clients I've worked with

1617398168-ecplogo-large-4

Presenters

Who will be speaking

Event detail

All events

We organize for you

Home

Knowledge Bank

Industry Coverage

ECP Team

Technology

Mailing list signup

WSGR.com

Privacy Policy

Terms of Use

Generators

Attorneys

focused on this industry

events

we organize for you

recent news

we want to share with you

other industries

we have covered

FAQs

Client & Industry News

Events

Entrepreneurs Reports

Videos

International

Investment Services

Neuron

1623436179-neuron

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich &amp; Rosati, furthering its mission to streamline legal needs across a company&rsquo;s life cycle, unveiled on Tuesday a new startup financing module on&nbsp;its&nbsp;software&nbsp;platform for&nbsp;emerging companies.
The platform, called Neuron, has advanced since its launch in mid-2021, from handling business incorporation to hiring and governance needs. Tackling financings was a natural next step in the platform&rsquo;s evolution, though it won&rsquo;t be the last, according to Wilson Sonsini chief innovation officer David Wang.
&ldquo;If you look at everything we&rsquo;ve done, it is coherent,&rdquo; Wang said, noting the platform is focused on serving companies&rsquo; needs from formation to exit, across a wide variety of legal practice areas. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re really strategically focused on solving this problem.&rdquo;
<div id="gpt-vert5" class="text-center" data-google-query-id="CJqJlpqVyv0CFQLg_QUdjuUEvw">
<div id="google_ads_iframe_/21665826759/therecorder/articledisplay_6__container__"><iframe id="google_ads_iframe_/21665826759/therecorder/articledisplay_6" title="3rd party ad content" frameborder="0" height="1" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" name="google_ads_iframe_/21665826759/therecorder/articledisplay_6" scrolling="no" width="1" aria-label="Advertisement" data-google-container-id="6" data-load-complete="true" data-mce-fragment="1"></iframe></div>
<div>In its newest module, Neuron automates SAFE, or simple agreement for future equity, financings. A SAFE is the predominant type of financing for early-stage companies, according to the firm, which allows an investor to invest and purchase a stake in a company before a formal valuation has been established.</div>
</div>
Like all of the automated tasks on Neuron, the financing module allows clients to fill out a standard SAFE agreement until the point that personalization, for instance, a side letter negotiation, is needed, Wang said.
That is because, unlike other legal tech products, Neuron isn&rsquo;t licensed to clients. Instead, it is a tool that is incorporated into the workflow of Wilson Sonsini&rsquo;s emerging companies practice, bringing to bear automation and customization where needed, Wang said.
<div id="gpt-vert6" class="text-center" data-google-query-id="COijzdeZyv0CFX3i_QUd0D8GIQ">
<div id="google_ads_iframe_/21665826759/therecorder/articledisplay_7__container__"><iframe id="google_ads_iframe_/21665826759/therecorder/articledisplay_7" title="3rd party ad content" frameborder="0" height="1" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" name="google_ads_iframe_/21665826759/therecorder/articledisplay_7" scrolling="no" width="1" aria-label="Advertisement" data-google-container-id="7" data-load-complete="true" data-mce-fragment="1"></iframe></div>
</div>
Wang said the 80-20 rule applies to the problems the firm is solving for. &ldquo;80% of the time, you need a standard form. But 20% of the time there is a variation. That is our secret sauce: allowing customization beyond automation, only at times when you need it. That means&nbsp;[the product] is&nbsp;perfect for the client every time.&rdquo;
In addition to the marriage of automation and personalization, the platform has been developed hand&nbsp;in hand with clients, Wang said, which makes the platform effective for clients, with a net promotor score of 96.
Wang himself has spoken to more than 200 clients about the product, and viewed many more recorded interviews from clients to garner feedback.
<div id="gpt-vert7" class="text-center" data-google-query-id="CJ3p7teZyv0CFbjt_QUdMCgEiQ">
<div id="google_ads_iframe_/21665826759/therecorder/articledisplay_8__container__"><iframe id="google_ads_iframe_/21665826759/therecorder/articledisplay_8" title="3rd party ad content" frameborder="0" height="1" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" name="google_ads_iframe_/21665826759/therecorder/articledisplay_8" scrolling="no" width="1" aria-label="Advertisement" data-google-container-id="a" data-load-complete="true" data-mce-fragment="1"></iframe></div>
</div>
&ldquo;The most revolutionary thing we&rsquo;ve done here is not the fact that we&rsquo;re building a digital platform. That has been done before,&rdquo; Wang said. &ldquo;The thing that is truly revolutionary about what we&rsquo;re doing here is that we are committing to using software in the direction of what our clients want us to do.&rdquo;

