Elizabeth Daane
Co-Founder & Chief legal Officer
Executive Snapshot
Elizabeth Daane is a Chief Legal Officer with more than 25 years of executive legal leadership experience advising boards, CEOs, investors, and executive teams through acquisitions, financings, governance, and other high-stakes business decisions. As former Executive Vice President and General Counsel of ORIX USA and former General Counsel of Internet America, she helped lead complex transactions valued in the billions of dollars while overseeing legal strategy across diverse business lines.
Elizabeth combines executive judgment with deep transaction experience, helping companies navigate mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance, executive leadership, and strategic growth with the perspective of someone who has spent her career inside the boardroom.
Why Clients Call Elizabeth
Companies call Elizabeth because they need someone who has spent decades helping executive teams make their biggest business decisions.
As former Executive Vice President and General Counsel of ORIX USA, Elizabeth advised boards, CEOs, investors, and business leaders through acquisitions, financings, restructurings, governance matters, and strategic transactions valued in the billions of dollars. She understands that significant legal issues rarely exist in isolation. They affect valuation, financing, operations, governance, and long-term business strategy.
Clients typically turn to Elizabeth when they are:
Buying or selling a business.
Preparing for private equity investment, financing, or an exit.
Leading mergers and acquisitions, from due diligence through integration.
Navigating board governance, executive leadership, and corporate strategy.
Managing complex commercial, financial, and regulatory matters.
Negotiating transformative transactions where business judgment matters as much as legal analysis.
Looking for an experienced Chief Legal Officer who has led through sophisticated transactions and understands how executive teams make decisions.
Elizabeth believes the role of a Chief Legal Officer extends beyond identifying legal risk. It is about helping leadership evaluate opportunities, understand risk, negotiate from a position of strength, and make informed business decisions that create long-term value.
Elizabeth’s Story
For more than 25 years, Elizabeth Daane has advised boards, executive teams, founders, and investors through the decisions that define businesses.
As former Executive Vice President and General Counsel of ORIX USA, Elizabeth helped lead billions of dollars in mergers and acquisitions, financings, governance initiatives, and strategic transactions. She has spent her career helping organizations grow, manage risk, strengthen governance, and navigate the legal and business decisions that accompany transformational change.
Elizabeth believes the best Chief Legal Officers do far more than identify legal risk. They help leadership evaluate opportunities, understand business consequences, and make informed decisions that create long-term value.
She also believes exceptional legal departments are built by investing in people.
One conversation has become part of Unified CLO's story.
Early in Amy Natasha Osteen's career at ORIX, Amy walked into Elizabeth's office looking for broader business experience beyond litigation.
Elizabeth asked one question.
"Do you know anything about M&A?"
Amy answered, "I know it stands for mergers and acquisitions."
Elizabeth smiled.
"That's enough. You're my second chair on the deal."
That transaction became ORIX's acquisition of Houlihan Lokey and launched Amy's career as Elizabeth's Swiss Army Knife. Over the years, Elizabeth trusted Amy with transactions, litigation, governance, executive initiatives, and countless challenges that landed on the legal department's doorstep. More importantly, she taught Amy that great lawyers are built through trust, opportunity, and meaningful responsibility, not by waiting until they have every answer.
That philosophy became one of the foundations of Unified CLO.
Today, Elizabeth continues to advise founders, executive teams, boards, and investors through acquisitions, financings, governance matters, and other pivotal business decisions. Her legacy extends beyond the transactions she has led to the leaders she has mentored and the culture she helped build, one where talented people are trusted, challenged, and expected to become true business advisors.
Career Experience
ORIX Corporation USA : General Counsel & Executive Vice President | Executive Advisor
Elizabeth spent more than fifteen years helping shape the legal and strategic direction of ORIX Corporation USA.
As General Counsel and Executive Vice President, she advised executive leadership and boards across corporate governance, acquisitions, finance, employment, litigation, regulatory matters, commercial transactions, enterprise risk management, and strategic planning. Following her tenure as General Counsel, she remained a trusted executive advisor, continuing to support leadership and the legal department during an important period of growth.
