US firms Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and Cooley have won roles on LinkedIn's upcoming initial public offering (IPO), reports The Am Law Daily.

LinkedIn, which had 90 million registered users at the end of 2010, is set to become the first of the major social networking websites to go public.

However, the company did not specify a timeframe for the listing in its S-1 prospectus filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last Thursday (27 January).

The Wilson Sonsini team advising LinkedIn includes vice-chair Jeffrey Saper, corporate partners Katherine Martin and Jon Avina, M&A partner Warren de Wied and employee benefits partner Scott McCall.

Eric Jensen, chair of the national business department at Cooley in Palo Alto, California, is advising the underwriters on the proposed offering led by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley. The Cooley team also includes securities regulation partner John McKenna, compensation and benefits partner Wendy Davis and technology transactions partner Robin Lee.

General counsel Erika Rottenberg and corporate counsel Lora Blum are handling matters in-house for LinkedIn. Rottenberg previously worked at Cooley, while Blum, a former partner at Jones Day and Heller Ehrman, spent five years as an associate at Wilson Sonsini.

LinkedIn's SEC filing offers no details on how much money the company hopes to raise by going public, according to The Recorder. However, Renaissance Capital, an investment bank that tracks IPOs, has estimated that the company's valuation could exceed $2bn (£1.3bn).

Some observers believe that the LinkedIn IPO could pave the way for others in the technology sector to public.

"LinkedIn is probably one of a handful of companies that really have the stature to do something meaningful in advance of Facebook," said Dorsey & Whitney corporate securities partner Ted Hollifield.