When President Barack Obama signed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act into law on April 5, he called the bill a “potential game-changer” for small businesses. The legislation would make it easier and less costly for small businesses to conduct initial public offerings and to raise money from outside investors.
For Latham & Watkins partner Joel Trotter, the bill was the gratifying result of his unexpected foray into public policy. Trotter, along with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati partner Steven Bochner, had joined a group of entrepreneurs, investors, and investment bankers the prior spring to study the reasons for the decline in the number of IPOs and to explore solutions. Calling themselves the IPO Task Force, the group pulled together a series of recommendations that formed the basis of the first section of the JOBS act. “To watch the president sign this legislation less than a year later, it was nothing short of surreal,” says Trotter.
