Larry Barden

Larry A. Barden is a retired partner of Sidley Austin LLP, one of the largest international law firms, where he spent his entire career. He joined Sidley as a first-year associate in the Chicago office in 1982 and rose to become one of the firm's most senior leaders, practicing for roughly 40 years before retiring. His principal areas of practice were mergers and acquisitions, securities and corporate finance, and strategic counseling / corporate governance. In the M&A arena he represented both buyers and sellers of public and private companies and advised boards of directors and financial advisors on acquisitions, takeover defense, corporate and financial restructuring, and governance matters, and he also has substantial experience with private equity and venture capital investments, joint ventures, partnerships, and limited liability companies.

Barden held some of the firm's top management posts. He was elected to Sidley's Executive Committee in 1999 (serving through 2022) and to its Management Committee in 2011, was named Vice Chair of the Management Committee in 2013, and chaired the Management Committee from 2014 until his retirement in 2022 — after which he became Chair Emeritus. He served as one of the global coordinators of the firm's Securities practice.

He earned his law degree from Washington and Lee University School of Law. Throughout his career he was widely recognized in the profession: Chambers USA ranked him among the leading Corporate/M&A lawyers in the United States from 2008 to 2021, and he was listed in The Best Lawyers in America in Corporate Law and Mergers & Acquisitions Law from 2007 to 2019.

Since retiring from Sidley, Barden has moved into board service. In January 2023 he was elected to the Board of Directors of Darling Ingredients Inc. (NYSE: DAR), a global developer of sustainable natural ingredients, where he serves as an independent director on the Sustainability committee and the Nominating & Corporate Governance committee.

• No public investment thesis, fund, or angel portfolio is documented for Barden; his experience with "investing" is transactional/advisory as an M&A and securities lawyer, not as a principal.
• Advised clients on private equity / venture capital investments, joint ventures, partnerships, and LLC structures — meaning his value-add is deal structuring, governance, and takeover/defense strategy rather than writing checks.
• Board-level orientation: his stated strengths are counseling boards of directors and financial advisors on acquisitions, restructuring, and corporate governance.
• Any founder treating him as a seed-stage angel should independently confirm that he is actually deploying capital — the source record supports a legal/governance advisor profile, not an active seed investor.