Louis Lehot is a partner and business lawyer with Foley & Lardner LLP, based in the firm’s Silicon Valley, San Francisco and Los Angeles offices, where he is a member of the M&A and Transactions Practices, Private Equity & Venture Capital, and the Technology, Health Care, and Energy Industry Teams.
Louis Lehot’s corporate, securities and M&A law practice focuses on advising public and emerging private companies and their venture capital and private equity investors from formation to liquidity. He regularly acts as company-side counsel in mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, spin-offs, strategic investments and joint ventures.
Public and private companies, financial sponsors, venture capitalists, investors and investment banks seek him out for smart counsel and skill in forming, financing, governing, buying and selling companies.
His domain experience in public offerings and private placements of equity, equity-linked and debt securities, mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, spinoffs, strategic investments and joint ventures, as well as corporate governance and securities law compliance matters, serves his clients well. He regularly represents US and non-US registrants before the SEC, FINRA, NYSE and NASDAQ.
Prior to joining Foley, Louis was the founder of L2 Counsel, a Silicon Valley boutique law firm.
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.
But the best aspect of Louis, I’d argue, is the amount of effort and care he puts into developing a real relationship with the people he works with. When you work with Louis, you become a part of his family. He will demand a lot from you, but he also truly cares for you and will take care of you. I’ve been very grateful to have him in my life, and he’s a great person and a great partner to work for.
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.
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.
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 two principal 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 short, I call Louis because he delivers. He doesn’t pretend that he’s always got the right answer.But, what he does do is harness the smartest resources at his firm to consider the problem and collectively come up with a smarter approach.More than anything else, I value Louis’ counsel because he invests that time to get the right answer – it shows me that getting the best answer matters to him as much as it does to me.
I started working with Louis in early 2013 and he has been a trusted colleague and mentor ever since. Over the years working with Louis, I have learned how to problem-solve, negotiate and listen to clients with empathy. Louis is extremely dedicated to his clients and has a passion for helping businesses, ranging from startups to global conglomerates, I have not seen in other partners. His 24/7 availability and natural ability to immediately drill down and execute on goals makes him the go-to advisor to many companies, investors, and colleagues.
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 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.
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.
Louis 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.