Joe Bartlett helped build the original structure, still the basic model private equity fund structure, for Greylock in 1965. Over the years, he has been as active as any U.S. practitioner in counseling the organizers of ground-breaking venture and buyout funds. For example:
- He began his venture fund work with the first Greylock fund
- He drafted the original model for fund of fund partnerships focused on the secondary market for Venture Capital Fund of America in 1983.
- He drafted the original documents for several of the largest and most successful LBO funds ... Bain Capital and Chemical Ventures (now JPMorgan Chase Partners).
- He is in the process of authoring (with colleagues) a treatise on Fund Formation.
- He is the author of the standard text on private equity, Equity Finance
- He is the primary author of the treatise, Leveraged Buyouts
- He lectures and teaches frequently, and acts as an informal adviser to government agencies and regulators.
- He has represented institutional investors (e.g., TIAA CREEF) in fund formation; members of the general partners involved in sensitive internal issues and limited partners restructuring their fund relationships. (in the latter context, he is often referred to as a "divorce lawyer.")
- He has represented off-shore investors in private equity funds (e.g., Itochu; Sofinnova); plus a variety of corporate venturers - e.g., Deutsche Telekom; Nokia; BP Plc. Current clients for organizational work include: a fund with well known sponsors in the media space; a clean tech fund raising capital in the U.S. and Canada; a secondary fund based in South Africa; a U.S. secondary fund; a fund targeting investments in India.
- The online content site he founded, VC Experts, houses a portable library on fund organization and management see principally, Book 10 in The Encyclopedia of Private Equity and Venture Capital (available to clients online) which contains 1000 (+/-) pages of annotated model forms, commentary and analysis