Legal
eagle!
Ian has the good fortune to enjoy his work. Being a corporate lawyer is
not very sexy, and being a lawyer often evokes a certain disdain in society (for
Christmas one year, Nick was kind
enough to give his father a daily calendar of lawyer jokes!),
but negotiating and drafting deals is a real challenge and, especially when different
cultures are involved, very interesting work.
He hung out his own shingle at different times during the years covered by this
photo album,
working at home and part time. At other times he worked for a law firm, and
at others in-house for a public company. Not for him the beaten track!
The photo on the left is of the first period under his own shingle, when he
did business as Stock International Law in
the home office at Le Tahu, this
blended family's first home outside Paris. He had appropriated the
best bedroom in this century-old brick home, which as you can imagine was
greatly appreciated by management. Wherever one works, there is
always management!
* * *
Ian
spent two and a half years as Special Counsel to the Corporate Finance Group at
Wilson
Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, the powerhouse high-tech law firm based in
Palo Alto, the hub of California's Silicon Valley. It was the time of the internet bubble,
and a more stimulating corporate law firm would be hard to
imagine. John Fore, a friend from the first job out of law
school in New York (other friends from Kronish
Lieb can be seen here), runs the Corporate Finance Group and was kind enough to give
Ian the job when no-one else saw the value that ten years of M&A and
licensing experience in France could offer in Silicon Valley.
Think outside the box, people!!
On the right is most of WSGR's Corporate Finance Group on Ian's last day in September
2000. Left
to right, the current partners in the Group are Kathy Huryn (far left), John (a
long way over, with beard),
John Mao (third from right) and Michael Occhiolini (far right). Andy Hirsch
missed the photo op.
John Mao and Michael Occhiolini are in the photo below left.
There's a lot of turnover in corporate law firms nowadays. Most of the people
in this photo had, by 2008, moved on in one way or another. The Corporate
Finance Group is still there, of course.
* *
*
Ian moved on as Chief Corporate Counsel of Atmel
Corporation, a chip company in San Jose, working for Mike Ross, the
company's able General Counsel. Ian arrived just in time for the economic
slowdown of the deflating internet bubble. His initial option grant was at an
exercise price of over $11, and when he left two years and nine months later the
stock was trading around $2 to $3. Not a lot of incentive in there!
On the right, Mike Ross in his office.
Atmel has substantial operations in Europe, Scandanvia and Asia, as well as
in the US, making this a perfect position for an international business lawyer.
Ian handled a more diverse range of matters than if he had been working in a law
firm, running the gamut from joint ventures in Taiwan and Norway through regular
SEC filings through licenses and Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.
On the left are Kelly, Atmel's tax guru, and John, its contracts
supremo, in Kelly's cubicle before John moved over to help Atmel's
international activities in Switzerland. Are you jealous?!
* * *
Ian moved on again
in 2003, this time down to Newport Beach in sunny and warm Southern California to become the
first General Counsel of newly-public Mindspeed Technologies, Inc., another chip company.
It was a good job, but the family did not want to move away from Santa Cruz, the company was very much under
construction (see photo of Mindspeed's headquarters building!!), and the job didn't last
long. Neither did
the high-flying share price, and the options puttered out again. Such is life in the high-tech world.
* * *
In 2005, Ian went back to working under his own shingle,
EntrepreLaw,
where he makes available to a lucky few clients top notch contract lawyering for
a fraction of the price offered by his peers at the big law firms.
In 2007, his office was
one of a number of comfortable local coffee shops, his business development was
Google AdWords and a website (www.entreprelaw.com),
and his Skype phone number followed his laptop wherever he went.
He could not
have imagined any aspect of such an incredibly mobile and flexible professional
lifestyle when he first started out.
He helps
entrepreneurs, start-ups and international business handle
financings, licenses, sales and complex contracts on both sides of the
Atlantic.
