Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Headquarters	Palo Alto, California
No. of offices	11
No. of attorneys	631
No. of employees	1298
Major practice areas	Business law, Intellectual property law
Key people	Larry Sonsini
Revenue	$531 million (2007)
Date founded	1961
Company type	P.C.
Website
	www.wsgr.com

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Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (WSGR) is a law firm in the United States that specializes in business, securities, and intellectual property law. The firm's Chairman, Larry Sonsini, is well known as an attorney and advisor to technology companies.^[1]

[edit] Overview

The firm's headquarters are on Page Mill Road in Palo Alto, California, part of the Stanford Research Park. It has offices in seven major American cities, two offices in China, and one in Brussels. WSGR provides legal services to some of the best-known computer technology firms and venture capital funds in Silicon Valley and elsewhere in the United States, as well as smaller firms and start-ups. WSGR deals in corporate and securities law, licensing, tax, employee benefits, real estate, antitrust, and litigation. The firm has added a New York City office based on corporate finance, antitrust, and mergers & acquisitions.

[edit] History

WSGR was founded in 1961 as McCloskey, Wilson, Mosher & Martin in Palo Alto, California. Since its launch, the firm concentrated on the representation of emerging technology companies and venture capitalists. Larry Sonsini and Mario Rosati joined in 1966 and 1971 respectively. In 1980, WSGR represented Apple Inc. in its much-publicized IPO. Like fellow technology-heavy firm Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, WSGR 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.

For many years, the firm had only one office, in Palo Alto. 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, Salt Lake City and San Diego.

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. 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 dot com economy, however, WSGR had to make a number of adjustments; 100 support staff and 60 associates were laid off—about 10% of its attorneys. Good times returned in 2004 when the firm advised Google in its $2.7 billion IPO. The next year, WSGR launched an office in China and boosted its New York office. In 2006, the firm relocated its Northern Virginia lawyers to Washington, D.C. to be closer to government regulators.

[edit] Tools

Wilson Sonsini provides a number of reports and tools free of charge for the entrepreneurial community. These resources include a free funding Term Sheet Generator tool that has received praise from start-up community members such as Guy Kawasaki.^[2]