About

Joyce Sophia Xu has over 20 years of experience practicing in derivatives, equity-linked capital markets, and structured finance. Prior to founding JXL, she practiced with the law firms Davis Polk LLP, Simpson Thacher LLP, and Paul Hastings LLP.  She founded and led the global derivatives practices at Simpson Thacher (2007 to 2018) and at Paul Hastings (2019 to 2022).

Joyce's clients range from financial institutions and multinational corporations to hedge funds and private equity funds. She advises on structuring, transactional and regulatory aspects of equity, fixed income, FX, commodity and digital asset derivatives.

Joyce graduated from Pennsylvania State University with an honors degree in Chemical Engineering and from Columbia Law School with a J.D. with honors.

Joyce has been recognized and ranked by Chambers Global and Chambers USA every year since 2011. She was named to Crain’s New York Business’s 40 Under 40 list in 2011. Clients have remarked that “she has an incredibly impressive equity derivatives practice and she is a go-to in that space” and that “she is thoughtful, commercial and she knows which issues are and aren’t important.”

Joyce has authored a large collection of articles and book chapters on derivatives products and regulations. For her book chapter titled, “U.S. Corporate and Regulatory Aspects of Equity Derivatives,” in Equity Derivatives: Documenting and Understanding Equity Derivative Products (Globe Law & Business, Globe Business Publishing Ltd. 2009, pp. 357–384), she received the prestigious Burton Award for Achievement in Legal Writing. Joyce also co-authored Reflections on Dodd-Frank: A Look Back and a Look Forward, a compendium of articles that review and analyze key rulemaking developments under the Dodd-Frank Act.

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