Gerald G. "Jerry" Chacon Jr.

Jerry Chacon was a partner in the firm’s Business Law department and a former member of the Private Investment Funds practice. He joined Goodwin in 2007.

Mr. Chacon represented venture capital, private equity, hedge, debt and secondary funds in hundreds of fund formations both inside and outside of the United States. In addition, Mr. Chacon had extensive experience structuring and negotiating the “upstairs” agreements governing the relationships of fund managers to one another, as well as structuring special-situation vehicles in the corporate-captive, family office and incubator contexts.

Mr. Chacon’s practice primarily focused on advising venture capital and other private equity funds in their formation and operation. Mr. Chacon’s former representative work included advising:

• Two of the world's top five venture capital firms in all aspects of fund organization and internal management
• One of the world's top startup accelerators in structuring and implementing strategic initiatives as well as in all aspects of its associated investment fund program
• A multi-billion dollar, multi-asset, single-investor fund team in all aspects of fund organization and internal management
• An emerging “quantitative” venture capital team in its successful transition to Tier 1 investors while increasing fund size by six-fold
• A solo venture capitalist in the formation of his third sub-$50 million fund from Tier 1 Limited Partners
• A mid-sized venture capital firm in the formation of its third single-investment “rifle-shot” SPV and third blind-pool fund
• Two prestigious high net worth family offices in structuring incentive-driven compensation arrangements for their internal teams
• A publicly traded, Japanese-based, multinational corporate investor in structuring an “innovation program”
• Two venture capital teams in establishing “series” vehicles for efficiently supporting high-velocity “rifle shot” investing
• Non-U.S. venture capital funds formed to invest in or from India, China, Israel and Brazil

Mr. Chacon has received an AV Peer Review Rating from Martindale-Hubbell. He was a past chair of both the San Francisco Peninsula Chapter of the Young Tax Lawyers Committee of the Tax Section of the State Bar (1992-1993) and the Tax Section of the Santa Clara County Bar Association (1997). Mr. Chacon was a former adjunct lecturer (1996-2002) in the School of Taxation at Golden Gate University, where he taught a course in partnership taxation to graduate accounting students.

Mr. Chacon's pro-bono efforts included support of a bilingual school, LGBTQ refugees, and a national organization supporting victims of sexual assault.

Mr. Chacon also participated in filing an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in support of the seminal cellphone warrantless search case, Riley v. California, 134 S.Ct. 2473 (2014).

Prior to joining Goodwin, Mr. Chacon was of counsel in the Palo Alto office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where he was a senior member of the fund services practice. Before that, he practiced in Rosenblum, Parish & Isaacs’ business transactions practice group and as a tax attorney with Hopkins & Carley, both in San Jose, California. In 1990, Mr. Chacon was an extern for the Honorable Edward J. Garcia of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.

Over the course of his career, Mr. Chacon wrote and lectured extensively on tax and business planning.