Among the significant transactions completed during her tenure were:
Acquisition of Houlihan Lokey
Acquisition of Robeco Group
Acquisition of Mariner Investment Group
Acquisition of NXT Capital
Acquisition of Red Capital Group
Elizabeth also established ORIX USA's first enterprise compliance program, creating a governance framework that supported the company's continued growth while responding to evolving regulatory expectations.
Beyond her legal responsibilities, Elizabeth served as Chair of the ORIX Foundation, the company's employee-led charitable foundation, which awarded more than $10 million in grants to nonprofit organizations across the United States.
Internet America: General Counsel
Before joining ORIX, Elizabeth served as General Counsel of Internet America during one of the most dynamic periods in the technology industry's history.
She helped lead the company through its successful initial public offering while supporting numerous acquisitions that expanded the company's market presence throughout Texas and surrounding states.
Her executive responsibilities extended well beyond legal matters. Elizabeth also oversaw Human Resources, Investor Relations, and Public Affairs, serving as a key member of the executive leadership team during a period of rapid growth and significant change.
Jackson Walker LLP: Associate Corporate & Bankruptcy
Elizabeth began her legal career at Jackson Walker LLP, advising clients on corporate transactions, restructurings, and bankruptcy matters. The experience provided a strong legal and business foundation that would shape every executive leadership role that followed.
How Elizabeth Helps Clients
Mergers, Acquisitions & Strategic Transactions
Elizabeth has spent much of her career helping companies evaluate, negotiate, and complete transformative transactions. Having advised on billions of dollars in acquisitions and strategic investments, she understands that successful deals are built long before the purchase agreement is signed.
Her approach goes beyond legal diligence. Elizabeth helps leadership teams identify operational risks, governance issues, contract concerns, regulatory obligations, and organizational challenges that can affect valuation, delay closing, or create unnecessary post-closing disputes. She also brings the perspective of someone who has lived through integration, helping companies prepare not only to close the transaction, but to succeed after it.
Corporate Governance & Board Leadership
Strong governance creates stronger companies.
Throughout her career, Elizabeth has advised executive leadership teams and boards of directors on the legal and business decisions that define organizations. As the first woman to serve as General Counsel and Executive Vice President of ORIX Corporation USA, and as a director of several ORIX subsidiaries, including Houlihan Lokey, she understands governance from inside the boardroom.
She works with companies to establish governance structures that encourage thoughtful decision-making, clarify accountability, strengthen oversight, and prepare organizations for long-term growth, outside investment, or strategic transactions.
Executive Leadership & Strategic Counsel
Legal questions rarely arrive by themselves.
They are usually attached to acquisitions, financing decisions, personnel matters, regulatory issues, customer relationships, investor expectations, or business strategy.
After more than twenty-five years serving as General Counsel, Elizabeth has developed a reputation for helping leadership teams evaluate legal issues within the broader context of the business. She understands that executives need practical guidance, clear communication, and sound judgment that helps them make informed decisions rather than simply identifying legal risk.
Clients often describe Elizabeth as one of the steady voices in the room when the stakes are highest.
Regulatory Compliance & Enterprise Risk
Elizabeth has spent much of her career operating within highly regulated industries where effective compliance is essential to both business success and organizational credibility.
During her tenure at ORIX, she developed the company's first enterprise compliance program while helping leadership navigate evolving regulatory requirements across financial services, asset management, investment banking, commercial lending, and affiliated businesses.
Today, she helps companies build practical compliance programs that support the business, establish clear accountability, and reduce unnecessary legal and regulatory risk.
Capital Raise & Exit Readiness
Sophisticated investors and buyers expect companies to have more than a great product or strong financial performance. They expect disciplined legal infrastructure.
Elizabeth helps founder-led companies and private equity-backed businesses prepare for capital raises, strategic investments, acquisitions, and exits by strengthening the legal foundation that supports enterprise value. Her work frequently includes reviewing commercial agreements, organizing corporate records, improving governance practices, evaluating equity documentation, and identifying legal issues before they become transaction issues.
Having spent decades reviewing businesses from the buyer's side of the table, she understands what sophisticated investors look for—and what causes them to hesitate.
