I am a corporate lawyer, and I represent companies in all stages of their life cycle, from inception through angel and venture financings and ultimate exit.
I also represent investors in businesses, including angel and institutional investors, and buyers of businesses.
I also represent individual founders and executives, with respect to their contractual and compensatory arrangements.
I am the Founder and Editor of StartupLawBlog.com. I also blog at www.joewallin.com.
I have been published in the Wall St. Journal, PandoDaily, GeekWire, and quoted in various other media outlets such as Reuters, Inc.com, and CFO.com. I have also appeared on HuffPost TV.
I was the “ideator” for Washington State’s equity crowdfunding law, one of the first of its kind in the nation. In July of 2012, I proposed the idea of a Washington State equity crowdfunding law on my blog. In that blog post, I proposed the first draft of the bill. In the 2013 legislative session, I was fortunate to be invited to testify before a legislative committee on how to make Washington State a better business climate. I proposed my crowdfunding law and several legislators, including Cyrus Habib, sponsored the bill. The bill came too late in the 2013 session, but was renewed in the 2014 session. I testified twice during that session in favor of the bill, both the House and the Senate approved it, and the Governor signed the bill into law on March 27, 2014. The law allows companies to raise up to $1 million per year from both accredited and non-accredited investors. I have written about crowdfunding for Xconomy, and have appeared on NPR and on HuffPost TV to talk about crowdfunding.
You can learn more about me at http://www.startuplawblog.com/joewallin