Law.com: Wilson Sonsini Evolves Neuron Platform, Taking First Step to Automate Financings

News Articles

<div class="mb-0">
As capital markets and late-stage private&nbsp;financing work&nbsp;<a href="https://www.law.com/therecorder/2022/10/11/as-ipos-and-venture-financings-slow-lawyers-prepare-for-difficult-conversations-in-the-boardroom/">significantly cools</a>, tech companies are hyper-focused on employee retention&mdash;which is exactly the focal point of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich &amp; Rosati&rsquo;s latest tech venture.
The firm said Thursday it added its first corporate governance module to Neuron, a cloud-based software platform that supports Wilson Sonsini&rsquo;s emerging technology practice.
&ldquo;From a company perspective, your lifeblood is your people. Hiring has always been complicated, but it&rsquo;s becoming extraordinarily more difficult amid remote and hybrid work,&rdquo; said David Wang, chief innovation officer at Wilson Sonsini.
<div id="gpt-vert5" class="text-center" data-google-query-id="CLGvkZz6i_0CFYrT_QUd-5oLqQ">
<div id="google_ads_iframe_/21665826759/therecorder/articledisplay_6__container__"><iframe id="google_ads_iframe_/21665826759/therecorder/articledisplay_6" title="3rd party ad content" frameborder="0" height="1" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" name="google_ads_iframe_/21665826759/therecorder/articledisplay_6" scrolling="no" width="1" aria-label="Advertisement" data-google-container-id="6" data-load-complete="true" data-mce-fragment="1"></iframe></div>
<div>The update allows companies to onboard employees in 5% of the time it used to take, according to the firm, by completing employment and consulting agreements and offer letters.</div>
</div>
In addition to easy-to-use templates for simple employment legal needs, Neuron is paired with &ldquo;last-mile advice and customization&rdquo; offered by Wilson Sonsini&rsquo;s attorneys.
&ldquo;There is significant value in the tech-enabled content, but we&rsquo;re full-service, so we&rsquo;re also delivering that white-glove, premium experience,&rdquo; Wang said.
&ldquo;Neuron allowed me to create an employee offer in about&nbsp;five minutes with my attorney in the loop to review terms and help with bespoke edits, and we were able to sign the documents only a few hours later, instead of a few days,&rdquo; according to one user, the CEO of a stealth startup.
The update, which also helps users manage governance and board management activities,&nbsp;was accompanied by the launch of a fixed-fee subscription model.
The new pricing model reflects &ldquo;our mission to deliver the best and most responsive legal services at predictable prices,&rdquo; Raj Judge, a corporate partner at Wilson Sonsini, said in a statement.
Neuron was initially launched in June 2021, designed to streamline, automate and digitize the legal process for startups, from formation to exit. It offers&nbsp;incorporation tools as well as real-time capitalization table data through its partnership with Morgan Stanley&rsquo;s Shareworks.
Wilson Sonsini ultimately aims to &ldquo;achieve differentiation at the firm level,&rdquo; Wang said, by offering tech products that drive efficiencies for clients and allow its attorneys to focus their time on the most complex and novel legal matters at hand.
&ldquo;These innovations are extremely helpful to early-stage startups and also helps ensure they&rsquo;re able to most benefit from Wilson Sonsini&rsquo;s top legal services, as so many of our portfolio companies have over the years,&rdquo; Tim Porter, managing partner at Madrona Venture Group, said in a statement.
Click <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.law.com/therecorder/2022/10/13/wilson-sonsini-aiming-for-differentiation-in-the-marketplace-reveals-corporate-governance-aid/?slreturn=20230110170022" target="_blank">HERE</a> to read the article on Law.com&nbsp;
</div>

Law.com: Wilson Sonsini, Aiming for Differentiation in the Marketplace, Reveals Corporate Governance Aid

