Judith O’Brien was the first woman partner at Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati in 1984. After stints as a venture capitalist (Incubic Venture Fund), general counsel (Obopay) and consultant (Laurel Advisors), she’s back to private practice at King & Spalding, closing deals and working with emerging companies.
What’s the biggest difference between practicing corporate law in the Valley today and when you started your career? When I started practicing in the seventies, the venture capital community was just getting started, and there were a limited number of funds. They made very few investments. The venture capitalists were very active in the companies they invested in, not to say that they aren’t today, but if you are working with only three or four companies at a time, you have a lot more time to focus on them than today. And they were managing less money, so they did focus on the companies. And that rippled through the whole economy as well. So all of that changed during the eighties and nineties. A lot more firms, a lot more money, a lot more companies were started. Today the trend has continued dramatically through those years, and you see many more companies getting started because they need less capital to get started than they did in the eighties and nineties, different kinds of companies. Today’s businesses need commercial relationships. These needs play right into the strengths of King & Spalding, because we represent many of the companies that these little companies need commercial relationships with, and want commercial relationships with. And, on the other side of it, the larger corporations have started corporate investment arms, and they very much are looking for relationships with these small companies. So it’s kind of a win-win from both perspectives, and it’s something that King & Spalding is uniquely suited to address.
