practices, governance to private client, so a matter can widen without changing firms. Before a deal goes to market we run it through the Pressure Test, diligence done the way the counterparty's lawyers will do it, so nothing they find is news to you.
The firm entered several of these fields before their rules were written: healthcare in 2013, offshore structuring and digital assets in 2014, cannabis in 2015. We have represented clients before the SEC, the CFTC, and the IRS, on the company's side of the table. The decisions are yours; we make sure the documents can carry them.
The Lead Practices
The transactional and capital work that defines a company at the inflection point, in six disciplines, each led by a partner.
02
Private Capital
Counsel to sponsors, venture funds, and family offices on deploying capital: fund formation, direct and co-investments, and portfolio governance that holds up when a limited partner or a regulator asks.
Enter the practice: Private Capital →03
Securities & Capital Markets
Private placements, pre-IPO readiness, and the regulatory path as companies raise and scale, drafted so the next round, and the next regulator, find a clean record.
Enter the practice: Securities & Capital Markets →04
Venture & Emerging Companies
Formation through growth rounds, including founder terms, cap-table discipline, commercial and licensing agreements, and the contracts that quietly run an emerging business.
Enter the practice: Venture & Emerging Companies →05
Digital Assets & Blockchain
Token, exchange, fund, and regulatory strategy for digital-asset ventures and the institutions financing them, as early counsel to a category that did not yet have a settled name.
Enter the practice: Digital Assets & Blockchain →06
Tax
Domestic and international tax, M&A tax, and the structures that make a transaction efficient, designed in with the deal rather than retrofitted at signing.
Enter the practice: Tax →The Full Platform
Behind the lead practices sits a deep bench across corporate, capital markets, and private wealth, so the second question a matter raises is answered by the same team as the first.
07
Corporate Governance & Board Advisory
Board-level judgment on fiduciary duty, committee structure, and the decisions a board makes faster than it would like to.
Enter the practice →08
Intellectual Property
Trademark, copyright, trade-secret, and licensing strategy for the assets that often carry the enterprise value.
Enter the practice →09
Data Privacy & Cybersecurity
Privacy programs, incident response, and the cross-border data obligations that arrive with growth.
Enter the practice →10
Litigation, Disputes & Special Situations
High-stakes disputes, regulator-facing matters, and the special situations where the outcome is existential and the clock is running.
Enter the practice →11
Real Estate
Corporate and transactional structuring for operators, investors, and the entities that hold the assets.
Enter the practice →12
Employment & Executive Compensation
Executive agreements, equity and incentive design, and the workforce questions that surface in every transaction.
Enter the practice →13
Estate Planning & Private Client
Counsel for the companies, and the families behind them, on wealth, succession, and the structures that outlast a single deal.
Enter the practice →14
Business Immigration
Visas, transfers, and the cross-border mobility that growth-stage and international companies depend on.
Enter the practice →15
Sports, Media & Entertainment
The business behind the talent, meaning IP, endorsements, and sponsorship-to-equity deals. By referral, and rarely discussed.
Enter the practice →16
Asset Protection & Offshore Structuring
Domestic and offshore structures, from trusts and holding companies to the ~51-jurisdiction partner network that keeps global wealth defensible.
Enter the practice →17
Not sure where to start?
Six questions produce an educational map of the entity, jurisdiction, tax, and protection issues in play. Free, with no obligation.
Run the Structure Diagnostic →The Frontier Practices
A dated record of early counsel to industries whose rules were still being written, and of staying as they became established industries.
Among the first, where it's hard. Read the record on the Frontier.
Capital & Special Situations
Dedicated practices for the institutions that move capital, across funds, finance, insurance, structured products, restructuring, and the public markets.
18
Funds & Investment Services
Fund formation across PE, VC, hedge, and real estate, with master-feeder and parallel structures, fund finance, investment-management regulation, and GP/LP terms that hold.
Enter the practice: Funds & Investment Services →19
Banking & Asset Finance
Acquisition, leveraged, and real-estate finance, asset and equipment finance, security and intercreditor arrangements, and counsel to lenders and borrowers alike.
Enter the practice: Banking & Asset Finance →20
Insurance & Reinsurance
Insurer formation and licensing, captives, reinsurance and retrocession, insurance-linked securities, run-off and portfolio transfers, and insurance M&A.
Enter the practice: Insurance & Reinsurance →21
Structured Finance & Securitization
Securitization and CLOs, SPV and orphan structures, repackagings and notes programs, derivatives and ISDA, and tax-efficient structuring through to ratings.
