Jennifer Rhodes is a partner in Ice Miller’s Business Group. She focuses her practice on corporate transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and private financings, as well as general corporate governance. Jennifer has a strong entrepreneurial spirit and passion for helping others advance their businesses and realize their professional and personal goals.
Jennifer’s career path has enabled her to appreciate not only the legal needs of her clients but also their fundamental business needs. She began her legal career as an associate at Ice Miller in 1999 before being named a partner in 2006. During that time, she gained extensive experience in private equity, venture financing and early stage company development, working primarily for private investment funds with their fund formation, capitalization, governance and investment transactions; pension funds and family offices with their alternative investment portfolios; and early- and growth-stage companies with their private financing and general counsel needs.
In 2008, Jennifer took on a business executive leadership role with a group of start-up medical device companies. Serving as executive director and general counsel, she wore many hats and established a structure to enable economic efficiencies and optimal fundraising, technology development, liability protection and exit opportunities. Following a successful exit with this group in 2013, Jennifer took on the role of chief business officer and general counsel for another medical device company and a research and development stage biotechnology company. In these roles, she was responsible for clinical and regulatory plan development, FDA correspondence and reporting, budgeting and financial management, structuring of private financing, investor and Board communications and presentations, intellectual property portfolio management, contract negotiation, private fundraising, NIH grant writing and reporting
and more.
Most recently, Jennifer started her own consulting firm which allowed her the opportunity to provide outside general counsel and strategic business advice to a number of companies at all stages of development in different industries. Jennifer served as general counsel and, often, as an executive team member for these companies, playing a material role in strategic planning and implementation, deal structuring and negotiation, private financing, and clinical and regulatory plan development and execution.
Jennifer earned her juris doctor from Indiana University School of Law Bloomington, summa cum laude and Order of the Coif, in 1999. Jennifer received her Bachelor of Science in accounting with a minor in communications, summa cum laude, from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business in 1996.
Jennifer lives on a blackberry farm with her husband, Greg, and her four children, Sam, Nora, Jesse and Olivia.
