Gunderson Dettmer CB Format? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Can any TLS peeps speak to the format of a Gunderson Dettmer CB? I got the callback list a couple days ago and it seems like a lot of attorneys to meet with in an afternoon (around 9). Is each interview with two attorneys? Or are they just rapid fire? Thanks everyone!

[Anonymous User]

bump!

[Anonymous User]

It's the same as a regular CB but you just have more interviews that last shorter periods of time. Their philosophy is to get you in front of as many people as possible.

It goes without saying that GD is a unique firm in a lot of ways (tech orientation, start-up focus, corp/trans boutique), so you have a lot of ready-made questions to both probe positives and potential negatives. They have lots of cool people working for them & you should have a lot of fun conversations! Good luck!

[Anonymous User]

It's the same as a regular CB but you just have more interviews that last shorter periods of time. Their philosophy is to get you in front of as many people as possible.

It goes without saying that GD is a unique firm in a lot of ways (tech orientation, start-up focus, corp/trans boutique), so you have a lot of ready-made questions to both probe positives and potential negatives. They have lots of cool people working for them & you should have a lot of fun conversations! Good luck!

That's great, thank you. Do you have any idea on typical exit options for a former Gunderson attorney? My guess would be a lot of people leave to go do legal work for SV tech companies but also a fair amount end up doing hybrid business/legal work.

[jbriggs]

I think the Twitter GC came from Gunderson, so that is an example of one type of exit option. It's interesting though because Gunderson's work does not have a lot of parallels to what an in house attorney at a company typically does (as far as I understand it). Another in house exit option is going in house to a VC fund- Gunderson does fund formation work and so that skill set would carry over to going inhouse at VC.

Not sure if this is what you mean by exit option, but Gunderson attorneys probably have plenty of lateral options (think east coast firm trying to break into Silicon Valley, or Fenwick/Wilson/Cooley/Goodwin etc)

Good luck with the callback!

[Anonymous User]

It's interesting though because Gunderson's work does not have a lot of parallels to what an in house attorney at a company typically does (as far as I understand it).

While much of Gunderson's work is financing, they act as de facto GC for multiple companies at once. Each of those startups that are trying to raise rounds don't have any in-house counsel, and will call their Gunderson guys with every legal question that comes up, from hiring, to options, etc.