Morrison & Foerster, a leading global law firm, is pleased to announce the additions of Michael Glaser and Mike LaPlante as partners in the firm’s Corporate Department and Emerging Companies + Venture Capital (ECVC) Group. Together, Mr. Glaser and Mr. LaPlante bring to the firm over three decades of experience and one of the largest emerging companies practices in Northern California. Mr. Glaser and Mr. LaPlante join Morrison & Foerster from Perkins Coie LLP, where Mr. Glaser recently served as co-chair of the ECVC practice. 

During his more than 20-year tenure at Perkins Coie, Mr. Glaser served in a number of leadership roles, including serving two terms on the firm’s executive committee, and as firmwide co€’chair of the firm’s corporate practice. Mr. LaPlante was also a San Francisco-based partner in the firm’s ECVC group. During his eight years at the firm, Mr. LaPlante developed one of the fastest growing startup practices in the Bay Area, and established a reputation as a practical and strategic advisor to hundreds of entrepreneurs and the startup companies they have built.

Mr. Glaser and Mr. LaPlante’s addition underscores the continued growth of Morrison & Foerster’s global ECVC capabilities. The firm has added 10 ECVC partners around the globe in recent years, who were either promoted to partner or joined as lateral partners, to meet the needs of its clients across the United States, Europe, Asia, and Latin America. This includes the high-profile arrivals of San Francisco-based ECVC partners Murray Indick, co-chair of the firm’s ECVC practice, and Brad Kondracki. Further, Messrs. Glaser and LaPlante’s arrivals come at a time of increasing demand from start-ups, emerging growth companies, and venture capital firms in a variety of cutting-edge sectors within the tech and life sciences industries, including consumer products, e‒commerce, fintech, interactive entertainment, digital media, cloud services, and AI, among others, in the Bay Area and across the firm’s global offices.

“We are thrilled to welcome Michael and Mike to the firm. In addition to being highly accomplished lawyers with outstanding track records in the Bay Area ECVC community, their practices offer great synergies with our core strengths and capabilities in a number of areas, including venture capital financings, M&A, technology transactions, privacy, strategic IP counseling, tax, compensation and benefits, and employment and labor, among others,” said Eric McCrath, co-chair of Morrison & Foerster’s Global Corporate Department. “Their presence further expands and augments our already exceptional capabilities in these areas, which continue to be highly sought after by our clients around the globe when VC dry powder is at an all-time high. Their addition also builds on the multiple additions we have made across our Global Corporate Department in the past two years, including the notable additions in New York of Mitchell Presser, Omar Pringle, Larry Medvinsky, and Aly El Hamamsy.”

Over the span of his 24-year career, Mr. Glaser has led clients in the consumer products, e-commerce, interactive entertainment, digital media, cloud services, and AI sectors through hundreds of venture capital transactions, with valuations ranging from millions to billions of dollars. He has been consistently recognized as a leading practitioner in the ECVC community and is considered a thought leader in the effort to streamline venture capital negotiations. Mr. Glaser has served as a member of the Model Document Working Group for the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), the Corporate Committee of the Business Law Section of the State Bar of California, and the ABA Working Group on Legal Opinions. Additionally, he has been recognized by Chambers USA as one of “America’s Leading Venture Capital Lawyers” for the last 10 years.

Mr. LaPlante has spent nearly a decade acting as a strategic partner to entrepreneurs, collaborating with innovative startup companies at all stages—from nascent pre-incorporation planning to advising late stage multibillion-dollar private companies—on a wide variety of strategic matters. He has helped to form and advise hundreds of startup companies in areas such as enterprise software, AI, consumer products, Web3, hardware, digital media, virtual healthcare, social media, space, and other technologies. Mr. LaPlante has led countless startup financings, from pre-seed to pre-IPO, with an aggregate deal value in the tens of billions of dollars, and has advised scores of clients through acquisitions.

“Morrison & Foerster is a global technology leader with tremendous ECVC, technology transactions, and corporate capabilities, which are highly complementary to my practice and clients’ focus. I am excited to join a firm with such a strong ECVC footprint in Silicon Valley and globally,” said Mr. Glaser. “Having worked across the table from a number of talented Morrison & Foerster lawyers over the course of my career, I can personally attest not only to their knowledge and professionalism, but to MoFo’s ethos, values, and culture; I am thrilled to join such a wonderful team.”

Mr. LaPlante added: “At the end of the day, this job is all about the clients and how I can best support them in their quest to build successful companies. MoFo has all of the resources that our innovative tech startups need to pursue perishable market opportunities in a complex and competitive business environment. I am excited to be able to offer the benefits of MoFo’s platform to my clients and to expand our world-class startup practice with Michael and my new colleagues in MoFo’s already strong ECVC Group.”

Mr. Glaser earned his B.S., magna cum laude, from the State University of New York at Albany and his J.D. from New York University School of Law. Mr. LaPlante earned his B.S. from the University of California, Los Angeles, and his J.D. from UCLA School of Law, where he also served as editor in chief of the UCLA Journal of Law and Technology. Messrs. Glaser and LaPlante are admitted to practice in California.