When businesses need experienced, but sensible and tailored counsel, Marisa serves as an ally and trusted adviser to her clients. She counsels clients – ranging from early-stage businesses to middle market companies to Fortune 500 companies – on all aspects of corporate transactions, including mergers, acquisitions, reorganizations, and divestitures, from structuring to drafting, across borders and in a wide range of industries, such as technology, communications, manufacturing, and transportation. Marisa also represents private equity funds in portfolio company and bolt-on acquisitions.
Marisa’s transactional practice focuses on general commercial, corporate and compliance matters within law, business, and government. Her work ranges from entity formation, contracts, governance, and corporate actions, including private debt, capital raise and securities offerings, and business succession and continuity planning. She also conducts compliance reviews, counseling clients on related risks and developing and implementing measures to retro- and pro-actively mitigate risks and maintain compliance going forward. Her background provides the perspective and ability to understand clients’ businesses, assess their needs and give practical counsel on a myriad of issues that affect their day-to-day and impact their future.
As part of a full-service firm with a national footprint, she utilizes the network of attorney knowledge and experience available to her to provide value to clients in a thoughtful, coordinated way, often serving as general outside counsel addressing legal issues so that business stakeholders can focus on their business. At one point Marisa was even seconded to a public e-commerce marketplace company as special counsel for global corporate governance, including its many subsidiaries.
She was also trained as a mediator with a deep understanding of alternate dispute resolution, having mediated an array of different cases in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois.
In law school she built the foundation for her skillful ability to research and analyze complex legal issues through her research for a United Nations Special Rapporteur, written state legislative reports for a non-profit, and in-house work at a leading natural gas and electric utility company. Throughout her time in school, she was involved with a multitude of leadership and mentorship roles and business-minded and public-spirited student organizations.
Marisa is a member of the firm’s Professional Development Committee, Engagement Committee, Library Committee, Systems Committee, and Women’s Initiative Committee. Whenever able, she does pro bono work, including counseling startups in the environmental sustainability space, and engages with the broader community.
