Sarah Koper
General Counsel; Commercial, Tech & IP
New York
NY
About
Clients include Google, McKinsey, Morgan Stanley and many household name startups. Sarah began her legal career as a fellow at the UN International Law Commission in Geneva and went on to major firms like Cleary Gottlieb and startup and VC-focused Gunderson Dettmer after graduating NYU Law. She also holds a B.A. magna cum laude in Japanese.
Sarah provides rapid and… read more efficient counsel, partnering closely with all client teams, from C-suite to engineers and sales managers.
experience
Practice Areas
Client Reviews
"We needed a new MSA for our B2B SaaS platform because our old forms were subpar. We also developed new products (with Sarah's input from the whiteboarding stage - really helpful) and wanted to leverage more customer data in new ways. Sarah put together a great MSA quickly that addressed all our concerns - and quite a few issues hadn't thought of... She's thorough, efficient and really a pleasure to work with. She then negotiated our new MSA w/ great success 100s of times, including heavy big pushes at quarter and year end. Sarah's been a great partner in maintaining strong relationships with our customers and helping us to recognize revenue."
"I've known Sarah and worked on tech startups for years, and she's always been my "go to" lawyer because she knows what she's doing and how to discuss legal matters in the language of business. She's recently given my team great guidance on our new yoga and wellness tech startup. Tech, IP and licensing are all a black box to me, and we've relied on her counsel heavily on these and other matters with great results. It's not every day your best counsel is also your good friend. I couldn't recommend working with her more."
Work History
Independent Legal Counsel
General Counsel; Commercial, Tech & IP Counsel
Mar 2018 - Present
Engage with global Fortune 500 companies and startups to structure and manage complex commercial transactions; draft and negotiate contracts (e.g., SaaS, licensing, data, analytics, professional services, security, software, IT, marketing, multimedia, employment); advise business teams on technology, information security risk mitigation, best practices and compliance and privacy (including GDPR).
PricewaterhouseCoopers
Senior Manager, Office of the General Counsel (Technology, Product & IP)
Feb 2020 - Dec 2020
Advised business teams on software-as-a-Service (SaaS), on-premises software, know-how, technology, IP, information security risk mitigation, best practices and compliance (including data usage and protection) matters. Negotiated license agreements for outbound and inbound (including vendor) services and products (e.g., SaaS
Florashare
Founder & Designer
May 2017 - Jul 2019
Provide charity-driven floral design and donation services for client events. Manage all operations.
Gunderson Dettmer
Technology & IP Transactions Associate
Nov 2014 - Aug 2017
Provided wide scope of legal solutions to lean startups and mature technology companies over complete business life cycle: inception, formation, daily operations, fundraising, growth, partnerships, acquisitions and divestitures. Focused on technology, commercial, intellectual property and IT matters. Counseled business teams and company leadership.
Cleary Gottlieb
IP and Mergers and Acquisitions Associate
Sep 2012 - Oct 2014
Represented industry leaders (e.g., Google, Amex, Medtronic, OpenText, Black & Decker) in high profile mergers, acquisitions, divestitures & other intellectual property & technology-related transactions. Drafted & negotiated intellectual property license agreements, acquisition, divestiture and credit facility transaction documents. Conducted research & drafted memos (diligence, case law, FARS).
United Nations International Law
Fellow / Intern
May 2010 - Aug 2010
Researched, drafted memos on and presented topics for codification and development of international law.