Mr. Howard is a leading adviser on mergers and acquisitions in the technology sector, with more than 30 years of experience in M&A and related areas. He has handled hundreds of M&A engagements, involving over $75 billion in completed M&A transactions. He is the founder and chairman of CapKey Advisors, a specialized firm of senior M&A lawyers and advisers who combine decades of M&A experience as lawyers with extensive business, financial and technology experience. Mr. Howard also serves as a special adviser to Acceleron Law Group and as a managing director of Ridgecrest Capital Partners, and serves on the advisory board of an artificial intelligence company. He is the founder and publisher of The Common-Conversation, a forum for commentary on current events and public affairs.
Before founding CapKey in early 2012, Mr. Howard was a partner in the Silicon Valley offices of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, where he was the firm’s senior M&A specialist on the West Coast, Weil Gotshal & Mangers, and Brobeck Phleger & Harrison, where he chaired the firm-wide M&A group. He began his practicing career at New York M&A firm Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz, and practiced for a dozen years in New York City before relocating to Northern California in 1996.
Mr. Howard received his J .D. with honors from the University of Chicago Law School in 1982, where he was articles editor of the law review and was inducted into the Order of the Coif. After law school, he served as a law clerk to the Hon. Frank M. Coffin, then Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Judicial Circuit, and was a visiting fellow at the MaxPlanck-Institute for Foreign and International Private Law in Hamburg, Germany.
Mr. Howard has written and taught for many years on topics related to law, M&A, and public affairs. Before law school, he worked in journalism, winning recognition for his work as a columnist and editor. As a lawyer, he has been recognized by the Chamber’s Guide to the world’s leading lawyers and the Northern California “Superlawyers” list. He is married, has two daughters, and lives in San Francisco.