Building High-Performing Legal Departments
Elizabeth believes the best legal departments are business partners, not roadblocks.
Throughout her career she has built legal functions, developed compliance programs, mentored attorneys, and worked alongside executive leadership to create legal departments that support growth rather than simply respond to problems.
That philosophy continues at Unified CLO. Whether serving as an outsourced Chief Legal Officer or supporting an existing in-house legal team, Elizabeth helps organizations build legal functions that are practical, business-focused, and designed to grow alongside the company.
Education
University of North Carolina School of Law
Juris Doctor, with Honors
Wake Forest University
Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude
Carswell Scholar
Bar Admissions
State Bar of Texas
Beyond the Bar
Elizabeth is the proud mother of two sons and a daughter. One is building a career in Washington, D.C., another is studying in Chicago, and the third spends the day chasing squirrels, begging for treats, and snoring whenever possible.
She also shares her home with more guitars than legal pads. Her husband, Mike Daane, is the longtime bassist for the Andy Timmons Band and serves as the unofficial soundtrack provider for the Daane household.
Ready to Talk?
Whether your company needs an experienced General Counsel, strategic legal guidance, or executive-level legal leadership, Unified CLO is ready to help.
Schedule a Conversation
Elizabeth Daane
Co-Founder & Chief legal Officer
Executive Snapshot
Elizabeth Daane is a Chief Legal Officer with more than 25 years of executive legal leadership experience advising boards, CEOs, investors, and executive teams through acquisitions, financings, governance, and other high-stakes business decisions. As former Executive Vice President and General Counsel of ORIX USA and former General Counsel of Internet America, she helped lead complex transactions valued in the billions of dollars while overseeing legal strategy across diverse business lines.
Elizabeth combines executive judgment with deep transaction experience, helping companies navigate mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance, executive leadership, and strategic growth with the perspective of someone who has spent her career inside the boardroom.
Why Clients Call Elizabeth
Companies call Elizabeth because they need someone who has spent decades helping executive teams make their biggest business decisions.
As former Executive Vice President and General Counsel of ORIX USA, Elizabeth advised boards, CEOs, investors, and business leaders through acquisitions, financings, restructurings, governance matters, and strategic transactions valued in the billions of dollars. She understands that significant legal issues rarely exist in isolation. They affect valuation, financing, operations, governance, and long-term business strategy.
Clients typically turn to Elizabeth when they are:
Buying or selling a business.
Preparing for private equity investment, financing, or an exit.
Leading mergers and acquisitions, from due diligence through integration.
Navigating board governance, executive leadership, and corporate strategy.
Managing complex commercial, financial, and regulatory matters.
Negotiating transformative transactions where business judgment matters as much as legal analysis.
Looking for an experienced Chief Legal Officer who has led through sophisticated transactions and understands how executive teams make decisions.
Elizabeth believes the role of a Chief Legal Officer extends beyond identifying legal risk. It is about helping leadership evaluate opportunities, understand risk, negotiate from a position of strength, and make informed business decisions that create long-term value.
Elizabeth’s Story
For more than 25 years, Elizabeth Daane has advised boards, executive teams, founders, and investors through the decisions that define businesses.
As former Executive Vice President and General Counsel of ORIX USA, Elizabeth helped lead billions of dollars in mergers and acquisitions, financings, governance initiatives, and strategic transactions. She has spent her career helping organizations grow, manage risk, strengthen governance, and navigate the legal and business decisions that accompany transformational change.
Elizabeth believes the best Chief Legal Officers do far more than identify legal risk. They help leadership evaluate opportunities, understand business consequences, and make informed decisions that create long-term value.
She also believes exceptional legal departments are built by investing in people.
One conversation has become part of Unified CLO's story.
Early in Amy Natasha Osteen's career at ORIX, Amy walked into Elizabeth's office looking for broader business experience beyond litigation.
Elizabeth asked one question.
"Do you know anything about M&A?"
Amy answered, "I know it stands for mergers and acquisitions."
Elizabeth smiled.
"That's enough. You're my second chair on the deal."