<figure class="entry-thumbnail"><img src="https://www.artificiallawyer.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Screenshot-2021-06-29-at-12.54.55-678x381.png" alt="" title="Screenshot 2021-06-29 at 12.54.55" class="lazyloaded" data-ll-status="loaded"></figure>
Leading tech-focused law firm,&nbsp;Wilson Sonsini&nbsp;Goodrich &amp; Rosati, has launched a new service called&nbsp;<a href="https://ecp.wsgr.com/neuron">Neuron</a>&nbsp;aimed at helping startup companies. The digital platform allows startups to create key documents and collaborate easily with the firm’s lawyers.
The suite of capabilities, which are part of the West Coast-based firm’s Emerging Companies Practice (ECP), is designed to help startups with ‘streamlining, automating, and digitising’ the core legal steps around company formation, ownership issues, and even company exit.
For example, there are dedicated modules for incorporation, capitalisation management, corporate maintenance, and financing.&nbsp;Startup clients who join the platform will also get ‘a single-view digital home‘ to access and manage their legal information and documentation at any time.&nbsp;Startups can also collaborate directly with their ECP legal team on one integrated platform, said the firm.
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img width="600" height="417" src="https://www.artificiallawyer.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Screenshot-2021-06-29-at-12.35.31.png" alt="" class="wp-image-25268 lazyloaded" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" srcset="https://www.artificiallawyer.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Screenshot-2021-06-29-at-12.35.31.png 600w, https://www.artificiallawyer.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Screenshot-2021-06-29-at-12.35.31-300x209.png 300w" data-ll-status="loaded">
 <figcaption>A screenshot of the new platform, showing company formation.</figcaption>
</figure>
No doubt this move will help the law firm, which is based in California, to onboard young companies, of which some will go on to become the Ubers and eBays of tomorrow. I.e. it builds a pipeline of potentially much larger clients who will in the future need help with funding rounds, M&amp;A, and even IPOs.
And, one could add that if you want to be a law firm that appeals to the young founders of pioneering new companies, then offering a suite of tools that can get your core legal needs quickly sorted out, all in a digital-first way, makes a lot of sense. I.e. talk the innovation talk, and then walk the innovation walk, and also win over this segment of the market.
The move is a bit similar to what Clifford Chance has done recently in Singapore, where it has created a suite of automated documents to help local startups through its&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2021/05/25/clifford-chance-launches-startup-doc-automation-suite/">VIMA solutions project</a>.
Raj Judge, Senior Partner at Wilson Sonsini and ECP Co-Chair, said in a statement: ‘Neuron is our next paradigm leap in transforming the legal industry.&nbsp;Having advised hundreds of thousands of start-ups, our ECP attorneys know what entrepreneurs need to succeed.&nbsp;We have combined Wilson Sonsini’s world-class legal expertise with automation to deliver high quality, responsive and efficient technology-enabled legal services to our clients.’
Artificial Lawyer interviewed&nbsp;David Wang, Wilson Sonsini Chief Innovation Officer, in detail about the launch. Please see below:
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" src="https://www.artificiallawyer.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Screenshot-2021-06-30-at-15.07.41.png" alt="" class="wp-image-25298 lazyloaded" width="351" height="335" sizes="(max-width: 351px) 100vw, 351px" srcset="https://www.artificiallawyer.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Screenshot-2021-06-30-at-15.07.41.png 400w, https://www.artificiallawyer.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Screenshot-2021-06-30-at-15.07.41-300x287.png 300w" data-ll-status="loaded"></figure>
–&nbsp;Will this be primarily using templates and doc automation (e.g. to help with corporate docs for startups?)
The concept of Neuron is to be a ‘neuron’, if you will, that acts as a smart connector between the different elements of the client’s digital legal experience, as well as between the client and attorney. While Neuron will include document automation, this is a relatively small part of the platform.
Each module in the Neuron platform will co-exist with a legal service we perform for a client on a startup’s journey, from incorporation to exit, and be a digital legal home for the client. We will be introducing additional ‘Neurons’ at a regular tempo from this point forward, and these Neurons will speak to each other and work together, just like neurons do in the body.
Just providing automated templates is a more commoditised volume business, which works well for certain scenarios, but digitally transforming one of our core, premium services is far more complex and challenging.
This transformation involves tying together the entire process of data collection, client interactions, document preparation, process management, signatures, record creation, etc. in a digital experience, while having a Wilson Sonsini lawyer integrated with the process for legal advice and customisation the whole way. Providing this unified service experience where the new value is created, and what we call ‘technology-enabled service’. Neuron is the tool that enables this digital service delivery, not a ‘document automation tool’.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
– Why do this? (Is the hope that these companies will become major clients of WSGR at a later date?)
Wilson Sonsini’s&nbsp;Emerging Companies Practice is one of the core practices for the firm and what we are most known for. We essentially invented this practice of representing startups on their whole journey at the dawn of Silicon Valley as a concept. These clients then grow to become the household names in tech we all know, Google, Tesla, Twitter, Doordash, etc. We are reinventing this practice yet again using the power of digital technology, because the world, and what is possible in client service delivery, has been completely changed by the new techniques available, and we see the same disruptive potential in the ECP.
The leadership of our Emerging Companies Practice is committed to pioneering this new form of technology enabled service, which will fully utilise the efficiency, accuracy, and speed of digital automation to handle routine elements of the representation in minutes, not hours, while retaining the premium service aspect, so that when the curve ball comes (and they always do), we seamlessly transition to customisation and personalisation. We believe this is the best way to meet the challenge of how to provide the maximum value for our clients while meeting their expectations for how the leading technology law firm in the world behaves, both technologically and from a service perspective.
– Why now? What has inspired this move?
We have been studying this problem for years now and preparing, through a series of initiatives, for this digital transformation. The scale of the challenge required us to develop capabilities and know-how that law firms do not have,&nbsp;investments and relationships in the digital legal ecosystem in strategic verticals that we will need to leverage, and maturity in our strategy and thinking, which has been reinforced by the success of our legal innovation/technology portfolio, which you are familiar with.
Our firm’s leadership team is strongly committed to taking on the challenges we face as an industry as we try to build the most innovative law firm in the world, and we recognise this is going to take both a long term strategic effort and a wide-range of capabilities. So this is less of a ‘why now’ question but more of a ‘why now, why before, and why again and again in the future’ thing.&nbsp;&nbsp;
– Would you also welcome legal tech companies? (And is this only for US companies at the moment?)
We welcome all appropriate companies to the platform that are our clients. It is only US companies for now, because the legal automation is keyed to the laws of US jurisdictions, but our practice is to always follow our clients so I wouldn’t rule out other jurisdictions.
Thanks, David&nbsp;and good luck with the platform.
<a href="https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2021/06/30/wsgr-launches-neuron-for-startups-in-depth-interview/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here</a> to read the article on Artificial Lawyer

