If Linus Torvalds Were A Lawyer...

...he'd be Yokum Taku. 

Anyone who's spent any time with me knows that I'm quite fond of analogies and metaphors, so why not annoy the rest of my readers with with this wonderful habit of mine?

Yokum Taku is a partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati...basically the Goldman Sachs of startup law firms.  It's been a while since I've used WSGR as counsel (read: 10-ish years) but I'm pretty sure they haven't started handing out partnerships to any bum who walks in the door (i.e. Yokum passes my "he's ridiculously smart and works his butt off" test even though I've never met or spoken to him).

What sets him apart from any law firm partner I've come across is that he runs a blog (Startup Company Lawyer) where he publishes an amazing amount of document templates and advice.  If you read Yokum's posts, you'll see he is not just using his blog as "brochureware" he is actively responding to his readers in the blog comments.  Heck, he even takes time to comment on other blogs (like that of yours truly).  This is a guy who probably bills out at a rate of $500+ per hour and he's giving away free advice!  I've heard a lot of entrepreneurs that are WSGR clients complain that they can't get partner time and can only talk to associates but here's a partner doling out free advice!

Who knows, maybe Yokum has a startup of his own up his sleeve and he's going to launch the Lawyerpedia or something.  In any event, hats off to one of the best "open source" lawyers out there.