UCLA School of Law alum Michael Brown ’05 is a partner at Fenwick & West, where he guides technology companies through a wide range of corporate transactions.

What do you do each day?

There's no such thing as a typical day, which is part of what I love about this work. On any given day, I might need to negotiate term sheets for an early-stage private company financing, walk a founder through the implementation of dual-class common stock in connection with an initial public offering, advise on key terms to an acquisition, or attend a board of directors meeting, sometimes, one right after another. My job is to understand each client's business and goals deeply enough that I can move quickly and give them practical, real-time advice.

How did UCLA Law help you get to where you are now, as a leading business lawyer?

I co-founded Fenwick's Santa Monica office back in 2019, which was an opportunity that grew directly out of the relationships I built at UCLA Law. But it goes back much further than that. The Business Law and Policy Specialization was a major reason why I chose to attend UCLA Law. The curriculum leaned into transactional training, with practicing partners teaching venture capital and M&A seminars — including one titled "Life Cycle of a Business: From Start-up to Sale" — that showed how deals actually get done, rather than only teaching theory. The combination of fundamentals and hands-on seminars has been critical to me over the course of my career, where no two transactions look the same, and terms and structures are constantly evolving.

What’s your proudest career accomplishment, and how do you define career success?

Advising the Coinbase direct listing stands out. There’s no playbook for something like this, which was a first-of-its-kind transaction. And without a playbook, we had to build one. It resulted in my first Dealmaker of the Year recognition from The American Lawyer. More recently, representing Wiz, Inc in its historic sale to Google was a career highlight, both for the scale of the deal and for the years-long relationship with the team that led to the sale. Success, for me, now and in the future, means being the kind of trusted advisor that founders and management teams can call at every stage of their company’s lifecycle.

Beyond building relationships, what’s your advice for future transactional lawyers?

Be curious and learn about business as well as law, because you need fluency in both. If you don’t have a business background, be sure to take a course on understanding financial statements — you'll need it! Don't shy away from learning new things. Some of the most interesting work I've done has been in sectors I knew nothing about going in.