Jeffrey D. Saper

Even as fewer companies have entered the stock market in recent years, Wilson Sonsini vice chairman and longtime partner Saper has remained busy handling technology IPOs, just as he's been doing in Silicon Valley since 1979.

In July, Saper headed the Wilson Sonsini team that advised Palo Alto Networks Inc. on its $260 million initial public offering, one of the largest public offerings since the beleaguered Facebook Inc. IPO. The network security company, which is located in Santa Clara despite its name, began trading shares at $42, up from an earlier proposed share price range of $34 to $37.

While Facebook's struggles prompted tentativeness in the market, Saper was more optimistic about Palo Alto Networks' prospects because of its emphasis on hardware and network technology.

"There's been some debate to the receptivity of capital markets to social media companies," Saper said. "You've got to look at the vertical space that you're working in."

Saper also advised San Francisco software maker Splunk Inc. on its highly successful IPO in April, valued at $229 million with shares priced at $17. Splunk's stock price has since doubled. And just before the December holidays, Saper helped Palo Alto-based Jive Software Inc. raise $160 million after the company began publicly trading earlier that month. Jive began trading at $12, up from a planned range of $8 to $10.

"Overall, the global market still remains choppy, and there's an ambiguity [in] what direction the market is going to go," Saper said. "But we were pleased at the quantity and quality of deals that we got done."

Saper said he has advised on more than 250 public offerings over the course of his career. Famously, one of the earliest IPOs he worked on after joining Wilson Sonsini was that of Apple Inc. in 1980. He remembers it as the first time in history that the New York Times featured a deal on its front page.

Hired away from the Securities and Exchange Commission, Saper was the firm's first securities expert. He worked almost exclusively alongside name partner Larry Sonsini during his first 10 years there as the firm established itself as the go-to law firm for the tech sector.

In addition to his recent slate of public offerings, Saper also advised LinkedIn Corp. on a secondary share offering valued at $622 million. Investors cashed out more than $533 million in shares of the professional networking site, while the company received about $88 million. In May 2011 Saper headed the Wilson Sonsini team that took Mountain View-based LinkedIn public, raising $352 million.

- KEVIN LEE