Louis Lehot is a trusted corporate lawyer in Silicon Valley specializing in mergers & acquisitions, venture capital, and legal strategy for startups and investors.
As a corporate lawyer in Silicon Valley, He provides strategic legal counsel to startups, investors, and global businesses.
On a very short list of leading corporate lawyers in California, He has handled some of the highest profile matters in recent years in the tech, health care, and clean energy spaces. A partner in the firm’s Private Equity & Venture Capital, M&A, and Transactions Practices, as well as the Technology, Health Care, Life Sciences, and Energy Industry Teams, he advises entrepreneurs and their management teams, investors, and financial advisors at all stages of growth.
From seed-stage startups to Fortune 500 companies, He provides expert legal advice counsel that balances legal requirements with business objectives. His experience includes venture financings, IPOs, de-SPAC transactions, M&A advisory, and corporate governance across diverse industries and international markets.
Corporate & securities law experience
Advised on financings across all stages
Trusted advisor to boards & executives worldwide
Comprehensive legal counsel across the corporate lifecycle, from formation to exit
Helping businesses and ventures with compelling technologies reach their growth objectives with sound legal strategies and solutions.
Louis counsels on public offerings and private placements of equity, equity-linked and debt securities.
Louis brings his unique experience to bear in advising the innovation, R&D, corporate development and corporate venturing functions of large corporations
Louis regularly guides cutting-edge funds in disruptive investments and buyouts and acts as company- and investor-side counsel in financings and M&A transactions.
Web3, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, NFTs and the Metaverse comprise a loosely defined and largely unregulated landscape. Louis navigates and advises on avoiding pitfalls.
Louis focuses his practice on advising entrepreneurs and their management teams, investors and financial advisors at all stages of growth.
What clients say about working with Louis.
Louis Lehot is focused on client service and obtaining the most efficient outcomes for his clients. He provides practical and thoughtful advice on complex corporate, securities law and M&A matters. I highly recommend his services.
“We have worked with Louis on a public offering of one of our clients. Louis provided us with great support throughout the process. He possesses broad and deep knowledge, is very detailed oriented and trustworthy and was instrumental throughout the deal execution. Additionally, Louis is a great guy to work with on both personal & professional levels.”
“I had the pleasure of working with Louis several times while he was at Simpson Thatcher. He has tremendous domain expertise in the equity and equity linked capital markets, paired with a sharp business mind. I found him very easy to work with, always proactive and, most of all, very personable. I would not hesitate to recommend Louis and Sheppard Mullin for counsel in equity capital markets transactions (including SPACs), particularly for technology companies. I look forward to working with him again.”
Louis is a trusted advisor who has an exceptional breadth of knowledge and focus on the details and who works tirelessly to deliver the results I need. I have trusted him to counsel me on various matters for several years and have never once doubted his abilities. Louis is an effective, concise communicator and is a pleasure to work with.
Louis is a fantastic outside counsel, especially for first-time start up founders like I was when we first met. He gives great advice on a wide variety of topics including corporate formation, fundraising, structuring deals, negotiating comp and much, much more. More than just a lawyer, he became a trusted counselor in the true sense of the word. And he’s always given it to me straight, even when it wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but been in my corner no matter what through all the highs and lows. I’d recommend him to any founder or early stage company.
Louis is my first call when I need any legal opinion in the Silicon Valley. I have worked with a number of law firms and attorneys in the Valley, no one come close to his knowledge and practice of a variety of corporate legal matters in VC-backed private companies. Not only he is knowledgeable, details oriented, spot on on his predictions of how each scenario will play out, he is also great with people, from founders to legal teams, and generous in offering his time and help. I am privileged to know and work with him.
Louis is a result-oriented attorney and an excellent communicator. He brings experience to the table as well as willingness to always jump in on transactions even on very short notice. I have been working with Louis for almost four years on several matters and I am very pleased to have had such opportunity
Louis was a great advocate and advisor for StackStorm as we started fielding acquisition offers and then entered into definitive negotiations. He quickly established a high trust connection with me and my co-founder Dmitri Zimine and was incisive during negotiations. He helped us to navigate to a great outcome and I'd like to work with him again in the future.
