Larry W. Sonsini, 58

Corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions

Sonsini remains active both in representing companies in big-money deals and on the corporate governance front. He represented Genentech Inc. in its $48 billion sale to Roche Holding. He also represented Sun Microystems Inc. in its $7.4 billion sale this year to Oracle Corp. In addition to those big deals, Sonsini was busy this summer representing Wind River Systems Inc. in its $884 million acquisition by Intel Corp. He also represents Varian Inc. in its $1.5 billion acquisition by Agilent Technologies Inc., which is awaiting government approval. The firm’s longtime chairman, Sonsini recently was named chairman of a New York Stock Exchange independent advisory commission set up to examine corporate governance practices and the overall proxy process.