StartupHoodlum

Over the past year and a half that I have been involved in running startups, I have already had a half a dozen experiences with lawyers of all shapes and sizes (immigration lawyers, incorporation lawyers, trademark lawyers, financial regulation lawyers.. you name it).  Generally speaking, the experiences have been abysmal.

With one of the top firms in the Valley, I convinced the senior partner into helping out my last startup on some legally intensive matters and it was a huge mistake. Not only were his costs exorbitant, but he was utterly useless as he was inaccessible without an appointment setup a week ahead of time and most of the time I would be sent to some recent law school grad who had very little information and would spend hours (aka my $$$) trying to learn as much as I already knew about the space.  Further, throughout this entire process, apparently I was accruing fees which were non-transparent to me until 6 months later when I received a bill that was about 3 times what we had originally negotiated.  This wasn’t a one time occurrence, either.  I have had to use lawyers on numerous occasions and 1) have not been able to get them when I really needed them and 2) the fees for small things were so exorbitant that I would generally just skip them on issues that would have been great to get their feedback on.

I don’t have time to be going back and forth about fees or to try and figure out how I can schedule a 2 minute phone call to ask if I filled out the right employee stock option form.  Generally speaking, I do not like lawyers in the startup world and feel that they are immensely overused and overpaid by startups.

That being said, there are exceptions and our current lawyer is one.

Matt Bartus, of Cooley, is the best startup lawyer in Silicon Valley. Period.  Yes, over all the celebrity startup lawyers from top firms out there.

He gets it.  He understands startups.  He understands the valley.  He understands that sometimes an entrepreneur really needs a document or advice at 8pm. He uses twitter, quora, facebook and understands technology today.  (Even the most prominent startup lawyers are not users of many of the newer, mainstream consumer internet sites).

Since the day Matt and I were connected, I knew this guy was great.  A friend of mine and I were grabbing a drink in SF and I told him I had terrible legal experiences and he said “let me connect you to matt.. he is different.. and will probably respond within 20 minutes.”  He sent a quick intro and sure enough, five minutes later, Matt had responded.. around 10pm.. on a Friday.   Now I don’t expect him to do that all the time, but it showed me that he doesn’t mess around.  He gets things done.  He is fast.. and he won’t push me off to some paralegal to do something that I want done by him.

Matt runs his practice like a startup.  If there is something that needs to get done by a certain time, he will be in the office getting it done no matter how long it takes.  He also knows that sometimes an entrepreneur needs something and needs it now… and he is available and FAST.  I want every person that I work with to act like a startup does… urgency, availability, doing only what matters, figuring out solutions, caring about customers…  this guy does it and that is why he will soon be known as the top startup lawyer in the valley.  Every startup service provider (especially lawyers) should watch how he works with entrepreneurs and learn from it.