Brandon J. Middleton-Pratt is lending his law expertise to the tech ecosystem.

He currently serves as a partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and is a board member at DivInc, a nonprofit that empowers underrepresented founders.

His trajectory was not a linear one. He initially pursued a finance and marketing degree at the University of Denver while playing on its basketball team, he says. Upon obtaining his bachelor’s in 2003, he decided to move to Los Angeles, CA, to pursue a career in entertainment instead. Though that did not pan out for long, he made appearances in the films “Coach Carter”, “Rebound,” and “The Longest Yard.”

The pivots of life would then lead Middleton-Pratt to play basketball overseas in Spain and Cyprus after receiving an offer from a sports agent. He then experienced a crossroads, which would determine if he would return to Los Angeles. A call from a mentor with an opportunity in the energy field finally brought him back to the states.

“A mentor of mine convinced me to go into the energy field and got me a job at a company called Tesoro,” he told AFROTECH™. “Tesoro was a refinery marketer of petroleum products for gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, etc. I worked there for about two and a half years. While I was there, I went back to school to University of Texas at San Antonio and got an executive MBA, and finished that program and thought to myself, ‘You know, what I need more of? School.'”

His steps would lead him to Boston University where he began law school in 2009. After earning his juris doctor degree, Middleton-Pratt was able to begin his career in law and secured a job at Goodwin Procter. He was involved in the firm’s private equity and tech practice for six years as a financial analyst.

“I helped that company analyze and explore all sorts of transactions,” he said. “So, M&A (mergers and acquisitions), and then I helped them do what’s called refinery optimization. So at the time, that company had seven refineries in its portfolio… All those crudes are available at different prices and at different places in the world. You take that into account when thinking about which ones to run through a refinery. You also take into account which products in the market are fetching the best prices,” the law partner recalled. Middleton-Pratt was essentially responsible for budgeting for the corporate development group.

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati

Now married, he made the decision to move back to Austin, TX, where he and his spouse had family roots. In 2018, Middleton-Pratt joined Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati as an attorney, a firm headquartered in Silicon Valley, California, with 19 offices globally. Per the firm’s LinkedIn profile, it positions itself as a leader in legal services for technology and life sciences sectors, working with companies ranging from startups to large multinational corporations, as well as venture capital, private equity firms, and investment banks.

“It’s the quintessential Silicon Valley law firm. It’s been around for 60-plus years, and we hold ourselves out, as in all things, to innovative companies, meeting all their legal needs,” he said. “I think we have the pedigree to sort of bear out the reputation that the firm over those six decades has carved out for itself.”

Middleton-Pratt’s job responsibilities include advising and counseling entrepreneurs on company formation, ownership, equity arrangements, and negotiating with investors and interested acquires.

“In the transition to being a lawyer, it’s less like pure financial and business. Now, I look at things from a legal but also business perspective,” he explained.

The multifaceted attorney continued, “The expertise comes in helping my clients understand the deals in which they’re entering, advising them on those deals so that they and the company are successful but also well positioned going into and coming out of those transactions. Basically my expertise is in helping companies achieve success — how they define it.”

Over the years, Middleton-Pratt has been recognized as a “Top 40 Professional” and an “Up and Coming Lawyer” in the Austin Black Business Journal & Community News Magazine, a “Top 50 Attorney of Austin” by Attorney Intel, and was recently featured on Nasdaq’s MarketSite Tower in Times Square, among others.

Helping Underrepresented Founders

Beyond his work as partner at the firm, Middleton-Pratt serves as a board member at DivInc, a nonprofit with operations in Austin, TX, and Houston, TX, that provides underrepresented founders with social and financial capital, education, mentorship, and networks to thrive.

“I truly believe in underrepresented founders using entrepreneurship as a way to enhance wealth in those communities,” he shared. “So, I firmly believe that my firm, Wilson Sonsini, has been uber supportive of that in other ways, but also in supporting me and the relationship that the firm has with DivInc. [They have] supported me in wanting to become more involved with AFROTECH™ and supporting me in building a practice that seeks out the opportunity to be as helpful to underrepresented founders as I possibly can be.”

Looking ahead, Middleton-Pratt intends to scale his impact in improving outcomes for underrepresented founders and their companies. He also wishes to grow his clientele nationally and globally.