ec/vc law is brought to you by Lyman Thai, a startup and venture capital law partner at Foley & Lardner LLP, with contributions from Sumin Kim, former startup and venture capital lawyer-turned-entrepreneur.
Lyman and Sumin are good friends in the San Francisco Bay Area who started their careers together representing emerging growth companies and venture capital investment firms in early-stage business activities, including financing transactions and mergers and acquisitions. They met as summer associates at a leading Silicon Valley law firm, reconnected at an early-stage legal technology startup where they worked to build a more efficient and effective law practice for startups, and returned to the Silicon Valley law firm as senior attorneys. They started this site to share their learnings and experiences with the wider startup community.
Sumin left the full-time practice of law to co-found Center Stage, an essential app for trading card collectors, while Lyman continued his legal journey, becoming a partner in the startup and venture capital law practice. We believe that having well-informed participants in the startup ecosystem makes everyone’s lives easier and helps to elevate the game.
Lyman Thai is a partner at Foley & Lardner LLP, one of the 50 largest law firms in the United States, where he represents fast-growing companies in the technology sector, the entrepreneurs who build them, and the investors who back them. He is based in the firm's San Francisco and Silicon Valley (Palo Alto) offices. Lyman has worked on hundreds of venture deals totaling over $4 billion in invested capital. Lyman was previously the General Counsel of Atrium, a law firm and legal technology startup funded by Y Combinator, General Catalyst, and Andreessen Horowitz. At Atrium, he worked with the executive team on corporate and commercial deals of all sizes, supported the company’s growth from 25 to over 190 headcount and $18 million in annualized revenue, established policies and procedures, and managed business and legal risks across the organization. Lyman earned his A.B. from Harvard University and his J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School. Before becoming a lawyer, he worked as an analyst in the renewable energy industry.
Sumin Kim is a former startup and venture capital lawyer-turned-entrepreneur. Now an operator, he previously acted as outside general counsel to his clients and guided them through business and legal challenges, including corporate governance, fundraising, securities law, hiring and firing, and commercial contracts. Sumin led technology adoption and efficiency initiatives as a corporate attorney at Atrium, a law firm and Series B legal technology startup that had raised $75 million from over a hundred Silicon Valley investors, including Y Combinator, Andreessen Horowitz, and General Catalyst. He also spent a portion of his career as commercial counsel at Logitech, a company famous for its mice. Sumin earned his B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and his J.D. from Northwestern University. Sumin started out professionally as a semiconductor engineer in the Bay Area.
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