Nancy A. D. Hancock is a member of the firm’s Executive Committee, and as her business and corporate finance practice involves advising many different types of commercial enterprises, she participates in several of the firm’s targeted practice groups.

Nancy chairs the Emerging Business and Venture Capital Section. She received extensive training in business and finance, and represented companies involved in a variety of industries—from metal casting, crucible manufacturing and industrial components to hedge funds and investment portfolio management—before developing a practice encompassing venture capital, securities and e-commerce. This has made her uniquely suited to the needs of entrepreneurs and venture capital financed companies as they progress from seed investments through their startup and early development stages, bridging to their exit strategies, including mergers and divestitures.

As a company counselor, Nancy has developed comprehensible business forms for protecting and licensing technology and software and for the sale of goods and services. She also drafts and negotiates intellectual property licenses, web hosting agreements, content licenses, technology escrows and intellectual property based financing. She prepares proprietary information protection and noncompetition agreements for technology-based businesses. She is versed in the protection and exploitation of the assets of new economy companies. Nancy also represents a variety of technical consultants, analysts and application service providers and is active in the firm’s Technology and Intellectual Property practice.

Nancy’s client base continues to include traditional bricks and mortar clients for whom she serves as corporate counsel. She also negotiates acquisitions, divestitures and strategic alliances and licenses involving traditional and technology based businesses. She has broad experience in counseling boards of directors and corporate managers. Her work includes guiding companies through acquisitive and divisive reorganizations, as well as drafting shareholders agreements and providing tax-based advice for business structures. As a member of the firm’s Corporate Transactions and Securities Sections, she guides privately held businesses through their critical generational control and tax planning processes.

She has litigated and negotiated business valuations with the Internal Revenue Service. She is an active member of the firm’s Tax Section.

She represents investment advisers, commodity pool operators, broker-dealers and other securities professionals and advises them on compliance with state and federal securities laws. She has experience in dealing with complex fixed and equity financial products and securitized debt portfolios. She is also active in the firm’s Commercial Finance practice.

She has published a chapter entitled “We All Have the Same Goal: Getting the Deal Done” (with Jeffrey A. Blomberg) in the 2008 edition of Inside the Minds: Private Equity and Venture Capital Deal Strategies (Aspatore Books).

Representative Experience

• Represents technology-based companies in fields including software publishing, value-added reselling, data center services, software licensing and high speed cable
• Operates as general counsel to companies in negotiations involving financing, product sales, warranties, teaming agreements, sales distribution network, and systems support 
• Prepares and presents advice to directors and officers regarding litigation avoidance, directors’ and officers’ duties, and compliance with and management of disclosure and prevention of insider trading and short-swing profits
• Advises family business enterprises in restructuring their organizations to maximize the value of the business for future generations, to minimize the likelihood of future disputes and to effectuate both personal and business tax planning
• Represents largest direct seller of fashion jewelry in the world in matters related to ongoing international growth, including financial transactions, structuring and capitalizing entities internationally, and attendant tax, transfer pricing, intellectual property and franchise issues associated with the development of a procurement, packaging and distribution center in Europe
• Represents entrepreneurs in the credit card, database building and technology fields
• Advises executives and businesses in negotiating and preparing employment, termination and severance programs
• Prepares incentive and nonstatutory stock option and stock appreciation rights plans
• Acts as counsel for Connecticut Innovations, Inc., a quasi-government agency, in making investments in technology based companies   
• Has served as corporate counsel to early stage companies in such diverse fields as imaging, vehicle suspension systems, web entertainment, gourmet content, web-based subscription services and product fulfillment
• Represented a start-up company manufacturing, marketing and selling a microprocessor-based fitness system
• Negotiated the sale of a bank’s $200 million credit card portfolio and numerous credit card and loan portfolio securitization transactions
• Negotiated agreements with an agency of the French government for the ownership and custody of personal property from RMS Titanic
• Acted as general counsel for a company manufacturing computer controllers for the fast food industry 

Professional Affiliations

• American Bar Association
• Connecticut Bar Association
• Connecticut Bar Foundation - James W. Cooper Life Fellow
• Greater Bridgeport Bar Association
• Council on Law in Higher Education

Community Involvement

• Connecticut Venture Group
• Easton P.T.A.
• First Presbyterian Church of Fairfield - Sunday School teacher
• Princeton Alumni Schools Committee of Fairfield County
• Princeton Alumni Schools Committee of Fairfield County Annual Book Award for Trumbull High School - sponsor
• The Waterman Foundation, Inc. - assistant secretary

Honors & Awards

• Listed in Chambers USA, America's Leading Lawyers to Businesses
• Selected to the Connecticut Super Lawyers list in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 in the areas of securities and corporate
• Rated AV Preeminent by Martindale-Hubbell; Selected for the Bar Register of Preeminent Women Lawyers 2011
• Named one of Fairfield County's "Top Lawyers" by Darien/New Canaan, Fairfield Living, Greenwich, Stamford and Westport magazines, 2011