Sarah Fergusson Chambless

Sarah Fergusson Chambless focuses her practice on technology companies, specifically in the areas of startup company formation, early-stage finance, technology licensing and regulatory considerations, venture capital investment transactions, and mergers and acquisitions.

Sarah advises emerging companies in the digital media, technology, consumer products, social enterprise and nonprofit sectors in issues related to company formation, corporate compliance, and intellectual property licensing and transactions. She represents both emerging companies and venture capital investors in seed and growth-stage venture capital financings (equity and debt), and she has represented buyers, sellers, issuers and investors in investments, business combinations and buyout transactions in the digital media, technology, consumer products and healthcare sectors. Sarah also has experience in the planning, structuring and formation of venture capital funds and joint ventures.

Sarah is very active in the Los Angeles startup community and regularly acts as a mentor, speaker and guest lecturer at incubators, accelerators, business organizations and universities. She also sits on the Advisory Board of OSEA Angel Investors, an angel investment group focused on and driven by women executives and entrepreneurs.

Sarah was selected as one of Variety’s Hollywood’s New Leaders: Lawyers in 2013, and is a Southern California Super Lawyers Rising Star (2015 – 2019).

Prior to joining Fenwick & West, Sarah was the leader of the venture capital and emerging companies practice at a major national law firm. Before she began her legal career, Sarah taught elementary school in Compton, California, as a Teach For America corps member.

While attending law school, she was executive notes and comments editor for the Emory International Law Review.

EDUCATION
– Emory University School of Law, J.D.
– Loyola Marymount University, M.A., Education
– Emory University, B.A., Sociology & Women’s Studies