Hongmei focuses her practice on corporate and transactional matters, with an emphasis on venture financing, mergers and acquisitions, and emerging company representation, advising founders, startups, and investors across the company lifecycle, from entity formation and early-stage fundraising through growth-stage transactions and exits. She brings a global perspective and bilingual fluency in Mandarin and English to her practice, working effectively with clients across U.S. and Asian markets.

Before joining ILS, Hongmei developed her transactional experience at several leading international law firms, working across the full arc of corporate transactions. Her capital markets work included preparing registration and annual reporting materials for Fortune 500 issuers, conducting due diligence and verification, and analyzing SPAC and de-SPAC structures and offshore holding arrangements used by companies pursuing U.S. listings. On the M&A side, she supported share purchase transactions from diligence through closing, and she advised technology and consumer-facing businesses on data privacy, data security, and localization compliance across multiple jurisdictions.

Hongmei built her transactional foundation through a deliberate course of study in business and finance law. She earned the CALI Excellence for the Future Award for the highest grade in her Secured Transactions class, and paired that work with business associations, income taxation, corporate taxation, employee benefits, and real estate finance, giving her a working command of the tax, corporate structure, and collateral questions that drive how deals are negotiated and documented. She served as a research assistant to Professor Robert Lawless, revising the statutory supplement used to teach the Uniform Commercial Code, and studied the geopolitical and regulatory pressures on international business that increasingly shape transaction planning. Her bankruptcy work, including a federal judicial externship and selection as a 2024 American College of Bankruptcy Scholar, adds a creditor-side perspective on downside risk that informs how she approaches deal structure. She graduated magna cum laude and served as an Associate Editor of the University of Illinois Law Review.