This week’s 5Q features Victoria (Tory) Bantz, a member in the Corporate, Capital Markets & Securities practice group at Clark Hill. She provides guidance to U.S. and foreign companies on corporate disclosure to the U.S. investor audience and advises clients on accessing and attracting U.S. investors.
Question 1: Do you drink coffee or tea during trial prep?
Bantz: Neither. I hopefully will never do trial prep in my career. But I drink both.
Q2: What do you like most about Colorado?
Bantz: The sunshine.
Q3: What do you like least about Colorado?
Bantz: The lack of water.
Q4: What’s one case or moment that shaped your career?
Bantz: I had an estate planning client who was a geologist who invested in the Canadian junior mining market. Before law school I was a paralegal at Cooley helping with corporate securities and IPOs—and then the dot.com bust happened. So, I went to law school, studied tax and worked as a research assistant for an estate planning professor. Meeting this geologist client was my entry back into the securities world—albeit for foreign companies wanting to raise money in the U.S. This led me to develop a niche practice advising foreign private issuers on US securities compliance.
Q5: What’s the best career advice that you’ve received?
Bantz: I worked as a corporate paralegal before attending law school. One of the associates at the firm, when I told him I was going to law school, said that I should take at least one tax class. I took income tax in my second year and really liked it. I ended up taking tax law classes at CU Law and the business school and graduated with an emphasis in taxation—kind of like half an LLM in tax. It helped me understand business entities and structuring.
Law Week Colorado invites Colorado lawyers, paralegals, judges, law professors and other legal professionals to share their insights and experiences with the community with our weekly 5Q Questionnaire.