Perkins Coie has hired executive compensation partner Wendy Moore to join its corporate practice and tax, benefits and compensation subgroup in Palo Alto.

Moore, who officially joined the Seattle-based Am Law 100 firm on Monday, spent the past five years as a partner at Jones Day. She joined the latter in 2013 after almost seven years at Cooley. In an interview, Moore said that she has been working in the “heart of Silicon Valley” since graduating from the University of Chicago Law School in 1999, at the height of the dotcom era.

“I have had the privilege of working with hundreds of entrepreneurs who are pushing boundaries with their technology, who are also pushing the lawyers to push boundaries with the pace of innovation, to innovate with the provision of legal services,” Moore said. “Perkins Coie has really demonstrated their commitment to advising these entrepreneurs, [both] in Silicon Valley [and] across the country.”

Moore began her legal career at the now-defunct Venture Law Group, which she left in 2003 to join Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. She spent a little more than three years at the Wall Street firm before moving to Cooley in mid-2006. Within the last decade or so, Moore has focused her practice on equity and executive compensation matters.

She specializes in advising companies in all stages of their life cycle on corporate, employment, securities and tax issues, while also counseling a number of clients on new technologies emanating from Silicon Valley and elsewhere, such as autonomous vehicles, blockchain, cryptocurrencies and the internet of things.

“Startups need a law firm that can be intellectually rigorous, but still give really practical legal advice,” said Moore, adding that she was impressed by Perkins Coie's involvement in innovation, as well as technology tools such as artificial intelligence and document processing that the firm uses to streamline its legal processes.

Moore is also an advocate for addressing gender gap issues in companies and law firms. She said that Perkins Coie's Le[a]dBetter program, an initiative that promotes gender diversity and equality, helped draw her to the firm. The program offers a discount on legal services to startups that have at least one woman in a senior executive position.

The hire of Moore marks the third prominent female partner hired by Perkins Coie in recent weeks. In March, the firm added Dominique Shelton, chair of the ad tech privacy and advertising data compliance group at Alston & Bird, as a partner in Los Angeles, while also bringing aboard former Bryan Cave private funds co-head Elizabeth Sipes as a partner in Denver. With the addition of Moore, Perkins Coie now has almost 80 lawyers in Palo Alto, as well as 15 partners working in its tax, benefits and compensation subgroup.

“Many of our attorneys have worked with Wendy for years, and we've long admired her exceptional work and strong reputation among peers in the industry,” said a statement from Robert Mahon, chair of Perkins Coie's tax, benefits and compensation practice. “She brings nearly two decades of executive compensation and corporate governance experience to our team, and we are thrilled to have her on board.”

Moore noted that California has been a leader in addressed employee compensation issues, such as the gender pay gap. Under a new California law, effective on Jan. 1, 2018, employers in the state will no longer be able to ask job applicants about their salary history. The hope is that will give diverse job candidates a better chance to earn compensation that's equivalent with their experience, she said.

Google LLC and Starbucks Corp., two major employers on the West Coast, have been at the forefront in narrowing the pay gap, with other companies following their lead, Moore said.

“I am hopeful,” she added, when asked about the pace of progress. “[I'm] not sure how fast it will go, but I am doing what I can.”