Artificial Lawyer: WSGR Launches Neuron For Startups + In-Depth Interview

(<a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/wilson-sonsini-revamps-startup-practice-with-tech-powered-platform-2021-06-30/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reuters</a>) - Wilson Sonsini Goodrich &amp; Rosati is shaking up the way the firm serves its startup clients with a new software platform that streamlines and automates legal needs across a company's lifecycle.
The Palo Alto-based firm touted the new offering - dubbed Neuron - on Wednesday as a "new breed of technology-enabled legal services." Through Wilson Sonsini's emerging companies practice, clients will be able to use Neuron to manage information and documentation more quickly and get advice for everything from incorporation to financings to capitalization management.
Raj Judge, co-chair of the firm's emerging companies practice, said the platform combines automation with legal expertise.
<div class="article-prompt__container__3uXJV article-body__element__2p5pI">
 <div class="article-prompt__image-content__3MJtB">
 <div data-testid="Image" class="article-prompt__image__3RpAa"></div>
 </div>
</div>
Judge said the shift will "change the way we deliver legal services in a paradigm way."
He described the platform as the "nerve center that helps everyone communicate with one another and organizes all the information in a single source of truth, so everybody has the same information readily available at all times, 24/7, with absolutely no disconnect in what's happening on one end versus the other."
Judge said the Silicon Valley firm, known for representing startup and technology clients, has been working on the project internally for several years. Its emerging companies practice, which is a core business for the firm with over 400 attorneys globally, has advised companies including Google, Lyft Inc, Netflix Inc, DoorDash Inc and Tesla Inc, the firm said.
The platform was developed in-house and is separate from the firm's technology subsidiary, SixFifty. David Wang, Wilson Sonsini's chief innovation officer, highlighted the distinction, saying that SixFifty automates and "productizes" legal expertise, while Neuron allows the firm's services to be digitally delivered.
Wang said that he hasn't seen a platform like Neuron from any other Big Law firm. Automated aspects of the platform include data entry and document filing and storage, while attorneys can still deliver personalized advice to clients, he said.
Law firms have been aiming to provide clients with tech-enabled solutions through partnerships with technology companies, new in-house products or through subsidiaries. Firms also have placed a focus on internal innovation.
Wilson Sonsini in February&nbsp;<a data-testid="Link" href="https://www.reuters.com/article/wilsonsonsini-morganstanley-partnership/wilson-sonsini-inks-deal-with-morgan-stanley-to-offer-startup-stock-plan-software-idUSL1N2KT3A4" target="_blank" class="text__text__1FZLe text__dark-grey__3Ml43 text__medium__1kbOh text__large__nEccO link__underline_default__2prE_" rel="noopener">inked a deal</a>&nbsp;with Morgan Stanley to allow the law firm's capitalization management software to move onto one of the bank's platforms.
Judge noted that prior to Neuron, a process like incorporating a company could involve back and forth emails and phone conversations about every detail. With the new platform, a client will go into a password-protected system, answer questions and respond to automated requests for more information. Once the platform takes in the information, it will turn out documents for comment and review, after which the documents will get sent back for signature, he said.
The system has gone through an alpha test, as well as a beta period with the firm's client base, Judge said.

