All Craig Johnson wanted to talk about was the acorn. It was in November 2004, just after the upstart Venture Law Group that he had started a decade earlier had merged with Heller, Ehrman, White & McAuliffe. Johnson had just returned from a bicycling trip in China, and was settling into his new space at Heller’s Silicon Valley office.
I was amused that all Johnson seemed to want to talk about was the acorn. “The acorn is still alive!” he proclaimed, as he pulled out a business card that was adorned with the little nut. “This has been my crusade.” The acorn was the logo that VLG had used since Johnson started the firm in 1993, with the intent of catering to start-up companies and shaking up the traditional law firm model by, for example, taking an equity interest in the clients and–maybe someday–going public. Johnson was emotionally attached to this symbol of how mighty things can sprout from small beginnings. As part of the Heller deal, he had insisted that his VLG lawyers be allowed to use the acorn on their business cards and other marketing materials at Heller, and had even gotten it included on the sign outside the office’s building.
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