LexisNexis® WOMEN TO WATCH 2023

Choi Fong Willa Chan

The Founding Principal

Willa Legal

Willa Chan started her career in Sidley Austin, an award-winning white-shoe US law firm based in Chicago. Ever since Willa has been admitted as a solicitor in Hong Kong, she has specialised in funds and led high-profile, high-value, multi-jurisdictional and first-in-the-market transactions that require innovative solutions. During her time in Sidley Austin, Willa has also led the consultancy project for the drafting of the Limited Partnership Fund Ordinance ("LPFO”) and advised the Hong Kong Monetary Authority in the making of this policy. The enactment of LPFO is a key milestone in Hong Kong’s initiatives to attract investment funds.

Willa later joined Fangda Partners, a PRC Red Circle law firm, as one of the key founding members of the team to build an investment funds practice in Hong Kong. This initiative complements Fangda Partners’ top-tier RMB funds practice. During this time, Willa also mentored and supervised junior lawyers, trainees and paralegals in Hong Kong as well as some associates in the PRC offices for private offshore fund formation, restructuring and compliance matters.

In 2021, Willa founded her own law firm, Willa Legal, which specialises in private investment funds. The mission of Willa Legal is to develop a friendly, mature and efficient ecosystem for the private fund sector. Willa Legal now serves fund managers, sponsors and family offices, especially SFC licensed corporations, and offers them efficient legal solutions in private fund-related legal matters. Clients have described Willa as “very knowledgeable, commercial and responsive”, “commercially minded in the solutions she offers”, “easy to work with” and having “tremendous legal acumen and [a] fabulous eye for detail”.

Willa is also the author of the Annotated Ordinance of the Limited Partnership Fund Ordinance (Cap. 637) published by LexisNexis and a frequent speaker at various industry conferences and university programmes.