STEVEN E. BOCHNER
STEVEN E. BOCHNERPartner
Corporate Finance
Corporate Law & Governance
Entrepreneurial Services
Mergers & Acquisitions
Venture Capital
In his more than 30 years of experience practicing corporate and securities law, Steve Bochner has served as lead counsel for many of Silicon Valley's most prominent companies, assisting them in venture capital, public offering, and merger transactions valued in the billions of dollars. He also has represented numerous start-up companies, as well as leading venture capital and investment banking firms.
From 2009 to 2012, Steve served as the chief executive officer of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, and is currently a member of the firm's board of directors. During his tenure as CEO, the firm achieved record financial results and completed a number of significant strategic initiatives, including opening offices and expanding operations in China, Brussels, and Delaware. Prior to becoming CEO, Steve served in various other management positions at WSGR, including as a member of the firm's Policy Committee and as chair of its Compensation Committee.
Steve is a member of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco's board of directors; a member of the board of directors of Joint Venture Silicon Valley; the chairman of the Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy; and vice chair of the executive committee of the Northwestern Securities Regulation Institute in San Diego, where he is a frequent speaker. In addition, he regularly speaks on a variety of securities law topics for the Practising Law Institute (PLI) and was co-chair of PLI's Annual Institute on Securities Regulation in New York City from 2007 to 2011.
Steve recently served as one of two attorneys on the IPO Task Force, which presented a report to the U.S. Department of the Treasury on increasing job creation by improving access to the capital markets for emerging growth companies. He was extensively involved in designing the IPO-related provisions of the JOBS Act of 2012, which drew upon the IPO Task Force's recommendations and was adopted by Congress with broad bipartisan support.
From 1996 to 2011, Steve served on the Nasdaq Listing and Hearing Review Council, most recently as chair and co-chair. The council is responsible for making recommendations to the Nasdaq board on policy and rule changes related to issuer listing standards. In particular, Steve was extensively engaged in the development of Nasdaq's rules with respect to corporate governance reform and other listing standards.
In 2005, Steve was appointed as a member of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Advisory Committee on Smaller Public Companies. This select committee was charged with evaluating the current securities regulatory system relating to governance, disclosure, financial reporting, internal controls, and capital formation for smaller public companies, including the impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The SEC Advisory Committee's final report was delivered to the SEC on April 23, 2006. Steve served as chairman of the Governance and Disclosure Subcommittee of the SEC Advisory Committee. Many of the Advisory Committee's recommendations have since been adopted as proposed and final rule changes by the SEC.
From 2002 to 2009, Steve was a lecturer on corporate and securities law at the UC Berkeley School of Law, where he designed and taught the "Venture Capital and IPO Law" course. He also has been a lecturer at Stanford Law School, as well as a guest instructor on venture capital and business law issues at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business.
EDUCATION:
- J.D., UC Berkeley School of Law, 1981
Research Assistant to the late Professor Richard W. Jennings, a leading scholar in the field of securities regulation - B.S., Political Science, San Jose State University, 1977
- Member, Board of Directors, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
- Vice Chair, 40th Annual Securities Regulation Institute 2013 Executive Committee, Northwestern Law School
- Vice Chair, 39th Annual Securities Regulation Institute 2012 Executive Committee, Northwestern Law School
- Member, West Professional Development Corporate & Securities Law Advisory Board
- Chairman, Advisory Board, Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy, UC Berkeley School of Law
- Member, SEC Advisory Committee, 2005 and 2006
- Nasdaq Listing and Hearing Review Council, 1996-2011, most recently as chair and co-chair
- Director, Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network
Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network recently published a spotlight on Steve in its Valley Vision newsletter. Click here to read the article. - Member, Advisory Board, VentureOne
- Member, Advisory Board, wallstreetlawyer.com
- Named the 2013 San Francisco Securities/Capital Markets Law "Lawyer of the Year" by Best Lawyers
