David Segre, a longtime member of the corporate group at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, has left the firm and is poised to join Cooley in San Francisco.

Segre's departure comes less than a week after Covington & Burling raided Wilson Sonsini for technology transactions partner Suzanne Bell. That move came a few weeks after Latham & Watkins welcomed Wilson Sonsini partner Todd Carpenter in San Francisco, where he reunited with former Wilson Sonsini co-managing partner John “Jack” Sheridan, who last year jumped to Latham's Silicon Valley office.

Cooley will also host a reunion of sorts for Segre, who comes aboard almost a month after the firm hired fellow former colleague and ex-Wilson Sonsini partner T'Challa “T.J.” Graham in Palo Alto. Segre was not immediately available to discuss the circumstances surrounding his decision to leave Wilson Sonsini, where he has worked since 1989, but did provide a statement confirming his move to Cooley.

“Cooley sets itself apart through a collaborative approach to client service and a world-class reputation for high-impact success,” Segre said. “I look forward to adding my own experience and energy to delivering solutions to clients on the Cooley platform.”

During his more than 28 years at Wilson Sonsini, Segre worked with public and private companies through all stages of their growth. His practice focuses on representing such companies in corporate and securities matters, including general corporate representations, venture capital financings, public offerings and M&A deals.

In 2004, Segre was part of a Wilson Sonsini legal team that took Google Inc. public, an engagement that saw the firm reap the benefits from an early-stage investment it made in the internet search giant. Segre continued to serve as outside counsel to Google for the next decade, including handling the company's $3.2 billion acquisition of Nest Labs in 2014.

Other major deals that Segre has advised on over the years are initial public offerings for San Francisco-based online real estate listing service Trulia Inc. and startup mobile payments company Square Inc., as well as Riverbed Technology Inc.'s nearly $1 billion cash-and-stock acquisition of network optimization software provider Opnet Technologies in 2012.

Cooley, which broke the $1 billion gross revenue mark in 2017, issued a statement of its own welcoming Segre to the 897-lawyer firm.

“Dave is a well-respected and established presence in our industry, with relationships across the tech, internet and investment sectors,” said a statement from Mike Lincoln, the Reston, Virginia-based global chair of Cooley's business department. “His arrival aligns with our commitment to further enhance our capabilities for established and emerging disruptive companies that are defining the future. We are thrilled to have Dave join our team.”

Cooley itself has about 120 lawyers in San Francisco, as well as 600 firmwide handling corporate matters for clients. Segre and Graham are the latest in a series of lateral recruits from Wilson Sonsini by Cooley in recent years. Last summer, Cooley raided Wilson Sonsini for a four-partner technology transactions team in New York and Washington, D.C., a little more than a month before Cooley took on another three-partner Wilson Sonsini group in the Bay Area.

Contacted about Segre's exit, Wilson Sonsini referenced a statement that firm COO Courtney Dorman provided a week ago following the departure of Bell for Covington, which said that “mobility is an unfortunate reality of this industry, but that doesn't mean we are sanguine about it.”

The statement also noted that Wilson Sonsini had “an excellent year across the board with high-profile transactions” bolstering its financials, and that future additions would be announced soon, complementing a number of laterals the firm has already welcomed to its ranks so far this year.

“We remain in growth mode and have never been more optimistic about our business, our clients and our talent,” Dorman said.

Wilson Sonsini, which last month saw former senior partner Selwyn Goldberg join Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York, recently added ex-Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher antitrust partner Joshua Soven to its ranks in Washington, D.C. The 746-lawyer firm also picked up former Goodwin Procter corporate partner Andrew Hill in Palo Alto.