Enter the practice: Structured Finance & Securitization →22
Restructuring & Insolvency
Cross-border restructuring, schemes and plans of arrangement, distressed M&A and special situations, creditor and debtor counsel, and enforcement and asset recovery.
Enter the practice: Restructuring & Insolvency →23
Capital Markets & Listings
Equity and debt offerings, listing services across exchanges, private placements and Reg D/S, SPACs and de-SPACs, and continuous-disclosure and governance.
Enter the practice: Capital Markets & Listings →By Industry / Sector
The same disciplines, read through the sector: where the diligence has to look, where the regulator will, and what the other side will fight for. Enter by industry.
Technology & SaaS
Venture, M&A, IP, data, and equity comp for software and platform businesses.
Financial Services & Funds
Funds, securities, banking, and regulatory counsel for managers and sponsors.
Digital Assets & Web3
Token, exchange, fund, and regulatory strategy, as early counsel to the category.
Private Equity & Family Offices
Buyouts, fund formation, direct deals, and asset protection for private capital.
Insurance & Reinsurance
Carriers, captives, and insurance-linked securities across the risk-transfer chain.
Healthcare & Longevity
Regulatory posture, M&A, and the longevity frontier forming around it.
Real Estate & Hospitality
Investment, development, joint ventures, and the finance behind the assets.
Energy & Natural Resources
Projects, finance, regulatory, and the cross-border structuring they require.
Sports, Media & Entertainment
Talent to ownership, through IP, sponsorship, and the deals behind the business. Discreet.
Signature offering · The Pressure Test
Stress-tested
the way the other side will.
A deal is read by hostile eyes before it is read by the market. We red-team the structure the way the counterparty's lawyers will, running the diligence they will run and attacking the clauses they will attack, so the first time a weakness surfaces is in our conference room rather than theirs. You move first. You hold the line, with us behind it.
Adversarial diligence, pre-signing
The questions the other side will ask first
Failure modes mapped before they cost you
How we work →
The differentiator
Corporate counsel,
on demand.
General-counsel judgment at board level, scaled to the quarter in front of you as a fractional GC, a standing governance adviser, or deal-by-deal coverage. For the company that has outgrown its first outside lawyer and is not yet ready to hire a chief legal officer.
Fractional general counsel
Board & governance advisory
Deal-by-deal coverage
How it works →
Common questions
A few of the questions clients ask first about the practice.
What does Hart David Carson LLP's capabilities practice cover?+
Hart David Carson LLP is a corporate, M&A, and private-capital firm that leads with six core disciplines: mergers & acquisitions, private capital, securities & capital markets, venture & emerging companies, digital assets & blockchain, and tax. Behind them sits a full advisory platform spanning governance, IP, data, disputes, real estate, employment, private client, and immigration. The lead practices carry a company through the transaction, and the platform behind them means the matter never outgrows the room it started in.
Does the firm advise on mergers and acquisitions?+
Yes. Hart David Carson LLP advises on buy-side and sell-side M&A, covering diligence, structuring, acquisition financing, carve-outs, and the post-closing integration that determines if the thesis holds. We act for strategic acquirers, private-equity sponsors, and companies on the sell side, with tax and securities counsel in the deal from the first draft rather than bolted on at the close.
Who does the private-capital practice serve?+
The private-capital practice serves private-equity sponsors, venture funds, and family offices. The work spans capital deployment, fund formation, direct deals, and the governance that keeps a portfolio defensible, coordinated with the firm's funds, banking, and structured-finance teams when a matter reaches into fund finance, securitization, or the public markets.
Can Hart David Carson LLP act as outside general counsel?+
Yes. Through Corporate Counsel On Demand, Hart David Carson LLP provides board-level and general-counsel judgment, embedded when you need it and dialed back when you don't. It suits the company between its first outside lawyer and its first chief legal officer, offering fractional general counsel, board and governance advisory, and deal-by-deal coverage.
Does the firm handle cross-border and international work?+
Yes. Hart David Carson LLP works to one standard from Chicago, with offices in London and Dubai through partner firms, with a partner network that extends its reach across roughly 51 jurisdictions on five continents. Where a matter touches a regulator, we have represented clients in matters before the SEC, the CFTC, and the IRS.
What is the Pressure Test?+
The Pressure Test is Hart David Carson LLP's signature pre-signing diligence offering. Before a deal goes to market, we run it through adversarial diligence, red-teaming the transaction the way the counterparty's lawyers will, so nothing they find is news to you. Failure modes are mapped before they cost you, and the work is partner-led from start to finish.