Reuters: Wilson Sonsini revamps startup practice with tech-powered platform

Wilson Sonsini, which has rolled out multiple legal tech and innovation projects in recent years, has become the first ever law firm to make Fast Company&rsquo;s &lsquo;The World&rsquo;s Most Innovative Companies&rsquo; list, in what is an indicative moment for the profession.
Fast Company is a technology news site that started back in 1995, just as the internet boom was starting to take shape. They&rsquo;ve become well-respected analysts of the broader tech landscape, and so, understandably, Wilson Sonsini is rather proud of its inclusion in the list.
But, perhaps of more importance than this win for the firm,&nbsp;is the fact that law firms are actually seen as businesses that&nbsp;should&nbsp;be included in such a grouping.
It&rsquo;s fair to say that until quite recently the editors of Fast Company would likely have been a bit sceptical about putting lawyers into such a ranking.
Fast Company said that Wilson Sonsini was included &lsquo;for rendering legal services into 1s and 0s&rsquo; and that: &lsquo;[the firm] has been actively embracing the digital transformation espoused by the 3,000 clients currently in its Emerging Companies Practice.
&lsquo;Last June, Wilson Sonsini launched Neuron, a software platform that aggregates all of a startup&rsquo;s legal needs, from incorporation to IPO, into one place, automating routine practices while still giving clients access to legal advice.&rsquo;
David Wang, Wilson Sonsini&rsquo;s chief innovation officer, commented: &lsquo;By developing real and practical technology solutions, we&rsquo;re reinventing how we serve start-ups &ndash; most of whom are driven by pure innovation and leverage technology to enable their growth and success &ndash; by delivering accessibility to legal expertise like never before.&rsquo;
Raj Judge, corporate partner and co-chair of Wilson Sonsini&rsquo;s emerging companies practice, concluded: &lsquo;Having advised hundreds of thousands of start-ups over the past six decades, our emerging companies practice team knows what entrepreneurs need to succeed.
&lsquo;Instead of getting bogged down in paperwork, start-ups and founders can focus on activities that help their businesses grow, while Neuron takes care of labour-intensive legal processes.&rsquo;
Congrats to them, and as mentioned, although this is great for Wilson Sonsini, the larger story here is that a generalist tech site has looked to the legal world and has seen that there is plenty happening that their wider audience may want to know about. It&rsquo;s another sign of how things are changing with legal innovation.
<a rel="noopener" href="https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2022/03/11/wilson-sonsini-1st-ever-law-firm-in-fast-companys-most-innovative-list/" target="_blank">Click here</a> to read the full article.&nbsp;

Artificial Lawyer: Wilson Sonsini – 1st Ever Law Firm in Fast Company’s ‘Most Innovative’ List

