Jeffrey Vetter

For the second time this month, a longtime Fenwick & West partner is leaving the firm.

Jeffrey Vetter, who most recently served as co-chair of Fenwick & West's corporate finance and securities group, is poised to join Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian.

Gunderson Dettmer confirmed late Monday evening that Vetter would join its partnership in the Bay Area after spending more than two decades at Fenwick & West.

Vetter, who did not immediately return a request for comment about the move, concentrates his practice on public and private offerings, M&A deals, counseling public and late-stage private companies, and other securities law matters.

According to his biography page on Fenwick & West's website, Vetter has worked on more than 75 initial public offerings during his career. Most recently, he led a team of lawyers from the firm advising Sonos Inc. on a $83.3 million IPO by the wireless speaker pioneer that generated $1.35 million in legal fees and expenses for Fenwick & West.

Vetter's most memorable work came as he stood by social media giant Facebook Inc. in its $18.4 billion IPO back in February 2012. He was also one of the advisors, along with former colleague Greg Roussel, that helped Facebook closed its $1 billion acquisition of Instagram.

Other well-known deals that Vetter has worked on include assisting technology companies such as alternative lender LendingClub Corp., enterprise software provider Workday Inc. and fitness tracker Fitbit Inc. in going public. Vetter also advised Facebook Inc. in 2012 on its $1 billion acquisition of Instagram and a subsequent $16 billion IPO by Facebook that yielded $2.6 million in legal fees and expenses for Fenwick & West, whose lawyers appeared on the cover of The American Lawyer for their work on behalf of the social media giant.

The Recorder named Vetter one of its Attorneys of the Year in 2012 for his work advising Facebook, which he counseled on a follow-on offering in 2013, and other technology industry clients. In late 2013, Vetter was part of a Fenwick & West team that represented email marketing company Responsys on its $1.6 billion sale to Oracle Corp.

Prior to joining Fenwick & West in 1995, Vetter worked at Los Angeles-based Troy & Gould for two years. Before that, he spent about three years as an associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

Fenwick & West did not immediately return a request for comment about Vetter's impending departure. Earlier this month, the roughly 321-lawyer firm saw veteran dealmaker R. Gregory Roussel decamp for Latham & Watkins in Silicon Valley, a move that occurred only a few months after Goodwin Procter picked up a pair of private equity partners from the firm in Scott Joachim and David Johanson. (Joachim, who joined the firm from Perkins Coie in 2012, served as founder and chair of Fenwick & West's private equity practice.)

Those departures came despite Fenwick & West seeing its financial performance rebound in 2017, as gross revenue rose to $374.9 million, while profits per equity partner hit $1.51 million. In July, Fenwick & West expanded its relatively new office in New York by hiring Davis & Gilbert technology transactions partner Vejay Lalla and adding six intellectual property partners from White & Case.

The partnership churn has also continued. Polsinelli announced last week its hire of Fenwick & West technology and IP disputes partner Darren Donnelly for its office in Palo Alto, California. Lawrence Granatelli, a former transactional-focused chair of Fenwick & West's IP practice and a former member of the firm's executive committee, retired earlier this year.