Ellen Gibson McGinnis

Ellen McGinnis is the Chair Emerita of our Fund Finance Practice Group, advising clients on subscription-secured credit facilities, a product she has worked on since its initial development in the late 1980s. Clients value Ellen’s critical thinking and the innovative approach she takes to structuring and executing their financing transactions. Offering thoughtful, practical advice, Ellen serves as trusted counsel for U.S. and foreign commercial and investment banks as lenders to private equity funds. She works on many of the practice’s hybrid collateral facilities and international and multi-currency transactions.

Ellen has served on the firm’s Executive Committee, Board of Directors, Technology Committee, Opinion Committee, and as the chair of the firm’s Admission to Partnership Committee. She is a member of our Inclusion and Engagement Oversight Committee, which serves as an advisory committee on equity and inclusion and oversees the implementation of recommendations to improve the recruitment, retention, and promotion of diverse talent at the firm. Ellen is involved with the firm’s implementation of its 2030 plan, including in areas of client service and knowledge management.

A graduate of Yale University, Ellen has been highly involved in volunteer service to her alma mater. She co-founded and served as founding chair of YaleWomen, the organization for women graduates of Yale College and Yale’s Graduate School and professional schools and remains involved with the organization. She is a recipient of the Yale Medal, the highest award presented by the Association of Yale Alumni to recognize and honor outstanding individual service to the university.

Ellen has been active in women’s initiatives through her work with YaleWomen and at the firm, and through her service on the Council of Women’s Health Research at Yale, which advances health research for women across medical and psychosocial disciplines. A committed advocate for inclusion at the firm, she has built a Finance group that reflects that priority with its multitude of different perspectives. She also serves as a mentor of and sponsor to lawyers in her practice group and spends a substantial amount of time training lawyers and implanting systems to preserve our institutional knowledge of Fund Finance legal and commercial issues and to keep up-to-date with market trends and conditions.