Tonkon Torp founding partner Brian Booth was a longtime legal adviser for Phil Knight, and was Nike’s attorney when the company went public in 1980. The work completed by Brian and Tonkon Torp led to the Oregon Corporation Commission signing off on a dual class voting stock that allowed Phil Knight to preserve his control while selling stock to the open market. This governance structure, wholly new at the time, is now widely used in a significant number of big tech IPOs in the nation. After learning of Brian’s passing in 2012, Knight said, “He was the best securities lawyer in the State of Oregon. When we decided to go public, he was the obvious choice.”