William Delano Sherman Esq

1942 - 2024

William Delano Sherman, Esq.
11/11/1942 - 08/31/2024
William Delano Sherman passed away peacefully on August 31st in San Francisco, California with his family by his side. Bill was born in White Plains, New York to Edgar Jay Sherman II and Mary Whittington Sherman. He was the fifth of five brothers, Edgar III, Richard, John, and David.
After his mother's death when he was 2, Bill's father married Anne Rooney and the family moved to San Francisco where they bought a home on Seacliff Avenue. Bill attended the Town School for Boys in San Francisco, the Lycée Carnot in the South of France during a family year abroad, and Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. In 1964, Bill graduated from Princeton University with a B.A. in Romance Language and Literature. At Princeton he was a member of the Tower Club and ROTC, and it was in the town of Princeton that he met his future wife, Ellen Reinheimer.
Upon graduation, Bill was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Air Force and rose to the rank of captain. His assignments were Peoria, Illinois where he and Ellen married and their daughter Jennifer was born, and the Canal Zone in Panama as a major general's aide where their daughter Andrea was born.
After the Air Force, the family moved to California where, in 1972, Bill earned one of the the first combined M.B.A./J.D. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley Schools of Business and Law. He joined the law firm Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro in San Francisco and was made partner in 1979. It was at the Chevron Corporation Building that Bill met Vickie McGraw whom he married in 1982 and with whom he had two children, Peter and Sarah. Bill and Vickie moved to the Peninsula where Bill joined Morrison & Foerster (MoFo) and helped establish the firm's Palo Alto Office. He specialized in IPOs for technology companies including Intel, Tandem, and Compaq and developed a reputation as a maverick in his field. Bill was listed in "America's Best Lawyers" for over 10 years, taught at Haas School of business, and retired in 2015 as a senior partner at MoFo.
Bill loved to travel and shared many adventures around the world with friends and family. In 1994, Bill and Vickie bought a cabin at Pinecrest Lake in the Sierras, the culmination of Bill's life-long love of the outdoors. It remains the heart and soul of the family.
Bill is survived by his loving wife Vickie McGraw Sherman, his four children Jennifer Sherman (Greg McCormick) (Jim Maser), Andrea Sherman (Kent Streeb), Peter Sherman (Meredith Sherman) and Sarah Sherman (David Levine), and six grandchildren (Annika Streeb, Charlie Streeb, Catherine McCormick, Dale Sherman, Henry Sherman, and June Levine).
His ashes will be interred with his parents and brother at Wildwood Cemetery in Winchester, Massachusetts. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests considering contributions to the charity of your choice.