Neil O'Donnell is a founding partner at Legal Scale. His practice primarily focuses on private equity transactions and fund formation. Neil represents investors and emerging-growth companies with early-stage financings, including issuances of SAFEs, warrants, convertible debt and other equity securities. He also provides advice on compliance and corporate governance for his clients.

Prior to founding Legal Scale, Neil spent several years raising and deploying debt and equity capital to purchase cell tower ground leases in South America – a project that Neil decided to spearhead to bring accretive land acquisition strategies to Latin America. Neil also previously worked in the Restructuring Group and Equity Derivatives Group at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, which sharpened his ability to operate at the intersection of business and law. Before completing law school, Neil worked at Merrill Lynch, Jacobi Capital and Synaptic Capital Management, experiences that gave him insight into the inner workings of funds and other financial institutions.

Neil received his J.D. and M.B.A. from Cornell University and his B.S. and M.S.E. in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. Neil is a chartered alternative investment analyst (CAIA) and chartered financial analyst (CFA). He is admitted to the bar in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Arizona, Washington D.C., Colorado, Massachusetts and Washington. Neil is based out of New York City, NY.