The Legal Cheek View
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (Wilson Sonsini), which is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, is a tech and life sciences legal powerhouse known as counsel to Silicon Valley high-tech companies and venture capitalists.
The firm’s legacy closely traces the birth and evolution of Silicon Valley. It represented Apple Computer on its IPO in 1980 — that a local Palo Alto-based law firm handled such a massive deal made for ground-breaking news among deal lawyers of the day. Later, Wilson Sonsini helped incorporate Google in 1998 and also represented the company in its mega IPO in 2004 and during the recent antitrust dispute with the U.S. government. Over the next few years, the firm won clients like Hewlett-Packard, Netflix, and Netscape. More recently, Wilson Sonsini represented Twitter in its HK$345 billion (US$44 billion) acquisition by Elon Musk.
In Asia, the firm’s offices offer an equally wide array of services to corporate clients as well as investment banks and private equity and venture capital firms. Wilson Sonsini opened its first Chinese office in Shanghai in 2007, with subsequent offices in Hong Kong and Beijing opening in 2010 and 2012, respectively. The firm’s Greater China practice group operates through these three offices in China and includes five partners who are experts in both U.S. and Hong Kong law. The Greater China practice team routinely works with their colleagues in the U.S. and Europe to advise clients in capital markets, mergers and acquisitions, private equity, intellectual property, dispute resolution, and corporate governance. Wilson Sonsini serves many leading private equity and growth equity funds in the region, including Sequoia Capital China and Warburg Pincus. It has also represented major technology and life science companies like Tencent and WuXi AppTec. The firm also has an active capital market practice working on Hong Kong and U.S. IPOs for issuers and underwriters.
Wilson Sonsini’s Hong Kong office is centrally located in Jardine House at Connaught Place, a commercial space featuring offices of many law firm rivals. The 52-story building, famously called as the “porthole building” for its circular window designs, is well-connected to all the central attractions through an elevated walkway. As a trainee at Wilson Sonsini, you can expect to work with leading technology companies to help them build defining innovations. As with many U.S. firms, you can also expect to gain lots of responsibility with plenty opportunities for client contact. You are likely to get involved in pro bono work too. In 2022, Wilson Sonsini’s lawyers and staff contributed over 80,000 pro bono hours, and the firm has earned many awards for its work in this area.
Junior lawyers are awarded an attractive compensation package which includes a market-competitive base salary and year-end performance-based bonus that are in line with leading U.S. law firms operating in the region.