Macfarlanes Playbook (TC 2028)

Are you applying for a Macfarlanes TC? Here's all the research you need to impress.

This Playbook covers:

🧠 Practice Area Strategy
🌍 Office Expansion and Growth Strategy
💼 Notable Clients and Deals
⚖️ Key Challenges vs Opportunities
🔎 How to Stand Out

Plus how to use this information to stand out in applications and interviews!

⏱️Deadline: 26 June

Practice area strategy

Private Capital and Fund Formation

Private capital is the engine room of Macfarlanes. The firm wants to advise funds across the whole lifecycle of their business, from fundraising and deployment to financing, secondaries, regulation and eventual liquidity.

Why is this a priority?
Private capital clients are becoming more complex. Fund managers are not only raising traditional private equity funds. They are launching private credit funds, continuation funds, secondaries strategies and evergreen structures. At the same time, regulation is tightening. That means clients need advice that combines funds, tax, finance, regulatory and transactional expertise.

Why does this matter for Macfarlanes?
This explains why Macfarlanes reorganised parts of its private capital practice in 2026. Clients increasingly want joined-up advice, not isolated legal teams working in separate boxes. For Macfarlanes, private capital is a gateway into multiple revenue streams: fund formation, M&A, finance, tax, real estate, disputes and regulatory advice. One fund manager relationship can generate work across the whole firm.

💡 Interview line: “What stands out to me is that Macfarlanes is not treating fund formation as a standalone product. The 2026 private capital reorganisation and mandates like Atlas Health Capital’s £400m debut fund suggest the firm wants to advise managers across fundraising, deployment, financing, regulation and liquidity events.”

Corporate and Private Equity