- Named the 2012 San Francisco Leveraged Buyouts and Private Equity Law "Lawyer of the Year" by Best Lawyers
- Named in the 2007 through 2013 editions of Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business, where he was praised by clients as "a lawyer to look to for high-level advice"
- Selected for inclusion in Northern California Super Lawyers from 2004 through 2012, and recognized among the Northern California Top 100 Lawyers in 2011
- Named to "Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America" list, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2011, and 2012
- Selected for inclusion in the 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 editions of The Legal 500 US
- Ranked among the nation's top initial public offering attorneys by the IPO Journal
- Selected for inclusion in the 2006 through 2013 editions of Best Lawyers in America
- AV Preeminent Peer Review Rating, Martindale-Hubbell
- Outstanding Alumnus of the Year Award, College of Social Sciences, San Jose State University, 2011
- Co-author with J. Huber, "Surviving a Restatement," Insights, April 2012
- "Rebuilding the IPO On-Ramp: Putting Emerging Companies and the Job Market Back on the Road to Growth," IPO Task Force report presented to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, October 2011
- "The Impact of Regulatory Initiatives on Liquidity for Venture-Backed Companies," Berkeley Business Law Journal, Dodd-Frank Symposium Edition, Vol. 8, No. 2, 2011
- IPO Guide, Merrill Corporation, Seventh Edition, 2010
- "Using Corporate Websites for Regulation FD-Compliant Disclosures: Recommended Best Practices," Wall Street Lawyer, Vol. 13, Issue 1, January 2009
- "When Is Managing to a Forecast Illegal 'Earnings Management'?" Insights, Vol. 22, No. 5, May 2008
- "Earnings Releases: Legal Requirements and Best Practices," Insights, Vol. 22, No. 3, March 2008
- Co-author with Professor J.A. Grundfest, "Fixing 404," Michigan Law Review, Vol. 105, No. 8, June 2007
- "Keys to Minimizing Director Liability," Corporate Board Member Magazine/Nasdaq Board Governance Series, Vol. X, 2007
- "The Recent Evolution of Underwriter Lock-Up Agreements," Insights, Vol. 18, No. 7, July 2004
- "The Duty to Update and Disclosure Reform: The Impact of Regulation FD and Current Disclosure Initiatives," Stanford Journal of Law, Business & Finance, Vol. 7, Number 2, Spring 2002
- Please see wsgr.com for a complete list of publications.
- Session Co-chair, "Preparing for the 2013 IPO – Impact of the JOBS Act," 40th Annual Securities Regulation Institute, Northwestern Law School, Coronado, California, January 23, 2013
- Moderator, "The New IPO Process – Preparation, Execution, Completion," 44th Annual Institute on Securities Regulation, Practising Law Institute, New York, New York, November 7, 2012
- "The New World of IPOs: Dissecting the JOBS Act," Executive Press/The Corporate Counsel Webcast, May 2, 2012
- Session Co-chair, "Planning for and Executing the IPO," 39th Annual Securities Regulation Institute, Northwestern Law School, Coronado, California, January 18, 2012
- "Regulatory Reform and Early Stage Company Growth," Financial Regulatory Reform: Dodd-Frank and Beyond, UC Berkeley School of Law symposium, Berkeley, California, March 11, 2011
- Session Chair, "Issues Impacting Pre-Public Companies," 38th Annual Securities Regulation Institute, Northwestern Law School, Coronado, California, January 19, 2011
- "Market Structure, Regulation, and the Future of Silicon Valley," David S. Saurman Provocative Lecture Series, San Jose State University, San Jose, California, November 16, 2010
- Session Chair, "Capital Transactions in 2010," 37th Annual Securities Regulation Institute, Northwestern Law School, Coronado, California, January 21, 2010
- "The Root Causes & Potential Solutions for the Exit Crisis," National Venture Capital Association Webcast, December 11, 2009
- "Global Capital Market Developments," 36th Annual Securities Regulation Institute, Northwestern Law School, Coronado, California, January 28-30, 2009
- "Current Issues in Securities Regulation for Smaller Companies," SEC Government-Business Forum on Small Business Capital Formation, Washington, D.C., November 20, 2008
- "Modernizing the Securities and Exchange Commission's Disclosure System" roundtable, 21st Century Disclosure Initiative, Securities and Exchange Commission, Washington, D.C., October 8, 2008
- "Disclosure, Materiality and Regulation FD," Compliance Week webcast, April 29, 2008
- "Materiality and Restatements" and " XBRL Implementation," Testimony before the SEC Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting, March 13-14, 2008
- "U.S. Capital Market Developments," 35th Annual Securities Regulation Institute, Northwestern Law School, Coronado, California, January 23-25, 2008
- Please see wsgr.com for a complete list of speaking engagements.
- State Bar of California
- U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California
