Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (known as Wilson Sonsini) is an American multinational law firm specializing in business, securities, venture capital, and intellectual property law. It is generally one of the top-grossing law firms in the world. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, the firm's clients are primarily technology companies, life science firms, emerging industries, venture capital firms, private equity establishments, and investment banks.[2]
Wilson Sonsini was founded in 1961 as McCloskey, Wilson & Mosher in Palo Alto, California, with attorneys Paul N. "Pete" McCloskey Jr., John Arnot Wilson, and Roger Laurence Mosher as the name partners.[4] Wilson was a graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School's class of 1941, which included Supreme Court jurists Byron White and Potter Stewart as well as former President Gerald Ford.[5] The firm since launch has primarily been focused on the representation of emerging technology companies and venture capitalists.[citation needed]Lawrence W. "Larry" Sonsini joined the firm in 1966 and after McCloskey left for Congress the firm became Wilson, Mosher & Sonsini. In 1969, the firm helped form Mayfield Fund, a venture capital firm. John B. Goodrich and Mario M. Rosati joined in 1970, and 1971, respectively. In 1978, name partner Roger L. Mosher broke off and took a chunk of the firm with him, ad the firm adopted its current name of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, PC. On November 6, 2019, in conjunction the launch of a new company website the firm started to use the shortened name, "Wilson Sonsini".[citation needed]
In late 1998, the firm opened its first national office, in Kirkland, Washington, led by partner Patrick Schultheis. Within the next few years, the firm opened offices in Austin, Texas; San Francisco; Northern Virginia; New York; and San Diego. In 2005, Wilson Sonsini launched an office in China and enhanced its New York office. In 2006 the firm relocated its Northern Virginia lawyers to Washington, D.C., to be closer to government regulators and the firm eventually moved its Kirkland office to Seattle.[citation needed] The firm has also since opened offices in Los Angeles; Boston; Wilmington, Delaware; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Boulder, Colorado. Internationally, the firm now has offices in London; Brussels; Beijing; Hong Kong; and Shanghai.[citation needed]
Like other law firms representing start-up technology companies, Wilson Sonsini accepted equity in its clients as a form of payment in return for deferral of fees, and also passed on stakes in its investment fund to associates and staff members as a means of retaining employees.[7]
In 1994, Wilson Sonsini represented Netscape Communications in its IPO, in addition to representing several other companies that, like Netscape, were tied to the start of the Internet Age, including Infoseek, USWeb/CKS, and Inktomi. Wilson Sonsini also began to lead the nation in the number of issuer IPO transactions, completing 37 IPOs in 1995 and 44 IPOs in 1997.
In 1999, when VA Linux went public, the firm reaped $24.5 million as the value of the 100,000 shares that the firm held ballooned in value.[citation needed] Other IPOs that enriched the firm because of its equity stake were those of Ask Jeeves, Google, and online grocer Webvan. With the downturn in the dotcom economy, however, Wilson Sonsini had to make a number of adjustments; 100 support staff and 60 associates were laid off—about 10% of its attorneys. Better times eventually returned. In 2004, the firm advised Google on its $2.7 billion IPO.
In February 2005, the firm announced that Larry Sonsini, 64, who had been chief executive for more than 20 years, stepped aside, and named John Roos, a 20-year veteran partner who had led representations of young companies and entrepreneurs, as chief executive officer.[8][9] After becoming CEO, Roos steered Wilson Sonsini beyond the burst tech bubble toward a broader client portfolio and a global presence.[10] In 2009, after President Obama appointed Roos as U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Steven E. Bochner, a 28 year veteran partner at the firm, succeeded Roos as CEO.[11][4]
In 2016, Wilson Sonsini represented LinkedIn acquisition by Microsoft at a price of US$26.2 billion.[12]
In a 2021 assessment, Wilson Sonsini was one of the 3 firms which received an A grade in climate change mitigation efforts.[13]
Sand Hill Road, often shortened to just "Sand Hill" or "SHR", is an arterial road in western Silicon Valley, California, running through Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Woodside, notable for its concentration of venture capital firms. The road has become a metonym for that industry; nearly every top Silicon Valley company has been the beneficiary of early funding from firms on Sand Hill Road.
Stanford Research Park (SRP) is a technology park established in 1951 as a joint initiative between Stanford University and the City of Palo Alto. It was the world's first university research park. It has more than 150 companies, including Hewlett-Packard, Tesla Motors, TIBCO and VMware; previous high-profile tenants include Steve Jobs's NeXT Computer, Xerox PARC, and Facebook. It has been called "an engine for Silicon Valley" and "the epicenter of Silicon Valley".
