Leveraging more than 25 years of experience, Rob Freedman provides a wide range of corporate and securities legal services to innovative late-stage and public companies in the life sciences and technology industries. He represents issuers and underwriters in IPOs, follow-on offerings and private placements of equity and debt securities. Rob also advises boards and management as an outside general counsel on day-to-day corporate and securities matters, including corporate governance, public company reporting, and stock exchange rules and requirements.

Rob co-chairs Fenwick’s capital markets and public companies group, helping clients raise capital, navigate risk, and tell a story through filings and disclosures over the long term. For example, he represented Loxo Oncology in its IPO, multiple follow-on offerings and its $8 billion acquisition by Eli Lilly. He has also represented Dexcom, a leader in continuous glucose monitoring, for more than 15 years, from its IPO in 2005 to numerous public and private offerings of equity and debt. Rob is committed to a company’s myriad legal needs through its full lifecycle.

Ranked as a top capital markets lawyer by Chambers USA and Chambers Global, Rob is regularly sought after for his thought leadership. He is a lead author of the firm’s Technology and Life Sciences IPO Survey and co-chairs the Practising Law Institute’s How to Prepare an Initial Public Offering 2019 program.

Representative Initial Public Offerings
- Aeglea BioTherapeutics
- AnaptysBio
- Audentes Therapeutics
- Castlight Health
- Corium International
- Cowen and Company
- Dermira
- Dexcom
- Goldman Sachs
- Loxo Oncology
- Morphic Holding
- Obalon Therapeutics
- Piper Jaffray
- Passage Bio
- ServiceNow
- Shutterfly
- Sierra Oncology
- Silver Spring Networks
- Stoke Therapeutics
- Sutro Biopharma
- Upwork
Representative Mergers and Acquisitions
- Loxo Oncology in its $8B acquisition by Eli Lilly
- OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals in its merger with Achieve Life Science
- Castlight Health in its acquisition of Jiff
- Corium in its $504M acquisition by Gurnet Point Capital
- KalVista Pharmaceuticals in its share purchase agreement with Carbylan Therapeutics
- Dexcom in its acquisition of SweetSpot Diabetes Care
- Zappos.com in its $847M acquisition by Amazon.com
- Alpha Innotech in its acquisition by Cell Biosciences
- Data Domain in its $2.4B acquisition by EMC
- Cisco Systems in its $3.2B acquisition of WebEx Communications
- Macromedia in its $3.4B merger with Adobe
Recent Awards and Recognition
- Chambers Global ranked Rob as a top capital markets lawyer (2020)
- Highlighted among the United States’ leading lawyers for capital markets work by The Legal 500 (2020)
- Best Lawyers named Rob "Lawyer of the Year" in corporate law (2020), and recognized him among “The Best Lawyers in America” for his work in corporate law, and securities and capital markets law (2019 – 2020)
- Chambers USA ranked Rob as a top capital markets lawyer (2019 – 2020)
- LMG Life Sciences recognized Rob as a Star (2019)
- US News recognized Rob for his excellence in securities and capital markets law and corporate law (2019)
- The Legal 500 recognized Rob for his capital markets practice (2016 – 2020)

Clients praise Rob’s “very good technical skill set, terrific work and very up-to-date advice on complex capital markets transactions.”

—Chambers USA, Client Quote 2020 Edition

Professional Achievements

Chambers Global and Chambers USA ranked Rob as a top capital markets lawyer (2020)
Best Lawyers named Rob "Lawyer of the Year" in corporate law (2020), and recognized him among “The Best Lawyers in America” for his work in corporate law, and securities and capital markets law (2019 – 2020)