Louis Lehot is a very experienced lawyer in various areas of law including international law, M&A, corporate governance and corporate finance. I have found his work to be high quality and that he has strong business judgment that exhibits his years of experience across various types of transactions and industries. I have found him to be available 24/7 and extremely responsive. He diligently follows up on discussions and reaches out for necessary expertise when appropriate. He listens as well as he advises to make sure that he is serving the client’s needs.
I have known Louis personally and professionally for close to 30 years. He is highly-skilled, hard-working, business savvy and trustworthy. Louis and I worked together in Paris. He is bilingual, multi-cultural and passionate about his work. Louis leads with his heart and is a kind and generous person.
While working with Louis, I was always impressed by his client-first approach based on high quality work, responsiveness and passion. Clients appreciate his resourcefulness and practical approach. He never stopped investing his time in his network and utilized his reach to help his clients and colleagues alike.
Louis provides sound, seasoned and practical legal advice. He brings a great level of intensity to his work, but doesn’t lose sight of the practical business needs of the client, and is always responsive, and looks after the relationship with the goal of providing real value. In addition to his exceptional work and service, he is a true pleasure to work with.
I have worked with Louis over the years in my capacity of a CEO of a high growth venture backed technology company. Louis brings a lot to the table with a high level of expertise , very high quality of work, and is highly responsive . He always demonstrates great teamwork, and delivers high value both commercially and practically. As a globally dispersed company it has been reassuring to tap into Louis’ extensive knowledge and network. And I have found him to be a great advisor with a strong sense of humor and moral compass . Feel free to reach out to me via LinkedIn if you’d like further insight.
Excellent support on various securities law matters. Louis was primary support to Novartis on its initial NYSE listing documentation and annual reports for several years thereafter. First rate service, always on time, great focus on that which was truly important and kept the hours worked to only that which was required to do the job. I was especially impressed with his cultural awareness – he was instrumental in helping this very Swiss company understand the reasons why certain disclosures where necessary
Louis is an incredibly talented, detail-oriented and talented lawyer who will always go the extra mile to meet a client’s needs. Louis never loses perspective about what’s important and does not waste anyone’s time arguing about minutiae. He’s also a pleasure to work with and is a true professional in every sense of the word.
Louis is, by far, the best partner I’ve ever worked for in my paralegal career. He is detail-oriented, sharp, willing to teach, and shows respect to everyone he works with. I enjoyed working with him tremendously and learned an incredible amount while I was a part of his team. He also has a diverse group of clients, so I was able to partake in a wide range of work, including incorporating startups, assisting with equity financings and M&A transactions, preparing SEC filings for public companies, and so on.
Louis has been my first call since we first worked together in 2005. That was 4 companies ago for me, but no matter where I go, one of the first things I do is get Louis involved as counsel. I do this for three reasons 1) it makes me look good to the company I just joined, because invariably they’ve been impressed with Louis and 2) I trust him to give me a broader perspective on the challenges that come up.
In my capacity as a technology business leader and investor, I have known and worked with Louis Lehot for over ten years. Louis is a trusted business advisor and friend. I have trusted Louis to help me structure, invest, monitor, harvest and acquire technology businesses as outside legal counsel. Louis forms strong working relationships with my teams and works well with target businesses and their counsel. Louis inspires trust, and then he delivers. He gets the business imperative and then makes the legal process follow it. Over the past ten plus years working together, I have witnessed Louis’s strength in building great legal teams to drive results for technology businesses and their investors, and across multiple disciplines. Louis shines on projects that cross borders. Our relationship has withstood the test of time and changes of companies, and I attest to Louis’s ethical, high integrity and exacting standards both as a lawyer and as a friend. I look forward to working with Louis and his team on future transactions.
In my tenure as CFO and Corporate Officer at Dasan Zhone Solutions, a NASDAQ public company, we relied on Louis and his team for global legal support, including a complex acquisition in Europe from a private equity seller, our public reporting with the SEC, a change in auditors, a shelf registration statement and takedown shelf offering. Louis is one of the best corporate lawyer I ever worked with, bringing a combination of deep experience, sophisticated expertise and balanced demeanor to every challenge. I highly recommend Louis as both a relationship partner and as a zealously effective lead corporate counsel for global public companies, particularly in the TMT space.