That transaction became ORIX's acquisition of Houlihan Lokey and launched Amy's career as Elizabeth's Swiss Army Knife. Over the years, Elizabeth trusted Amy with transactions, litigation, governance, executive initiatives, and countless challenges that landed on the legal department's doorstep. More importantly, she taught Amy that great lawyers are built through trust, opportunity, and meaningful responsibility, not by waiting until they have every answer.
That philosophy became one of the foundations of Unified CLO.
Today, Elizabeth continues to advise founders, executive teams, boards, and investors through acquisitions, financings, governance matters, and other pivotal business decisions. Her legacy extends beyond the transactions she has led to the leaders she has mentored and the culture she helped build, one where talented people are trusted, challenged, and expected to become true business advisors.
Career Experience
ORIX Corporation USA : General Counsel & Executive Vice President | Executive Advisor
Elizabeth spent more than fifteen years helping shape the legal and strategic direction of ORIX Corporation USA.
As General Counsel and Executive Vice President, she advised executive leadership and boards across corporate governance, acquisitions, finance, employment, litigation, regulatory matters, commercial transactions, enterprise risk management, and strategic planning. Following her tenure as General Counsel, she remained a trusted executive advisor, continuing to support leadership and the legal department during an important period of growth.
Among the significant transactions completed during her tenure were:
Acquisition of Houlihan Lokey
Acquisition of Robeco Group
Acquisition of Mariner Investment Group
Acquisition of NXT Capital
Acquisition of Red Capital Group
Elizabeth also established ORIX USA's first enterprise compliance program, creating a governance framework that supported the company's continued growth while responding to evolving regulatory expectations.
Beyond her legal responsibilities, Elizabeth served as Chair of the ORIX Foundation, the company's employee-led charitable foundation, which awarded more than $10 million in grants to nonprofit organizations across the United States.
Internet America: General Counsel
Before joining ORIX, Elizabeth served as General Counsel of Internet America during one of the most dynamic periods in the technology industry's history.
She helped lead the company through its successful initial public offering while supporting numerous acquisitions that expanded the company's market presence throughout Texas and surrounding states.
Her executive responsibilities extended well beyond legal matters. Elizabeth also oversaw Human Resources, Investor Relations, and Public Affairs, serving as a key member of the executive leadership team during a period of rapid growth and significant change.
Jackson Walker LLP: Associate Corporate & Bankruptcy
Elizabeth began her legal career at Jackson Walker LLP, advising clients on corporate transactions, restructurings, and bankruptcy matters. The experience provided a strong legal and business foundation that would shape every executive leadership role that followed.
How Elizabeth Helps Clients
Mergers, Acquisitions & Strategic Transactions
Elizabeth has spent much of her career helping companies evaluate, negotiate, and complete transformative transactions. Having advised on billions of dollars in acquisitions and strategic investments, she understands that successful deals are built long before the purchase agreement is signed.
Her approach goes beyond legal diligence. Elizabeth helps leadership teams identify operational risks, governance issues, contract concerns, regulatory obligations, and organizational challenges that can affect valuation, delay closing, or create unnecessary post-closing disputes. She also brings the perspective of someone who has lived through integration, helping companies prepare not only to close the transaction, but to succeed after it.
Corporate Governance & Board Leadership
Strong governance creates stronger companies.
Throughout her career, Elizabeth has advised executive leadership teams and boards of directors on the legal and business decisions that define organizations. As the first woman to serve as General Counsel and Executive Vice President of ORIX Corporation USA, and as a director of several ORIX subsidiaries, including Houlihan Lokey, she understands governance from inside the boardroom.
She works with companies to establish governance structures that encourage thoughtful decision-making, clarify accountability, strengthen oversight, and prepare organizations for long-term growth, outside investment, or strategic transactions.
Executive Leadership & Strategic Counsel
Legal questions rarely arrive by themselves.
They are usually attached to acquisitions, financing decisions, personnel matters, regulatory issues, customer relationships, investor expectations, or business strategy.
After more than twenty-five years serving as General Counsel, Elizabeth has developed a reputation for helping leadership teams evaluate legal issues within the broader context of the business. She understands that executives need practical guidance, clear communication, and sound judgment that helps them make informed decisions rather than simply identifying legal risk.
