The Absolute Best Attorneys for Startups

Find the right lawyer and they can fill many roles: advisor, defender—let’s be real—therapist. In recent decades, the white-shoe law firms that once mostly catered to—and chased—blue-chip industrial companies, conglomerates and banks have set up practices targeting startups, and as Silicon Valley has boomed, plenty of tech-focused specialist firms have popped up in the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere. Many have long track records of representing companies from seed to IPO. Which ones should you hire? We asked a collection of investors and founders about the lawyers they use and recommend to portfolio companies.