Bio

Donna Brooks acts as a trusted advisor and outside general counsel to clients in diverse industries, including agri-business, education, manufacturing and services. Donna’s clients include cooperatives, colleges, universities and independent schools and emerging-growth companies and middle market companies. She also represents Connecticut quasi-public entities, such as Connecticut Innovations and CTNext, in their programmatic and financial assistance activities. Donna assists her clients “in the business of doing business.” She provides advice with respect to business organization, business operations and contracting, entity governance, asset and endowment management, finance (including tax-exempt conduit public finance through the Connecticut Health and Educational Facilities Authority/CHEFA), capital raising, private and public securities offerings, equity compensation, joint ventures, and mergers and acquisitions. Donna also advises companies regarding both federal and state securities law compliance. Donna strives to learn about the business and industry of each of her clients so that she may provide practical and relevant advice. Her clients often call her so that she may be a sounding board to help them think through an issue and offer pragmatic approaches to address the matter at hand. Throughout her career, Donna has also represented institutional investors, venture capital funds, mezzanine funds and other private investment funds, as well as governmental and quasi-governmental lenders. Donna has advised private investment funds in making numerous portfolio investments in diverse industries, including retail and consumer goods, manufacturing and health services. Donna also represents institutional investors in making alternative investments with varying investment objectives, which have included channel finance, credit default obligations, low-income housing and historic rehabilitation tax credits and real estate, both in the United States and internationally.