Joseph P. Cunningham
Partner, Asset Management
Joseph P. Cunningham is a partner in the Asset Management Department. Joseph has extensive experience representing hedge funds, fund of funds, closed-end and hybrid funds and family office vehicles investing across a wide spectrum of liquid and illiquid assets in the U.S. and abroad. He focuses on advising fund managers in connection with fund structuring, sales and marketing, investor communications, side letters, trading and investments, day-to-day operations and regulatory compliance. He routinely advises managers with respect to global fund offerings to institutional and high net worth investors. Joseph has extensive experience representing the world’s largest insurance and reinsurance companies and global asset managers in connection with launching insurance-linked securities (ILS) funds and reinsurance fund platforms. Working closely with partners in Willkie’s leading insurance and tax practices, Joseph’s practice is at the forefront of the convergence of the reinsurance and asset management industries.
Chambers USA (2025) ranks Joseph nationally among the leading practitioners in the area of Hedge Funds.
Over the course of his career, in addition to acting as lead U.S. counsel on numerous fund formations in the U.S. and various offshore jurisdictions, Joseph has advised some of the world’s largest and most prominent fund managers, as well as mid-sized and smaller managers, with respect to a broad range of corporate and regulatory matters, including acquisitions, spinouts, financings, seeding arrangements, joint ventures, wind-ups, restructurings, litigations, and SEC examinations and investigations. Joseph also has significant experience representing start-up fund management companies, including structuring management compensation, equity, profit sharing and carry vehicles, and negotiating seed capital deals and joint ventures among a host of capital providers, including seeding firms, family offices, fund of funds and former employers.
Experience
Joseph is a member of the New York State Bar Associations.
Joseph has been involved in the following significant matters:
- Represents prominent Bermuda-based reinsurance managers in connection with structuring and marketing investment funds and products that provide exposure to reinsurance and other insurance-linked investments, including Nephila Capital, Kiskadee, Aeolus Capital Management, Renaissance Re and New Ocean (XL Catlin).
- Currently is advising a former Goldman Sachs partner on the launch of a fund management company and the formation of various bespoke open-ended funds focused on the re/insurance and transport sectors.
- Continues to advise Aspen, Hiscox Re and other global insurance and reinsurance companies on third party capital platform initiatives.
- Acted as U.S. counsel in connection with the formation and offering of ILS funds for Schroders, Third Point Re and AQR Re, among other global asset managers.
- Has represented a number of startup managers in connection with organizing their management companies, establishing compensation arrangements for key employees, structuring and marketing their funds, negotiating with lead and institutional investors and service providers and securing seed capital.
- Represents a broad and diverse group of private fund clients including funds of hedge funds, activist funds, real estate and private equity funds, credit funds and hybrid vehicles of all types.
Credentials
Education
Duke University School of Law, J.D., 1998 Duke University, A.B., 1994