Aaron Bourke

Career

Aaron is a Partner at RPCK and leads the firm’s Fund Formation practice. In this role, Aaron advises a wide range of impact fund sponsors on all aspects of fund formation, and advises institutional investors in connection with investments into impact funds. Aaron also serves as outside general counsel to asset managers.

Prior to joining RPCK, Aaron was a Counsel in the Private Fund Formation practice at Reed Smith LLP, where he also co-founded the firm’s Social Impact Finance Group. Aaron is widely recognized for his deep and diverse experience in social impact fund formation, having represented a broad array of private equity, venture capital and hedge fund sponsors (both impact and non-impact focused) in connection with the formation of a variety of private funds and related investment vehicles, while working tirelessly to build his practice around impact investing and social enterprise clients.

Aaron has represented impact fund sponsors with investment strategies ranging from fintech for financial inclusion to sustainable agriculture internationally, and minority banking to pay-for-success financing domestically. While focusing his practice primarily on private fund formation, Aaron has also served in an outside general counsel capacity to several clients and has significant experience advising fund sponsors on regulatory matters and in connection with portfolio investments.

Aaron’s professional choices and experiences have been fundamentally driven by his desire to make the world a more equitable, just and sustainable place. In addition to co-founding Reed Smith’s Social Impact Finance Group, Aaron co-founded the Impact Investing Legal Working Group, a professional network of lawyers who work in the field of impact investing for a diverse array of organizations, including impact investors, social enterprises, law firms, nonprofit organizations, foundations, and academic institutions. He also initiated and developed Reed Smith’s partnerships with the International Transactions Clinics at New York University School of Law and the University of Michigan Law School, through which Reed Smith attorneys have supervised law students representing impact investors and social enterprises on a broad array of transactions. Aaron was also a co-founding member of the Law and Social Entrepreneurship Association at New York University School of Law.

Aaron’s prior experiences include serving as Chair of the New York Regional Board of Indego Africa, a non-profit enterprise that provides artisan women in Rwanda and Ghana with a global market for their handmade products and invests in their education; working for People’s Watch, a human rights organization in Tamil Nadu, India, as a New York University School of Law Center for Human Rights and Global Justice Fellow; and serving as an international development volunteer for the Foundation for Sustainable Development in Rajasthan, India. He obtained his JD from New York University School of Law and his Bachelor’s degree from the College of William & Mary.