The Rise of Investment Crowdfunding: What You Need to Know in 2015 and Beyond

Jennifer Post is a Partner in the Corporate Practice Group at Raines Feldman LLP where she chairs the firm's Securities Practice Group.  She serves as primary outside counsel to a variety of individuals and companies, including entrepreneurs, startups and investors, as well as domestic and international public companies. Jennifer represents companies and investors in a wide range of corporate transactions, among them SEC registration and compliance, mergers and acquisitions, capital raising transactions, debt and equity restructuring and management buyouts.  A prolific speaker, Jennifer has presented at the Harvard Business School W50 Summit, Metropole Global’s Crowdfunding Conference, NextGen’s Entrepreneurship & Global Crowdfunding Forum, Digital Hollywood events, the Beverly Hills Bar Association and the American Bar Association, among others.

Mark Hiraide is a securities attorney with Petillon Hiraide LLP.  He defends officers, directors and investment professionals in civil litigation and regulatory investigations relating to corporate and securities transactions.  He also serves as Of Counsel to Parker Mills LLP, a prominent law firm of trial lawyers specializing in attorney malpractice and business litigation. He is recognized as an authority on the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act.  At the invitation of the Securities Subcommittee of the United States Senate Banking Committee, he testified about investor risks associated with the legislation.  In California, he drafted a crowdfunding bill introduced in Sacramento in 2015.  He is a co-author of Representing Start-up Companies by Thomson Reuters and the soon to be published Thomson Reuters treatise, Crowdfunding: Commentary and Analysis.  He began his career leading an Enforcement Branch in the SEC's Los Angeles Regional Office, and later was appointed by the United States Attorney's Office as a Special Assistant United States Attorney to prosecute a major criminal securities fraud case. He completed his career at the SEC as an Attorney-Advisor in the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance in Washington, D.C. 1994.

Joe Gill is an associate with the McKercher LLP law firm, a full-service law firm based in Saskatchewan, Canada, servicing clients both in Saskatchewan and throughout Canada, where he practices in the areas of corporate finance, securities laws, mergers & acquisitions, and tax law. Joe has assisted both private and public companies with respect to purchase and sale of businesses, public equity and debt financings, private placements, stock exchange listings and various other securities and corporate matters such as continuous disclosure obligations and regulatory compliance.  Joe has written extensively on both equity and reward-based crowdfunding in Canada for organizations such as the Canadian Tax Foundation, Advisor’s Edge Magazine, and the Canadian Bar Association. He has also acted as counsel to both companies looking to raise capital through equity crowdfunding as well as for equity crowdfunding portals. Joe further provides value to his clients through his experience in various tax matters including corporate reorganizations, the purchase and sale of assets on a tax-effective basis, and general business tax planning.