Christopher E. La Chance

Christopher La Chance is a Founding Partner of VLP and Chair of the Corporate, Emerging Growth Companies & Venture Capital, Mergers & Acquisitions and Securities & Capital Raising Practice Groups. He is also a former member of the Firm’s Executive Committee. Chris has an active and broad-ranging corporate and securities practice, with particular emphasis on the representation of emerging-growth companies at all stages of development, as well as the venture capital firms and other investors that finance them.

Chris regularly handles the negotiation and documentation of a wide variety of capital-raising and change-of-control transactions, including early-stage angel and seed financings, convertible debt and bridge loans, mid-stage venture capital rounds, mezzanine debt and equity investments, and later-stage mergers, acquisitions, asset sales and other strategic exits. Chris also routinely advises clients on all aspects of the day-to-day legal needs of their businesses, including matters related to commercial contracts, corporate governance, director and officer fiduciary duties, securities law compliance, equity compensation, employee and consultant engagements, intellectual property assignment and non-disclosure agreements, business structuring and growth strategies.

Prior to joining VLP at its founding in 2008, Chris spent many years practicing at some of the country’s premier law firms. He was a member of the corporate and securities practice group at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, P.C. in Palo Alto, where he counseled private and public technology companies and their boards of directors during every phase of the corporate growth cycle, including entity formation and business expansion, private equity and debt financings, joint ventures and strategic relationships, initial public offerings and M&A transactions. Chris also represented myriad institutional investors and venture capital funds in financing deals and strategic investments of every variety, as well as investment banks acting as underwriters in connection with primary and secondary public securities offerings. While at Wilson Sonsini, Chris developed expertise in the areas of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance and SEC reporting and disclosure requirements.

Chris previously served as Senior Attorney and Assistant General Counsel at Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP in San Francisco, where he counseled the firm and its partners on a broad array of legal compliance and sensitive risk management issues. Chris is also a former member of the Supreme Court & Appellate Practice Group at Mayer Brown LLP in Chicago, where he was involved in a number of high-profile appellate antitrust and other cases in the United States Supreme Court and federal appellate courts throughout the country.