Jay Baris is a partner in the Investment Funds group and has practiced in the asset management area for more than 35 years. Jay is widely recognized for his breadth of experience representing registered funds, investment advisers, financial institutions, broker-dealers, and independent directors on the full spectrum of financial services regulation, transactions, and governance matters. Jay’s work with registered funds includes mutual funds, closed-end funds, exchange-traded funds, and business development companies. He has extensive experience advising on the regulatory aspects of fund and investment advisory operations, and has represented numerous clients on mergers and acquisitions, reorganizations, exemptive applications, and compliance issues. He also advises operating companies on “status” issues that arise under the Investment Company Act of 1940. More recently, he has been advising FinTech clients on how the federal securities laws apply to digital assets and cryptocurrencies. 

An active speaker and writer on issues concerning investment management and the regulation of financial institutions, Jay has been published in a variety of trade and general interest publications, including Insights: The Corporate & Securities Law Advisor, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Wolters Kluwer, The Review of Securities & Commodities Regulation, Fund Action, The Review of Banking & Financial Services, Fund Directions, and Fund Board Views. Jay is an adjunct professor of law at Brooklyn Law School, and chairs the Task Force on Blockchains, Cryptocurrencies and Investment Management of the Federal Securities Regulation Committee of the American Bar Association’s Business Law Section. Jay hosts Mutual Fund Minute, a bi-weekly Sidley podcast available on Spotify, Apple, Google and other major podcast platforms. 

Jay has been ranked in Chambers Global (2020–2024) and Chambers USA in Registered Funds (2009–2023), The Legal 500 US as a “Leading Lawyer” and in the “Hall of Fame” for Investment Fund Formation and Management: Mutual/Registered/Exchange Traded Funds (2018–2020 and 2022), and Best Lawyers for his work in corporate law, mutual funds law, and financial services regulation law (2008–2024). He has been listed in New York Super Lawyers in Securities and Corporate Finance (2006–2020), Super Lawyers Business Edition (2011), and JD Supra in its annual Readers’ Choice Awards (2016–2017). His nominations include “Independent Fund Counsel of the Year” by Institutional Investor’s Fund Directions and Ignites.com’s “Fund Titan” award in the Outside Counsel category (2008). Chambers USA notes that Jay “is highly skilled in advising registered funds ETFs and their independent trustees.” Clients praised him as “a strong practitioner. He is knowledgeable and he’s very well regarded among industry lawyers” (2021).