Clients often describe Elizabeth as one of the steady voices in the room when the stakes are highest.
Regulatory Compliance & Enterprise Risk
Elizabeth has spent much of her career operating within highly regulated industries where effective compliance is essential to both business success and organizational credibility.
During her tenure at ORIX, she developed the company's first enterprise compliance program while helping leadership navigate evolving regulatory requirements across financial services, asset management, investment banking, commercial lending, and affiliated businesses.
Today, she helps companies build practical compliance programs that support the business, establish clear accountability, and reduce unnecessary legal and regulatory risk.
Capital Raise & Exit Readiness
Sophisticated investors and buyers expect companies to have more than a great product or strong financial performance. They expect disciplined legal infrastructure.
Elizabeth helps founder-led companies and private equity-backed businesses prepare for capital raises, strategic investments, acquisitions, and exits by strengthening the legal foundation that supports enterprise value. Her work frequently includes reviewing commercial agreements, organizing corporate records, improving governance practices, evaluating equity documentation, and identifying legal issues before they become transaction issues.
Having spent decades reviewing businesses from the buyer's side of the table, she understands what sophisticated investors look for—and what causes them to hesitate.
Building High-Performing Legal Departments
Elizabeth believes the best legal departments are business partners, not roadblocks.
Throughout her career she has built legal functions, developed compliance programs, mentored attorneys, and worked alongside executive leadership to create legal departments that support growth rather than simply respond to problems.
That philosophy continues at Unified CLO. Whether serving as an outsourced Chief Legal Officer or supporting an existing in-house legal team, Elizabeth helps organizations build legal functions that are practical, business-focused, and designed to grow alongside the company.
Education
University of North Carolina School of Law
Juris Doctor, with Honors
Wake Forest University
Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude
Carswell Scholar
Bar Admissions
State Bar of Texas
Beyond the Bar
Elizabeth is the proud mother of two sons and a daughter. One is building a career in Washington, D.C., another is studying in Chicago, and the third spends the day chasing squirrels, begging for treats, and snoring whenever possible.
She also shares her home with more guitars than legal pads. Her husband, Mike Daane, is the longtime bassist for the Andy Timmons Band and serves as the unofficial soundtrack provider for the Daane household.
Ready to Talk?
Whether your company needs an experienced General Counsel, strategic legal guidance, or executive-level legal leadership, Unified CLO is ready to help.
Schedule a Conversation
Elizabeth Daane
Co-Founder & Chief legal Officer
Executive Snapshot
Elizabeth Daane is a Chief Legal Officer with more than 25 years of executive legal leadership experience advising boards, CEOs, investors, and executive teams through acquisitions, financings, governance, and other high-stakes business decisions. As former Executive Vice President and General Counsel of ORIX USA and former General Counsel of Internet America, she helped lead complex transactions valued in the billions of dollars while overseeing legal strategy across diverse business lines.
Elizabeth combines executive judgment with deep transaction experience, helping companies navigate mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance, executive leadership, and strategic growth with the perspective of someone who has spent her career inside the boardroom.
Why Clients Call Elizabeth
Companies call Elizabeth because they need someone who has spent decades helping executive teams make their biggest business decisions.
As former Executive Vice President and General Counsel of ORIX USA, Elizabeth advised boards, CEOs, investors, and business leaders through acquisitions, financings, restructurings, governance matters, and strategic transactions valued in the billions of dollars. She understands that significant legal issues rarely exist in isolation. They affect valuation, financing, operations, governance, and long-term business strategy.
Clients typically turn to Elizabeth when they are:
Buying or selling a business.
Preparing for private equity investment, financing, or an exit.
Leading mergers and acquisitions, from due diligence through integration.
Navigating board governance, executive leadership, and corporate strategy.
Managing complex commercial, financial, and regulatory matters.
Negotiating transformative transactions where business judgment matters as much as legal analysis.
Looking for an experienced Chief Legal Officer who has led through sophisticated transactions and understands how executive teams make decisions.