<div class="byline">By&nbsp;<a id="reporter-popover" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: transparent; color: #07162e; text-decoration: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 18px; vertical-align: baseline; outline: none;" title="" href="https://www.law360.com/pulse/articles/1539614#" data-content="
 &lt;p&gt;
 &lt;span&gt;
 &lt;i class='fa fa-archive fa-1x' aria-hidden='true'&gt;&lt;/i&gt;
 &lt;a class='popover-text' class='' href='/pulse/search?q=reporter:&quot;Sarah+Martinson&quot;' target='_blank' &gt; Archive &lt;/a&gt;
 &lt;/span&gt;
 &lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;
 &lt;span&gt;
 &lt;i class='fa fa-envelope fa-1x' aria-hidden='true'&gt;&lt;/i&gt;
 &lt;a class='popover-text' href='mailto:sarah.martinson@law360.com' target='_blank'&gt; Email Sarah Martinson &lt;/a&gt;
 &lt;/span&gt;
 &lt;/p&gt;
 " data-original-title="">Sarah Martinson</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;2022-10-14 13:31:10 -0400&nbsp;&middot;&nbsp;<a id="listen-link" title="Listen to article" href="https://www.law360.com/pulse/articles/1539614#">&nbsp;Listen to article</a></div>
<div id="article-body">Startups can now pay a fixed subscription fee to employ&nbsp;<a href="https://www.law360.com/firms/wilson-sonsini">Wilson Sonsini Goodrich &amp; Rosati PC's Neuron</a>&nbsp;software platform that digitizes legal processes&nbsp;like incorporation and financing in an early-stage company's journey. The firm said Thursday that it launched the subscription model so that startups can access "world-class legal services" for a consistent price. Wilson Sonsini also announced that it added a corporate governance module to Neuron that covers employment and consulting agreements and offer letters. The platform already has modules for capitalization management and corporate maintenance. "We are excited to continue Neuron's expansion into all facets of a startup's legal needs as we continue our mission to deliver the best and most responsive legal services at predictable prices," Raj Judge,&nbsp;Wilson Sonsini's senior partner, said in a statement Thursday. According to the CEO of a stealth startup, the company was able to create an employee offer using Neuron in five minutes and had the documents signed a few hours later rather than a few days. Tim Porter,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.law360.com/companies/madrona-venture-group">Madrona Venture Group</a>'s managing partner, said in a statement Thursday that Neuron's incorporation and corporate governance modules help startup founders "stay efficient and organized." "These innovations are extremely helpful to early-stage startups and also helps ensure they [are] able to most benefit from Wilson Sonsini's top legal services, as so many of our portfolio companies have over the years," Porter said. Launched in 2021, Neuron is just one of Wilson Sonsini's&nbsp;<a href="https://www.law360.com/pulse/articles/1474262">legal tech offerings</a>. The firm also has a tech subsidiary called SixFifty that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.law360.com/pulse/articles/1359376/wilson-sonsini-trains-app-to-update-employment-policies">automates legal writing</a>&nbsp;of employment and privacy policies. To read the article on Law360, click <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.law360.com/pulse/articles/1539614" target="_blank">HERE</a></div>

