As I have previously noted, I was a corporate attorney for nearly eight years at two major law firms in New York City; and the majority of my work there was spent negotiating and documenting large mergers and acquisitions for multinational corporations, financial institutions and private equity firms.  When I moved out here to California in 2005 and started focusing on representing entrepreneurs (which meant predominately middle-market M&A transactions), I was surprised to see how unsophisticated a lot of the players are here; in short, it’s a different environment than New York.  Nevertheless, I love living in California, and I am trying to provide to entrepreneurs (via these blog posts) some legal tips and lessons I learned at the big firms in New York City.  Below are ten tips for entrepreneurs who are contemplating acquiring a private company.   (more…)