Elizabeth believes the role of a Chief Legal Officer extends beyond identifying legal risk. It is about helping leadership evaluate opportunities, understand risk, negotiate from a position of strength, and make informed business decisions that create long-term value.
Elizabeth’s Story
For more than 25 years, Elizabeth Daane has advised boards, executive teams, founders, and investors through the decisions that define businesses.
As former Executive Vice President and General Counsel of ORIX USA, Elizabeth helped lead billions of dollars in mergers and acquisitions, financings, governance initiatives, and strategic transactions. She has spent her career helping organizations grow, manage risk, strengthen governance, and navigate the legal and business decisions that accompany transformational change.
Elizabeth believes the best Chief Legal Officers do far more than identify legal risk. They help leadership evaluate opportunities, understand business consequences, and make informed decisions that create long-term value.
She also believes exceptional legal departments are built by investing in people.
One conversation has become part of Unified CLO's story.
Early in Amy Natasha Osteen's career at ORIX, Amy walked into Elizabeth's office looking for broader business experience beyond litigation.
Elizabeth asked one question.
"Do you know anything about M&A?"
Amy answered, "I know it stands for mergers and acquisitions."
Elizabeth smiled.
"That's enough. You're my second chair on the deal."
That transaction became ORIX's acquisition of Houlihan Lokey and launched Amy's career as Elizabeth's Swiss Army Knife. Over the years, Elizabeth trusted Amy with transactions, litigation, governance, executive initiatives, and countless challenges that landed on the legal department's doorstep. More importantly, she taught Amy that great lawyers are built through trust, opportunity, and meaningful responsibility, not by waiting until they have every answer.
That philosophy became one of the foundations of Unified CLO.
Today, Elizabeth continues to advise founders, executive teams, boards, and investors through acquisitions, financings, governance matters, and other pivotal business decisions. Her legacy extends beyond the transactions she has led to the leaders she has mentored and the culture she helped build, one where talented people are trusted, challenged, and expected to become true business advisors.
Career Experience
ORIX Corporation USA : General Counsel & Executive Vice President | Executive Advisor
Elizabeth spent more than fifteen years helping shape the legal and strategic direction of ORIX Corporation USA.
As General Counsel and Executive Vice President, she advised executive leadership and boards across corporate governance, acquisitions, finance, employment, litigation, regulatory matters, commercial transactions, enterprise risk management, and strategic planning. Following her tenure as General Counsel, she remained a trusted executive advisor, continuing to support leadership and the legal department during an important period of growth.
Among the significant transactions completed during her tenure were:
Acquisition of Houlihan Lokey
Acquisition of Robeco Group
Acquisition of Mariner Investment Group
Acquisition of NXT Capital
Acquisition of Red Capital Group
Elizabeth also established ORIX USA's first enterprise compliance program, creating a governance framework that supported the company's continued growth while responding to evolving regulatory expectations.
Beyond her legal responsibilities, Elizabeth served as Chair of the ORIX Foundation, the company's employee-led charitable foundation, which awarded more than $10 million in grants to nonprofit organizations across the United States.
Internet America: General Counsel
Before joining ORIX, Elizabeth served as General Counsel of Internet America during one of the most dynamic periods in the technology industry's history.
She helped lead the company through its successful initial public offering while supporting numerous acquisitions that expanded the company's market presence throughout Texas and surrounding states.
Her executive responsibilities extended well beyond legal matters. Elizabeth also oversaw Human Resources, Investor Relations, and Public Affairs, serving as a key member of the executive leadership team during a period of rapid growth and significant change.
Jackson Walker LLP: Associate Corporate & Bankruptcy
Elizabeth began her legal career at Jackson Walker LLP, advising clients on corporate transactions, restructurings, and bankruptcy matters. The experience provided a strong legal and business foundation that would shape every executive leadership role that followed.
How Elizabeth Helps Clients
Mergers, Acquisitions & Strategic Transactions
Elizabeth has spent much of her career helping companies evaluate, negotiate, and complete transformative transactions. Having advised on billions of dollars in acquisitions and strategic investments, she understands that successful deals are built long before the purchase agreement is signed.
