DAN SPIES is the co-leader of Sidley’s New York Investment Funds practice. He has more than 20 years of experience focusing on private investment funds and their investment advisers in connection with formation, corporate, regulatory, and compliance matters. Dan regularly advises clients on the formation and operation of private equity and credit funds, hedge funds, digital assets funds, hybrid funds, commodity pools, funds of funds, managed accounts, and single investor funds. Dan represents private fund sponsors in all aspects of their business, in the U.S. and abroad, counseling both well-known sponsors and emerging managers focused across sectors. He also assists his clients with the formation and operation of their management entities, including compliance with the Investment Advisers Act.
Dan has been ranked in Chambers USA since 2019 and Chambers Global since 2020, most recently in the category of USA – Nationwide Hedge Funds. Chambers notes that Dan is described as an “amazing” lawyer (2024). Chambers further notes that Dan is described as having a “pragmatic approach to matters” and being “a very strategic lawyer” (2024). Dan has also been recognized by IFLR1000 and Legal Media Group for Investment Funds, and he was named as one of the “29 people to know when launching a hedge fund” by Business Insider.
Dan joined the firm in 2003 after having served as a law clerk for Vice Chancellor Stephen P. Lamb of the Delaware Court of Chancery. He earned his law degree from the University of Michigan Law School, where he graduated cum laude, and his undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis, where he graduated summa cum laude. Dan is also a Certified Public Accountant in the State of Illinois.