“I have worked with many lawyers and I can confidently say that Louis is one of the best. He has a deep level of understanding in both legal and business matters, making it easy for his clients to achieve the desired outcome. He is always responsive to both email and phone call, quickly understands your needs, drives hard negotiations, and navigates with ease the nuances of business cultures of various geographical regions. I worked with Louis through three different law firms and he was always able to assemble a top- notch team who is extremely competent and delivers high quality work.”
“I had a chance to work with him on several occasions and it was the greatest experience I've ever had with a lawyer. Louis is very professional and organized at his work with deep knowledge yet he is very friendly and personal. He was upfront with all the terms and made things very easy for the clients where our team was speaking highly of his quality of work. Our team also appreciated his availability at all times where he was reachable via email, phone or in person. I don't think he ever passed 24 hours to respond to our queries or requests. He always had answers to our questions and his global experience definitely helped alot to consider from different aspects. Most of all, Louis is a great person. He cares for clients' business like his own and he could be very practical and caring. We were intrigued by his leadership and integrity not to mention his moral character. I have nothing but appreciation towards working with Louis and look forward to working with him and his team again.”
“I had the pleasure of working with Louis over 5 years at DLA Piper. I am not often impressed by people, however, Louis truly wowed me. He is a force of nature that will make you believe in yourself. Because of his confidence in you, mentorship, leadership and training you effortlessly and confidently proceed and succeed. This applies to clients, co- workers, partners, etc. I often wondered how he brings out the best in everyone he meets and it comes down to the following: he is positive, self-less, kind, has integrity, is ridiculously intelligent, confident and is a genuinely moral and caring man. Because Louis touches so many lives, his professional network is like no other. He has contacts world-wide and has a global impact. His business and cultural acumen means that clients receive quality work, value, practical advice and ultimately thrive because of Louis’s attention and expertise. Louis is there for his clients and co-workers and will have your back 24/7. In my eyes, Louis is a hero.”
“Over my career I’d say my experience with outside counsel has at best, been mixed. I was finally redeemed when Louis Lehot and team Foley & Lardner LLP arrived on scene. To say this venerable group broke the mold would be a gross understatement. No better team, no better firm to have in your trenches when building a company with ambitions as big as ours.”
The Matterport process and acquisition as you know had many aspects where your very direct and personal support (and that of your team) were critical including the iterations with the FTC. Louis’ calm and yet firm and factual demeanor was critical in working with all groups and with management and leadership in helping shepherd the company through the process. Without going deep on all comments I can say with confidence that Louis’ work ethic, professionalism, and leadership were all counted on and proven.
“While the words “attorney” and “advisor” are often used interchangeably, in my experience with Louis “strategic guide” is the best way to describe the legal wisdom and prescient planning that he brought to his clients. I had known of Louis by reputation for many years but got to see him up close in action as a board member of Matterport (NASDAQ: MTTR). As an emerging growth public company, in the midst of a $2.1 billion acquisition under second review by the Federal Trade Commission, all the while operating as a defendant in a $100M+ litigation in Delaware Chancery Court (among other stockholder lawsuits) -- the last 18 months of Matterport’s life as a public company were the legal equivalent of skiing a double black diamond run blindfolded on one ski. But all the while Louis brought calm analytical horsepower to advise the management team and board on its legal options, and used a mastery of game theory to counsel us on how best to proceed to victory. I shudder to think of what might have happened without Louis’s leadership and advice.
With a deep understanding of corporate law and strategic transactions, Louis Lehot is committed to delivering results-driven legal counsel that aligns with your business goals.
Practical and commercial strategies and solutions that make sense.
To be the trusted legal partner for innovators, entrepreneurs, and industry.
Providing exceptional legal counsel in corporate, securities, and M&A law to help clients achieve their business objectives
May 26, 2023
January 26, 2026
Connect with Louis on LinkedIn for regular updates on corporate law, market trends, and strategic business insights.
Louis Lehot regularly shares his insights at leading industry conferences and events, discussing trends in technology, M&A, and startup growth.
llehot@foley.com
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Attorney advertising – prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Opinions expressed here are my own and not my law firm.
