Fenwick & West
Fenwick & West LLP is a law firm of more than 470 attorneys with offices in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Seattle, New York City, Santa Monica, Washington, DC, and Boston. The firm focuses on the technology and life sciences sectors, advising clients at all stages from startups to public companies. The firm's practice areas include capital markets, mergers and acquisitions, venture capital, patent, commercial litigation, and regulatory counseling.
History
William Fenwick, a graduate of Vanderbilt University Law School, formed Fenwick & West with three partners while an associate at Cleary Gottlieb. Early clients included Pioneer Electronics and Apple Computer, which the firm incorporated in 1974.In 2024, the firm laid off associates and staff as venture activity slowed after a boom in the preceding years.
In 2025, Fenwick signed an amicus brief supporting law firm Perkins Coie after it and other law firms were targeted by the Trump administration.
Recognition
Fenwick & West ranked 69th on the 2025 AmLaw 100 list of the largest law firms by revenue.Chambers and Partners recognized Fenwick's practice areas in startups, capital markets, artificial intelligence, and intellectual property.
Milestones
2022
- Fenwick represented The New York Times in its acquisition of the online word game Wordle.
- Fenwick's former client FTX collapses.
- Fenwick represented Figma in its attempted acquisition by Adobe
- Fenwick represented Clif Bar & Company in its acquisition by Mondelēz International for $2.9 billion.
2021
- Fenwick represented Coinbase on its direct listing on Nasdaq, the company later was charged by the SEC for unregistered securities.
- Fenwick aids fraudulent cryptocurrency Tron and its founder Justin Sun, who later was charged with fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
2020
- Represented Amazon in the E.D. Texas, where a jury found that Amazon's Alexa-powered smart home devices did not infringe patents held by Innovation Sciences and that these patents were invalid
- Represented OSIsoft, in real-time industrial data software and services, in its $5B acquisition by AVEVA, in industrial software.
2019
- Representing Loxo Oncology, with offices in South San Francisco, in its $8B cash acquisition by Eli Lilly.
2014
2013
- Fenwick announces a new version of the Series Seed Documents on GitHub, curated by Fenwick Partner Ted Wang.
2012
- Fenwick represents Facebook in its $1 billion purchase of Instagram
- Fenwick represents Facebook in its IPO, the largest Internet IPO in U.S. history
2011
- Pro bono counsel to Democratic Underground in Righthaven LLC v. Democratic Underground LLC, which is widely regarded as a legal victory against copyright trolls and called Copyright Case of the Year by ''Managing Intellectual Property''
2000
- Handles VeriSign's $21 billion acquisition of Network Solutions, the largest internet merger in history
Clients
- Figma: Led Figma in its attempted acquisition by Adobe.
- The New York Times: Represented in its acquisition of Wordle.
- Clif Bar & Company: Led the food and beverage company in its acquisition by Mondelēz International.
- Facebook: In 2012, Fenwick & West represented Facebook in the largest tech IPO in history. Fenwick also advised Facebook on its acquisition of Instagram in 2013.
- FTX: Previously served as outside counsel to the former cryptocurrency exchange, FTX.