Her approach goes beyond legal diligence. Elizabeth helps leadership teams identify operational risks, governance issues, contract concerns, regulatory obligations, and organizational challenges that can affect valuation, delay closing, or create unnecessary post-closing disputes. She also brings the perspective of someone who has lived through integration, helping companies prepare not only to close the transaction, but to succeed after it.
Corporate Governance & Board Leadership
Strong governance creates stronger companies.
Throughout her career, Elizabeth has advised executive leadership teams and boards of directors on the legal and business decisions that define organizations. As the first woman to serve as General Counsel and Executive Vice President of ORIX Corporation USA, and as a director of several ORIX subsidiaries, including Houlihan Lokey, she understands governance from inside the boardroom.
She works with companies to establish governance structures that encourage thoughtful decision-making, clarify accountability, strengthen oversight, and prepare organizations for long-term growth, outside investment, or strategic transactions.
Executive Leadership & Strategic Counsel
Legal questions rarely arrive by themselves.
They are usually attached to acquisitions, financing decisions, personnel matters, regulatory issues, customer relationships, investor expectations, or business strategy.
After more than twenty-five years serving as General Counsel, Elizabeth has developed a reputation for helping leadership teams evaluate legal issues within the broader context of the business. She understands that executives need practical guidance, clear communication, and sound judgment that helps them make informed decisions rather than simply identifying legal risk.
Clients often describe Elizabeth as one of the steady voices in the room when the stakes are highest.
Regulatory Compliance & Enterprise Risk
Elizabeth has spent much of her career operating within highly regulated industries where effective compliance is essential to both business success and organizational credibility.
During her tenure at ORIX, she developed the company's first enterprise compliance program while helping leadership navigate evolving regulatory requirements across financial services, asset management, investment banking, commercial lending, and affiliated businesses.
Today, she helps companies build practical compliance programs that support the business, establish clear accountability, and reduce unnecessary legal and regulatory risk.
Capital Raise & Exit Readiness
Sophisticated investors and buyers expect companies to have more than a great product or strong financial performance. They expect disciplined legal infrastructure.
Elizabeth helps founder-led companies and private equity-backed businesses prepare for capital raises, strategic investments, acquisitions, and exits by strengthening the legal foundation that supports enterprise value. Her work frequently includes reviewing commercial agreements, organizing corporate records, improving governance practices, evaluating equity documentation, and identifying legal issues before they become transaction issues.
Having spent decades reviewing businesses from the buyer's side of the table, she understands what sophisticated investors look for—and what causes them to hesitate.
Building High-Performing Legal Departments
Elizabeth believes the best legal departments are business partners, not roadblocks.
Throughout her career she has built legal functions, developed compliance programs, mentored attorneys, and worked alongside executive leadership to create legal departments that support growth rather than simply respond to problems.
That philosophy continues at Unified CLO. Whether serving as an outsourced Chief Legal Officer or supporting an existing in-house legal team, Elizabeth helps organizations build legal functions that are practical, business-focused, and designed to grow alongside the company.
Education
University of North Carolina School of Law
Juris Doctor, with Honors
Wake Forest University
Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude
Carswell Scholar
Bar Admissions
State Bar of Texas
Beyond the Bar
Elizabeth is the proud mother of two sons and a daughter. One is building a career in Washington, D.C., another is studying in Chicago, and the third spends the day chasing squirrels, begging for treats, and snoring whenever possible.
She also shares her home with more guitars than legal pads. Her husband, Mike Daane, is the longtime bassist for the Andy Timmons Band and serves as the unofficial soundtrack provider for the Daane household.
Ready to Talk?
Whether your company needs an experienced General Counsel, strategic legal guidance, or executive-level legal leadership, Unified CLO is ready to help.
Schedule a Conversation
Your Fractional
Chief Legal Office
About Unified
What We Do
© 2026 Unified Law Group, PB LLC
Your Fractional
Chief Legal Office
About Unified
What We Do
© 2026 Unified Law Group, PB LLC
Legal Hub
Your Fractional
Chief Legal Office
About Unified
What We Do
© 2026 Unified Law Group, PB LLC
Legal Hub