JOSEPH CHAN has over two decades of experience representing Fortune 500 companies, sovereign wealth, private equity and hedge funds, and prominent emerging growth companies, in a variety of complex cross-border transactions. Joseph’s experience spans the consumer, industrial, life sciences, energy, financial services, and technology industries. He has worked on transactions totaling over US$50 billion, including fund formation, going private bids, strategic mergers, tender offers, asset and stock acquisitions, joint ventures, divestitures, private placements, initial public, and follow-on offerings.
Joseph has advised many public company boards of directors and management on such matters as fiduciary duties, conflicts, and sensitive government communications. He is skilled in negotiating creative solutions to achieve business objectives. Joseph possesses proven interpersonal and leadership skills, including 14 years as a partner at major U.S. law firms and five years as a Fortune 500 Chief Legal Officer (CLO). He has significant international experience, especially in Asia.
Joseph previously served as the CLO at a NYSE-listed U.S. Fortune 500 multi-brand consumer company. Under his leadership, the legal department garnered multiple best-in-class industry accolades, including, for example, commendation by the Financial Times’ Innovative Lawyers for Digital Legal Department. Joseph oversaw functions, including board secretary, corporate governance, public company reporting, compliance, risk management, litigation, employment, IP, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and privacy. He co-led the company’s precedent-setting dual listing on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong that raised US$2.2 billion. Joseph co-chaired the company’s compliance oversight and disclosure committees and led cross-function committees overseeing enterprise-wide compliance, risk management, disclosures, intellectual property, and data governance. He also executed M&As involving the company’s control acquisition of industry horizontals and the purchase of strategic stakes in industry verticals.
Chambers, Legal 500 (2015), and IFLR 1000 have consistently recognized Joseph as a leading lawyer in private equity, M&A, and capital markets. Joseph has been recognized by Chambers Asia Pacific for M&A Nationwide (2023–2025). He also has been ranked for his work in Capitals Markets (2023–2025) by IFLR 1000. Joseph is listed by Euromoney’s Expert Guides as one of the world’s leading lawyers for M&A (2025).
Joseph is the author and editor of a leading private equity and venture capital legal treatise published by LexisNexis. He frequently speaks at industry conferences. Joseph’s views have been quoted and published numerous times in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, and Bloomberg Businessweek. He has presented at such leading universities as Harvard, Stanford, and Columbia.
Joseph was a judicial intern to The Honorable Royce C. Lamberth, United States District Court Judge for the District of Columbia. Over the years, Joseph has participated on a number of committees of the Business Law Section of the American Bar Association, including Corporate Compliance, Developments in Business Financing, Negotiated Acquisitions, and Venture Capital and Private Equity.