Brian Liu
American lawyer and entrepreneur
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Brian P.Y. Liu (born 1967)[1] is an American lawyer who was a co-founder of LegalZoom,[2][3][4] and the founder of BizCounsel and Overture Law.[5][6]
He was born in Taipei, Taiwan and moved to Bellevue, Washington at the age of 5.[7][failed verification] Liu graduated with a B.S. from UC Berkeley and earned his J.D. from UCLA School of Law in 1996.[8] He began his career in corporate law at Sullivan & Cromwell, where he specialized in IPOs and mergers & acquisitions. He later moved to an in-house legal role at Oaktree Capital Management, a global investment firm.[9]
He conceived LegalZoom in 1999 after planning it with Brian Lee, his college friend from UCLA Law School.[10] Their goal was to create an online resource that would make basic legal resources available to anyone through the Internet.[5][11][12]
He launched the company in 2001 with Robert Shapiro, Edward Hartman and his friend Brian Lee, whom he met at UCLA Law School.[13][14][15] Liu and Lee started the company from their own funds.[16] Liu served as chief executive officer of LegalZoom until 2007 and was chairman of the Board of Directors until 2018.[1][17]