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Fenwick & West history
Fenwick & West company history timeline
In 1976, when his law firm employed about 15 lawyers, Fenwick was approached by two young men, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, seeking advice on incorporating to sell a computer kit called Apple I. Jobs and Wozniak knew a sister of one of Fenwick's partners.
Pioneered the first shrink-wrap license agreement in 1976
The decade began with Apple Computers in 1980 choosing Wilson Sonsini Goodrich, another Palo Alto law firm, for its IPO, a decision that was very disappointing for William Fenwick.
One year after ECAD, later renamed Cadence Design Systems Inc., was formed in 1983, it hired Fenwick & West as outside counsel.
In 1991 the firm's IP practice brought in $3.6 million, 13 percent of firm revenues.
For example, in the summer of 1996 the law firm assisted Apple as it tried to reverse its poor financial record by closing a plant in Elk Grove near Sacramento and challenging the Internal Revenue Service's tax assessments.
In 1996 the firm represented ReSource/Phoenix, Inc. when it was sued by Gemisys Corporation.
Redwood City-based Excite Inc. chose Fenwick & West as its outside counsel when it was incorporated in 1994. It retained the law firm as it grew and needed help with employee issues, stock matters, acquisitions, and then being acquired in May 1999 by @Home for $7.2 billion.
Thus when Fenwick & West helped its client MarketWatch.com go public in 1999, the SEC required that its IPO statements had to be revised twice to comply with the plain English rules.
1999: Fortune includes Fenwick & West as one of its '100 Best Companies to Work For.'
By 2000 it had expanded to over 250 lawyers, partly because of a booming economy, and was one of the fastest growing law firms in California, not to mention the nation.
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Fenwick & West competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Morrison & Foerster | 1883 | $945.0M | 2,787 | - |
| Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale | 1918 | $1.2B | - | - |
| K&L Gates | 1946 | $990.0M | 3,000 | - |
| Kirkland & Ellis | 1909 | $4.8B | 5,721 | 111 |
| King & Spalding | 1885 | $1.3B | 1,927 | 29 |
| Gibson Dunn | 1890 | $2.0B | 1,900 | - |
| Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner | 1873 | $900.0M | 1,207 | - |
| Cooley | 1920 | $1.6B | 1,400 | 176 |
| Compass Lexecon | 1977 | $10.3M | 500 | - |
| Quinn Emanuel | 1986 | $1.3B | 500 | - |
Fenwick & West history FAQs
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Fenwick & West may also be known as or be related to Fenwick & West and Fenwick & West LLP.