Belle of the Silicon Valley ball Twitter is beefing up its legal team.
TechCrunch (which, as we’ve mentioned before, is run by a BigLaw veteran) reports that an astute Twitter stalker noticed several additions to the “Twitter Team” list, and two of them are BigLaw veterans.
The “recruitment hints at Twitter preparing a proper content distribution play, which would clearly require some serious in-house legal talent.”
The lawyers and their backgrounds, after the jump.
The two lawyers are Bakari Brock and Anthony Wang.
The biggest fish Twitter caught is likely Bakari Brock, a former attorney at Kilpatrick Stockton who has served as Corporate Counsel for YouTube and Google since September 2007. Listed as specialties on the man’s LinkedIn profile: “negotiation and drafting of music, video and software licenses; and counseling on copyright, ecommerce, and general policy issues.”
That’s probably backwards, though (this piece was written by Robin Wauters, who doesn’t have the BigLaw credentials of his boss).
Not that Brock (Georgia BBA ‘02, Harvard JD ‘05) hasn’t had a nice career. Even before college he was wheeling and dealing as a self-employed artist manager, negotiating endorsement and recording contracts. He summered at Proskauer, but joined Kilpatrick Stockton after graduation. He spent two years there then went to YouTube. After two years and change at YouTube, he moved around within the Google family back to the mothership. Now, two years later (this guy is like clockwork with his moves!), he has joined Twitter as “Legal Counsel.”
Wang (Berkeley ‘94, Harvard JD ‘99) is the senior of the two by a fair bit. He’s also a lot less forthcoming with the details of his LinkedIn profile, but a little more vocal on his employer’s product (see pic). Out of Harvard he clerked for Herbert Choy on the Ninth Circuit, then joined Latham & Watkins, where he stayed for almost four years until he left for Google in May 2005. His last title at Google was “Managing Counsel,” to Brock’s “Corporate Counsel.”
This could be significantly better timing financially for Wang and Brock, though. They have both previously missed out on potentially huge windfalls. Wang joined Google a year after the IPO, Brock joined YouTube a year after the acquisition by Google.
They’re both working for another BigLaw veteran: Alexander MacGillivray, whom Twitter also hired away from Google, started out at WSGR.
That bolstered legal capacity could come in handy if they’re faced with more frivolous suits from other BigLaw vets.
(And, of course, follow @lawshucks!)
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