Roger Royse, founder of Royse Law Firm/courtesy photo

To address his clients' "explosive growth" and their needs for a broader swath of legal services, Silicon Valley corporate and tax lawyer Roger Royse and seven lawyers from his midsize firm are moving to the Palo Alto office of Haynes and Boone.

"The companies were getting bigger and doing more sophisticated transactions," said Royse, who founded the 27-lawyer Royse Law Firm in 2006. Following his move, the rest of the firm will find new homes and wind down, he said.

"We just really hit our ceiling on this platform. It was just time to move," Royse added.

Royse said his group was supposed to start work at Haynes and Boone in early April, but that will be delayed until around May 1, because of the California stay-home order currently in place to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Haynes and Boone managing partner Tim Powers said in a release that the firm is excited to bring on Royse and his team because of their connections to the venture capital community.

"The team perfectly complements our existing practice strengths and will help us further our longstanding commitments to achieve strategic growth in California and to build recognized practices in emerging technology sectors," Powers wrote.

Royse will join Haynes and Boone as a partner, along with of counsel Marvin Glazer, Frances Johnston, Angela Kwok, Thomas Moore, Satya Narayan and Virginia Slutu, and associate Alexis Maguina.

"We are moving the corporate practice over. The remaining lawyers are dispersing, going other places. What Haynes and Boone really wanted to build here in the Silicon Valley is the corporate group," he said.

Royse Law Firm will wind down "in due course," he said, noting that he is the sole equity owner of the firm.

"The Royse Law Firm is not a traditional law firm, not a partnership. It was basically my firm and this was a decision I made to take the core practice and put it into another platform," he said, adding that the lawyers not moving to Haynes and Boone do estate planning, litigation and patent work.

Haynes and Boone, the Am Law 100 firm based in Dallas, provides expertise in areas Royse Law didn't have, he said, including regulatory and antitrust matters. He's been having to refer that work to other firms. Also, Royse notes, the firm didn't have enough lawyers for some large M&A transactions or initial public offerings, a challenge that Haynes and Boone solves.

Royse said he decided on his birthday last September that it was time to move his practice to a larger firm, and he talked to a number of firms.

He advises venture funds, midmarket companies and technology startups, and said a couple M&A transactions he's handling are on pause in the midst of a slowdown in M&A because of the current economic environment. But Royse said financing is very active because many of his clients are in the business of providing remote-work capabilities.

"All of a sudden they are a lot more attractive," he said.

Royse Law Firm clients include Lyft and PicsArt, and the firm represented Times of India in a transaction. Royse said he works with clients ranging from emerging companies to publicly traded multinationals in agriculture technology, health care technology and financial technology.

"Oddly, we've always been sort of recession-proof," he said. "A recession is a great time to start a new company [because] as the economy shifts and changes, new technologies and new business models emerge."

Royse Law Firm has lawyers or offices in Menlo Park, San Francisco, Beijing, Orange County, Santa Monica and New York, but Royse said he will eventually consolidate his group in Palo Alto.

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