Don Williams

Practice Areas

With more than 30 years' experience advising clients worldwide from Silicon Valley and China (having relocated to Shanghai in 2005 to open the office of a leading Silicon Valley law firm), Don is well regarded and highly experienced in representing private and public companies on a broad spectrum of complex transactional mandates, including cross-border mergers and acquisitions, minority investments and other strategic business transactions. Don has extensive experience including advising TMT companies throughout their entire lifecycle from startup to mature public company (VC/PE financing, day to day corporate needs, M&A and capital markets transactions) as well as these companies’ ecosystem, including VC/PE funds and investment banks.

Over the years, Don has developed a great depth of expertise across the technology and emerging growth industries and served as the primary counsel in numerous high-profile and cross-border transactions. His clients include Acorn, Alibaba, Alipay, Ant Financial Services, Autodesk, BCD Semiconductor, Bridge Pharmaceuticals, Cisco Systems, Cyte Therapeutics, FunPlus Games, Grab, Hanson Robotics, Kuaidi Dache, Newport Corporation, PharmaLegacy, Polycom, RealD, Saudi Aramco, SeaWorld, Sigma Designs, Smarter Micro, and SMIC.

Clients particularly appreciate Don’s hands-on approach to manage complex deals and his responsiveness, experience, and ability to solve tricky problems and dynamics (Chambers Greater China, 2023).

Don has represented venture capital and private equity funds, including Advanced Technology Ventures, Aramco Ventures, BASF Venture Capital GmbH, Chengwei Ventures, DFJ Dragon Ventures, Fidelity/Eight Roads, GGV, Global Founders Capital, GSR Ventures, IFC, JAFCO, KPCB China, Ping An, Sequoia Capital, Qiming Ventures, Rocket Internet and Softbank China Venture Capital, in connection with portfolio investments and other transactions as well as investment banks in connection with public offerings.

Don has been recognized as one of the top China-based private equity/venture capital lawyers by Chambers Asia-Pacific for 17 consecutive years (2009 through 2025). Don has also been recognized as a “Leading Partner" by Legal 500 2026 and was the winner of 'Private Equity Lawyers of the year' at Legal 500 China Awards 2023. He was also named one of the 'China Top 15 M&A Lawyers' by Asian Legal Business in 2019.

Don was active as a committee chair with The American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai for over a decade and served as Chair of the Chamber's Ethics Council. He is currently Counsel to the Chamber's Board of Governors.