Why the techies like friend Fenwick & West

Illustration by Shawn Hasto

By Brad Stone

Gordon "gordy" Davidson is one of the top consiglieri of the Silicon Valley. In a career extending on almost four decades, the lawyer helped Cisco (TO7) raise venture capital, Intuit (INTU) and eBay (EBAY) through their initial public offering and has contributed to VeriSign (VRSN) with the acquisition of 17 billion dollars in 2000 Network Solutions - always the biggest Internet deal ever. He saw technological waves and going over the years. Later, social networks and media online, is an extraordinary, and his firm, Fenwick & West, straddles the trend as no other company in the Valley. "Silicon Valley came a recession faster than the rest of the country, and we saw coming a little sooner than our peers, says Davidson, who became President of the firm in 1995." "" "Financially, times are very good."

Unlike the major local rivals such as Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and Cooley, Fenwick specializes in startup companies. Its customers are among the biggest names on the Internet - Facebook, Twitter and the rising stars such as the rental of the House of the Airbnb site and cloud-storage Exchange Company. The firm almost certainly help Facebook through the process of introduction on the stock market, according to a person familiar with the company and the company plans, which could arrive early in 2012. Fenwick "is one of the major indigenous companies of Silicon Valley, said Larry Kramer, Dean of the Faculty of law, Stanford." "" It includes how the Valley works better than most, any how to raise funds, where to incorporate and how to maintain and grow a startup. ?

Fenwick was founded in 1972 in the same Office in Palo Alto, which then housed the old Wilson Sonsini. Fenwick lawyers made their bones incorporating Apple (AAPL) and taking Oracle (ORCL) public. In 2002, the company moved to its own six-story building in downtown Mountain View, California, two miles from the Googleplex and kept focuses on young businesses. Wilson Sonsini, most lawyers that Fenwick (377 vs. 253), has changed over the last years of startups to more established heavyweights such as Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Netflix (NFLX), Pixar (DIS) and Autodesk (ADSK). Creating business reluctantly recognize rise of Fenwick. Kind of. "In view of the growth of industry technology, room for a good competitor, because we cannot all represent", said Larry w. Sonsini, Chairman of Wilson Sonsini.

Davidson rejects this jab as playful rivalry. He can afford: revenues increased 8% in 2010, after dipping during the recession. As it is common for Valley firms, Fenwick sometimes takes equity participation in companies it represents - Electronic Arts (ERTs) and Symantec (SYMC), to name a couple. (It is not owner Facebook equity, as a person with knowledge of the case.)

View the original article here