Interview question: why funds work? Forum

[Anonymous User]

How would one answer this in a biglaw interview? Meaning fund formation / investment management work.

[jingosaur]

Because keeping the capital markets efficient is God's work

[Anonymous User]

I rotated through funds and, to be honest, I thought it was by far the most legally substantive work I did as a junior, as compared to M&A and cap markets.

Even as a junior, you help draft side letters, draft limited partnership agreements for investment funds, help in negotiations with investors (regarding said side letters and LPAs), and have to think about fund structuring concerns.

Having said that, there is a ton of grunt work involved and my fund formation group was chronically understaffed and heavily overworked to the point where I was only getting by because I knew my rotation was coming to an end. My peers worked until 11-12 regularly and weekends were generally affected. At least with M&A there are fast and slow periods. Fund formation was just fast.

My experience, though, is probably due to the fact that I worked at a top fund formation practice. My friend worked at a midling practice and her life was far more pleasant.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks to the anonymous reply above. Helpful... I assume this was debevoise or a peer?

[jingosaur]

Thanks to the anonymous reply above. Helpful... I assume this was debevoise or a peer?

My guess is STB because there are rotations.

[Anonymous User]

I shared an office with a junior in fund formation last summer. From what I saw, the biggest con is the amount of constant grunt work - he (and myself) had to constantly update dozens of spreadsheets based on the particulars in each partner's LPA for whatever fund the PE guys just updated. He and the other juniors were regularly in there until 11 or 12 when a fund wasn't closing (worse hours when they close), just to either do prep work or back-office-esque cataloging.

The biggest pro, besides how quickly you transition into substantive drafting/negotiation as described above, is the "interdisciplinary" nature of the practice. It's a weird mashup of tax, financial regulation, and cross-border bank financing. There's also a lot of schedule predictability - even though our group was understaffed due to recent midlevel departures, everyone took at least a full week of vacation during the summer, and most took two one-week vacations, at the beginning and the end of the summer. It also seemed like the constant late nights were a sort-of safeguard against occasionally insane hours, and the kind of people in that practice seemed to really value that stability-for-freedom tradeoff.

[Anonymous User]

OP here. Responses have been super helpful so far. Thank you.