V&E Expands Private Investment Funds Practice

March 5, 2012 – NEW YORK – Mark Proctor has joined Vinson & Elkins’ Private Investment Funds practice as a partner in New York.  

Mark’s practice will focus on structuring, forming, and operating private investment funds, as well as advising private funds in connection with their investment activities. Mark will also advise clients on investments in private funds, and represent buyers and sellers in secondary transactions involving private fund interests.  He joins a group of five V&E partners in New York and Texas who have an extensive practice representing investment funds as well as investors in private funds.  Mark joins V&E from Goldman, Sachs & Co., where he served as a Vice President and Associate General Counsel to the Private Equity Group, Global Portfolio Solutions and the Real Estate Investment Group.  
 
 “We are excited to add Mark to our team in New York.  He is an outstanding lawyer and will expand our capabilities for clients raising and managing private equity, real estate and other investment funds,” said Keith Fullenweider, who leads V&E’s Mergers and Acquisitions and Private Equity practice groups.  “In particular, Mark brings a great depth of experience across the energy, infrastructure and real estate industries, which are all areas of strategic focus for our firm.”   "I am thrilled to be joining Vinson & Elkins,” said Mark.  “This is a tremendous opportunity to build a premier global private funds practice.  I look forward to working with everyone at V&E in contributing to the continued success of the firm and its clients."

From 2003 to 2006, Mark was an associate at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP in New York, practicing primarily in Cleary’s private equity group.  He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School cum laude in 2002 and clerked for the Honorable Gary L. Taylor in the United States District Court for Central District of California from 2002-2003.  Over the past two years, V&E has handled more than 150 private equity transactions worth more than $130 billion.  V&E is consistently named the "World's Leading Energy Law Firm" by Euromoney (2010 - 2011) and is the #1 US Energy Private Equity Law Firm for the Decade 2001-2010 by deal count and counsel provided according to PitchBook 2011.