Law360: Wilson Sonsini Launches Subscription For Neuron Platform

<div class="QvNnGjy8J7gi">
 <div>
 Jim Chinh Nguyen’s young company providing on-demand English tutors for Vietnamese students was coming out of stealth mode, had recently attracted investors, and needed to get serious about its legal structure.
 So, a few months ago the Schoolbird founder reached out to Wilson Sonsini Goodrich &amp; Rosati, the law firm he’d used to incorporate a startup in 2008. Back then, he sat down with partners and paralegals, trying to answer questions he wasn’t quite sure were relevant. This time, the firm emailed him a link which led to a questionnaire that would form the basis of his legal documents.
 “Everything is done on the cloud now, so the idea I could upload all my relevant information without talking to anyone to get legal work done was a huge time-saver for me,” Nguyen said in an interview.
 Wilson Sonsini is launching a digital transformation strategy for its startup practice with an ambitious goal: Every piece of work that should be automated will be automated. The strategy will largely be accomplished through the digital services platform dubbed Neuron that Nguyen interacted with and the firm unveiled this week.
 Wilson Sonsini has one of the oldest and most active legal practices representing startup companies in Silicon Valley, having helped the likes of Apple Inc., Google, and Lyft Inc., go public. The firm brought in more than $1.1 billion in revenue in 2020 and its average partner earned more than $3 million in profits, according to AmLaw data.
 Wilson Sonsini said Neuron took more than two years to develop and automates many of startups’ legal needs including incorporations, capitalization management, corporate maintenance, and financings. Those will get done in a “fraction” of the time the traditional method required, the firm said.
 The tool will also be where clients interact with Wilson Sonsini lawyers, allowing them to digitally request and receive more in-depth advice on top of its automation capabilities. Nguyen, for instance, jotted down questions for the firm’s lawyers in the questionnaire he filled out. The answers were sent back within a day or two, he said.
 Wilson Sonsini also provides tech-focused client services through its&nbsp;<a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/covid-pivot-leads-to-growth-spurt-at-wilson-sonsinis-sixfifty">SixFifty subsidiary</a>, which the firm’s leaders view as selling automated legal products that aren’t likely to require additional lawyer advice. So far, SixFifty has sold automated products around data privacy laws and employment law policies. The firm also has invested millions in a contract management platform, Lexion.
 “With our portfolio of projects we are accumulating experience, relationships, and know-how so we can tackle this problem of changing our core business,” David Wang, the firm’s chief innovation officer, said in an interview. “And it will work together so we can deliver something which is like the promise of Neuron: that the automation delivers everything that should be automated and nothing that shouldn’t be automated.”
 Automated questionnaires have long been a staple of tech-focused legal providers like LegalZoom, which says it processed 378,000 business formations in 2020. Most of the company’s work is automated, though it sells some subscriptions for follow-on legal services.
 It’s unlikely Wilson Sonsini’s clientele—typically startups that have or will receive venture investments—would find LegalZoom a suitable option, Wang said.
 “We are not trying to incorporate bowling alleys,” he said, noting that most of the firm’s clients require personalized advice from its lawyers. “Our clients require and expect that level of service, but they should also get the benefit of digital automation at the same time.”
 Wilson Sonsini’s Raj Judge, co-chair of its emerging companies practice, said Neuron is far from a tool to fill out questionnaires. It’s a new way for lawyers in the firm’s emerging companies practice, or ECP, to interact with clients. The firm will also track digital data from Neuron to learn more about its own services and improve them over time.
 Judge said the firm plans to announce more capabilities for Neuron this year.
 “This is really a part of a larger strategy of the firm and the ECP in particular to truly disrupt the startup legal industry,” Judge said.
 As for Nguyen, he said he could already envision more ways that he could work with Wilson Sonsini through the Neuron portal. It could help him understand the company’s equity structure under hypothetical future investments, for instance. But perhaps more to the point, he said it was a much more comfortable and efficient way to interact with lawyers than what he’s been used to.
 “It’s kind of built into my idea when you think of working with lawyers: ‘Oh my god, it’s like $900 an hour— we don’t want to go there,’ Nguyen said. “But I was pleasantly surprised.”
 </div>
</div>
<div class="TheArticleBodyStandalone_contact_3vcIA"><a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/wilson-sonsinis-next-automation-project-is-its-startup-practice" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> </a>
 <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/wilson-sonsinis-next-automation-project-is-its-startup-practice" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here</a> to see the full article on Bloomberg
</div>

Bloomberg: Wilson Sonsini’s Next Automation Project Is Its Startup Practice

neuron news detail

all news

about neuron

ECP Attorneys:

insight detail

all insights

we want to share with you

Through our market-leading Entrepreneurs Report, Wilson Sonsini champions analyzing and aggregating data to benefit the start-up ecosystem. Our teams apply knowledge and data going back to the start of modern Silicon Valley for advising our clients today.

DATA-DRIVEN REPORTING

Introducing Neuron, a new platform that streamlines, automates and digitizes the typical legal processes along a startup's journey - from incorporation to exit

1623954505-redcirclebackground

1624300468-neuronvideostillframegray

Introducing Neuron, a new platform that streamlines, automates, and digitizes the typical legal processes along a startup's journey - from incorporation to exit. Our firm has been synonymous with innovation since the founding of Silicon Valley. Once again, we are disrupting the industry by combining our expertise with digital automation to bring you a new breed of technology-enabled legal services.