Goodwin Procter said it has redesigned and enhanced its Founders Workbench site for entrepreneurs. The site includes free legal documents for company creation and other tasks, along with an online calculator for determining deal dilution. The site first launched in 2010. It also has a blog and information on best practices.

Goodwin Procter has appointed Lawrence M. Chu as a member of Goodwin’s technology companies, M&A/corporate governance and private equity practices at the firm’s business law department. He will be based in the Silicon Valley office. Chu joins from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in San Francisco where he was a partner. PRESS RELEASE Goodwin Procter, [...]

The measure, passed by Congress in March, is designed to grease the IPO onramp for small companies. Three months after it was signed into law, signs of its impact, both expected and unexpected, are visible.

Christopher J. Hagan has joined Brown Rudnick as a partner in the firm’s Washington DC office. Hagan, who has experience in PE law, M&A and growth equity financings, was previously a partner at Goodwin Procter.

Secondary markets, what’s not to love? Liquidity for private company founders, opportunities for venture investors to unload portfolios, LPs taking positions in hot private companies. With all the excitement, activity is on the rise. During the first half of the year, transaction volume at the SecondMarket exchange for private company shares rose 75% to $268 [...]

Most venture capital firms will not have to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission under rules the commissioners adopted on June 22. This appears to be the consensus of attorneys and other experts who have had time to comb through 208 pages of regulatory details that the SEC released late last week. But that [...]

Buyout firms chilled by the prospect of registering as investment advisers with the SEC got a bit of good news this month. A House subcommittee sent a bill that would repeal the Dodd-Frank requirement to the full House Financial Services Committee for further action. That follows indications by the SEC that it would extend the July 21 deadline for coming into compliance.

Still, the bill is a long way from becoming law. It would need to pass the House, the Senate, and secure a vote from a president unlikely to look kindly on reversing any portion of one of his signature legislative achievements. Here at peHUB, we’re guessing you may have questions about the SEC registration requirement, from the odds of the legislation getting repealed to which investors will be included under its umbrella (late-stage venture firms?) to what you can do in advance.

So, mark your calendars–next Wednesday, May 25, at 11AM, we will have two experts online–Barry P. Schwartz, partner at ACA Compliance Group (pictured) and Elizabeth Shea Fries, partner in Goodwin Procter’s Business Law Department and a member of its Financial Services Group–to answer your questions about SEC registration via a live blog. Just come to peHUB for the Q&A. Meantime, send your questions to [email protected].

It’s still a matter of fun conjecture as to when Facebook, Groupon, Twitter or Zynga will launch their IPOs. But for now, it doesn’t matter. This year is already turning out to be a good one for VC-backed IPOs. As Mark Boslet, senior editor of Venture Capital Journal, reported in the upcoming May issue: The [...]

Listen to Goodwin Procter Partner Jonathan Axelrad tell it and it is easy to draw the conclusion that venture capitalists will regain early stage ground from angel investors. Axelrad, a 20-year vet of working in the venture capital industry, says traditional VCs appear to be scrambling harder now for early and seed stage deals than [...]

Caine Moss has joined Goodwin Procter as a partner in the firm’s Silicon Valley office. He previously was with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.