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP is a white-shoe law firm headquartered in New York City. The firm specializes in litigation and corporate practices, particularly mergers and acquisitions and private equity, with over 1,000 attorneys in 11 offices worldwide.
A boutique law firm is a law firm specializing in a niche area of law practice. While a general practice law firm includes various unrelated practice areas within a single firm, a boutique firm specializes in one or a select few practice areas. There may be some confusion as legal publications refer to any small- or mid-sized firm as a boutique, though firms with fewer than 100 attorneys generally count. Boutique should apply to those firms that focus on particular areas, regardless of size, though they are typically smaller, except for a few firms such as Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner or Fish & Richardson with over 400 attorneys.
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Ann O'Neil Baskins is former General Counsel for Hewlett-Packard Company (HP). Baskins was linked to the HP pretexting scandal. On September 28, 2006, following public disclosure of the matter, Baskins resigned effective immediately, hours before she was to appear as a witness before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce at which she would later invoke the Fifth Amendment to "not be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime." Baskins was never charged by California or federal authorities.
On September 5, 2006, Newsweek revealed that the general counsel of Hewlett-Packard, at the behest of HP chairwoman Patricia Dunn, had contracted a team of independent security experts to investigate board members and several journalists in order to identify the source of an information leak. In turn, those security experts recruited private investigators who used a spying technique known as pretexting. The pretexting involved investigators impersonating HP board members and nine journalists in order to obtain their phone records. The information leaked related to HP's long-term strategy and was published as part of a CNET article in January 2006. HP hired public relations firm Sitrick and Company to manage their media relations during the crisis.
Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison LLP was a large law firm based in San Francisco, California, United States. In 2003, the firm was liquidated under Chapter 7 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, after it had lost a substantial amount of money in the dot-com bubble and merger talks with Morgan, Lewis & Bockius had fallen through.
Richard "Rick" G. Frenkel was an in-house intellectual property counsel and director of intellectual property at Cisco Systems. He was once the anonymous author of the Patent Troll Tracker blog, focusing on the subject of "patent trolls" and "a must-read blog among top intellectual property litigators".
Lawrence William Sonsini is an American lawyer and founding partner of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, an international law firm in business and intellectual property law. In 2021, Sonsini was chosen to serve as chair of the board of trustees at Santa Clara University.
John Victor Roos is an American businessman, attorney, and diplomat who served as United States Ambassador to Japan from 2009 to 2013. He is the Founding Partner of Geodesic Capital. Before accepting the ambassadorship from President Barack Obama, Roos was the CEO of Silicon Valley–based law firm of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.
WSGR may refer to:
Christopher Michael Kelly is an American entrepreneur, attorney, and activist. From September 2005 to August 2009, he served as Chief Privacy Officer, first General Counsel, and Head of Global Public Policy at Facebook. As an early leader at Facebook, he helped shape it into one of the most successful businesses in history. In 2010, Kelly was a candidate in the Democratic primary for California Attorney General. Since his departure from Facebook and campaign for Attorney General, he has become an investor in films, restaurants, and technology start-ups. Kelly became a co-owner of the NBA's Sacramento Kings in May 2013.
Cooley LLP is an American international law firm, headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with offices worldwide. The firm's practice areas include corporate, litigation, intellectual property, fund formation, public markets, employment, life sciences, clean technology, real estate, financial services, retail, regulatory and energy.
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Adeo Ressi is the founder and CEO of Decile Group and Executive Chairman of Founder Institute. Decile Group is a full-stack venture capital platform for emerging managers worldwide and helped launch nearly 50% of all VC firms in 2023 with the VC Lab accelerator. Founder Institute, a pre-seed accelerator, operates chapters in over 250 cities and supports more than 7,000 portfolio companies. Ressi’s previous startups, including Methodfive, Game Trust, and Total New York, resulted in nearly $2 billion in exits by the age of 30. He has also launched 14 venture capital funds, served on the board of the X Prize Foundation, and created TheFunded.
Ken DeLeon is a Silicon Valley realtor, innovator, public speaker, philanthropist, and former attorney. He was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and now resides in Palo Alto, California.
Ann Crady Weiss is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist and advocate for workplace diversity and paid family leave. Weiss is on her second start-up, HatchBaby, with her co-founder and husband, Dave Weiss. She is a former Yahoo! executive who began her career as a corporate attorney for Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.
Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian LLP is an international law firm headquartered in Silicon Valley in California. The firm focuses exclusively on business law and commercial matters for venture-backed and public technology and life science companies and venture capital investors, while performing no litigation work.
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