April 1, 2013

THE DAILY JOURNAL

By Kevin Lee

PALO ALTO – Perkins Coie LLP has nabbed one of the co-founders of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP’s emerging companies practice for its Palo Alto office.

In changing firms, partner Lowell D. Ness made the first lateral move in his legal career after joining Orrick as a Georgetown Law School graduate in 1994. His first day was Thursday.

Ness called the change “energizing.”

Ness said he would be bringing a group of about 25 clients with him, including Pave Inc., a New York-based peer-to-peer student lending site, and Swift Financial Corp., a Delaware-based small business lending site.

“For the first time in my career, I have a new perspective on how my practice comes together with a whole group of clients and all of their specialties they need,” Ness said. “You don’t really appreciate how that all comes together until you pick up and move.”

Ness said he would be bringing a group of about 25 clients with him, including Pave Inc., a New York-based peer-to-peer student lending site, and Swift Financial Corp., a Delaware-based small business lending site.

Ralph L. Arnheim, Perkins Coie’s firmwide chair of the emerging companies practice, said Ness brings a great deal of sway with both companies and investors.

“We’ve always enjoyed being across the table from him, which isn’t something you always say,” Arnheim said. “He has been an incredible contributor to the emerging company community.”

Arnheim said Perkins Coie will look to Ness to improve the firm’s so-called startupPerColator, an online resource which allows users to obtain documents to form a Delaware corporation and generate term sheets.

At Orrick, Ness helped set up similar term sheet generators and document automation for the firm’s current and prospective emerging company clients. He noted that rivals including Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC and Goodwin Procter LLP have made similar resources available to potential entrepreneurs and clients.

“People are putting these tools in place because in Silicon Valley, it’s about efficiency,” Ness said. “It’s about working with as many companies in the earliest stages as possible.”

The deal was brokered by legal recruiter Ken Schwartz of Watanabe Nason & Schwartz.