Fenwick’s Michael Esquivel Honored Among California’s Top 100 Lawyers for Fifth Consecutive Year
Fenwick corporate partner Michael Esquivel has been named among the top 100 lawyers in California by the Daily Journal for the fifth consecutive year.
The legal publication’s annual Top 100 list honors lawyers in the Golden State doing cutting-edge legal work.
Esquivel provides strategic counseling to both emerging and high-growth companies, handling all aspects of general corporate and corporate securities law. He also represents venture capitalists and investment banks that are fueling innovation in the healthtech, consumer and enterprise tech, social networking, software and cloud computing industries.
The publication highlighted Michael’s role in the “rapid acceleration of innovation in and adoption of digital in health in response to the pandemic” in 2020 and continuing into this year. It cited a Rock Health survey that reported $14.7 billion in digital health investments in the first half of 2021 alone.
“It’s been an incredibly exciting year in digital health in 2021. We’re starting to see all three channels of corporate activity revving at 10,000 RPMs – the venture channel, M&A channel and capital markets channels are all wide open,” Esquivel told the Daily Journal.
“With each passing day, week and month, consumer-patient users’ comfort and overall engagement with these tools are only increasing,” Esquivel said, adding, “I remain incredibly bullish for the balance of the year, heading into 2022 with a lot of momentum.”
Esquivel’s recent work in the digital health and life sciences space has included guiding OODA Health in its $425 million acquisition by Cedar, an innovative healthcare financial technology platform; PlushCare, a leading provider of virtual primary care and mental health treatment, in its acquisition by Accolade; and handling a $75 million Series C for Calm, an app for sleep, meditation and relaxation.
Over the past several months, Esquivel also handled Evidation Health’s $153 million Series E, Vida Health’s $110 million Series D, Brightline’s $72 million Series B, and Folx Health’s $25 million Series A.
Esquivel advises many other leading technology companies and venture capital firms, including Andreessen Horowitz, AppLovin, brightwheel, Compass, Curology, Everlane, Figma, Freenome, GGV Capital, Honor, Lumosity, Rock Health, Saildrone, TigerConnect and Tile.
Esquivel co-chairs Fenwick’s healthtech practice, leads the firm’s Life Sciences Legal Insights blog and also teaches venture capital law at Stanford Law School. He receives consistent recognition for the excellence of his work and has been honored among the United States’ leading lawyers for work with emerging companies by both Chambers USA and The Legal 500.