Thursday\, February 27\, 2025 from 1:30 p. m.-3:30 p.m. EST
The Alumni in Residence program connects current HLS
students with accomplished HLS alumni for one-on-one career mentoring and
advice. You’re invited to meet with Brandon Baer J.D. '97 during their
Brandon Baer J.D. '97
Brandon Baer has built a career in finance\, culminating in 2020 with h is founding of Contingency Capital\, a global asset management firm focused on credit oriented legal assets. Please see more about Brandon in his own words below:
ORGANIZER;CN="Jeff Newton":MAILTO:jnewton@law.harvard.edu URL;VALUE=URI:https://hls.harvard.edu/events/alumni-in-residence-with-brand on-baer-j-d-97-of-contingency-capital/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://hls.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/brandon_baer_final_WEB2-1238x1536-1.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/New_York BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 DTSTART:20241103T060000 TZNAME:EST END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDARWhen I was at law school\, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I had majored at Princeton in European h istory with a minor in Russian literature. After graduating in 1993 (deferr ing the start of law school to work in finance for a European asset manager )\, I started HLS in 1994. At HLS\, I spent a lot of my extra-curricular ti me focusing on the HLS Drama Society – I wrote\, produced\, directed\, and acted in the HLS Parody for three years. I graduated in 1997 with a mountai n of debt and started as an associate at Willkie Farr and Gallagher.
Although I enjoyed my time in private practice\, I had always been curious about careers outside of the law. I had interviewed for consulting and investment banking jobs. Four years into my legal career\, I had a mom ent of reflection late one night at the office. At around 4AM\, while re-dr afting a section of an M&A Agreement\, I started present- valuing and proba bility- weighting my partnership optionality. and aAs I was doing the math\ , realized I probably was not in the right seat.
I left the practice of law and started working at D.E. Shaw & Co.\, in 2002. I mainly focused on distressed investing in complex private illiquids. Almost all of all my investments relied heavily on my legal background – particularly tho se involving in bankruptcy and litigation processes. In 2010\, I joined For tress Investment Group as a partner in the corporate securities group\, foc using on litigation finance\, distressed debt\, and special situations\, wi th an emphasis on deep value investing\, event driven bankruptcy related st rategies\, and capital structure arbitrage. While at Fortress\, I co-founde d and co-headed the Legal Assets group which invests primarily in litigatio n finance and other contingent assets.
After almost ten year s\, I left Fortress\, launching Contingency Capital in 2020. We employ a cr edit-oriented approach to investing in legal assets –where the main driver of value is a legal\, tax\, or regulatory process. To date\, we have over a billion dollars in AUM and are currently raising our second fund.
While it all may look carefully planned in retrospect or on a resume \, at almost every point in my career path there were multiple points where I could have ended up in a completely different place. I look forward to t he opportunity to share my background with current students and discuss the many opportunities to use an HLS degree in interesting and unconventional ways.