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Hi all!

Does anyone have any insight on Cooley Palo Alto office? Anything and everything ranging from culture to work-life balance, lateral opportunities, etc. would be greatly appreciated! Specific details about their L&E group/team would be even more appreciated!

I have my friend in the EC/VC group of Cooley Palo Alto office and also visited their office a couple times for reception and interview. People seemed very nice and collegial while being pretty busy. It's a great firm and rapidly growing but surprisingly has been pretty cheap in dealing with the covid19 crisis (summer program paycut, deferring incoming first years, and staff salary cuts). I am not sure whether they are not in a good position financially or the management simply takes a conservative attitude though.

I'm opposite a lot of deals from Cooley and everyone I work with from partners to associates seems super nice/chill. I also like that I always e-mail them on weekends asking for docs but they never seem to reply until Monday, making me think they have a more or less OK lifestyle (though they may just be cranking other docs out, who knows...)

Anyone know about Cooley bankruptcy culture wise. They aren’t like a huge player but if you look them up they def have business.

Anyone know about Cooley bankruptcy culture wise. They aren’t like a huge player but if you look them up they def have business.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 19, 2020 5:56 am

Anyone know about Cooley bankruptcy culture wise. They aren’t like a huge player but if you look them up they def have business.

Anon at band 1 creditor shop: I have never seen Cooley, ever.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 19, 2020 7:56 am

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 19, 2020 5:56 am

Anyone know about Cooley bankruptcy culture wise. They aren’t like a huge player but if you look them up they def have business.

Anon at band 1 creditor shop: I have never seen Cooley, ever.

They seem to have business according to Reorg...

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 19, 2020 9:25 am

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 19, 2020 7:56 am

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 19, 2020 5:56 am

Anyone know about Cooley bankruptcy culture wise. They aren’t like a huge player but if you look them up they def have business.

Anon at band 1 creditor shop: I have never seen Cooley, ever.

They seem to have business according to Reorg...

Not disputing they have business, just think it's important color re: the type of deals they do.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 19, 2020 7:56 am

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 19, 2020 5:56 am

Anyone know about Cooley bankruptcy culture wise. They aren’t like a huge player but if you look them up they def have business.

Anon at band 1 creditor shop: I have never seen Cooley, ever.

Different anon at band 1 creditor shop: but that's why Cooley catches my interest. If I see a firm regularly in our deals, then they work too hard and not what i'm looking for lol

OP here. Thanks all!! Will continue to appreciate any insight that others may have! I'm puzzled by their small L&E department size though. Is it one of those firms that you're working or "on-call" effectively 24/7? Or do most attorneys there keep a fairly regular Monday to Friday 9 to 6pm type schedule?

Do attorneys at any big firm keep a M-F 9-6 schedule?

OP Here - lol good point. I should have said relatively more 9-6pm than other "Big Law" shops. In other words, hopefully not crazy calling you late or in the middle of the night routinely

What type of L&E work do you want to do? I interviewed at Cooley a while back for an L&E position, and while I liked the firm and partners, ultimately decided I did not want to do M&A support work. If you are fine with that, then by all means it’s a great firm.

However, if you want to focus on litigation and advice work, you might want to look elsewhere. There are other Bay Area firms, like Morgan Lewis and Paul Hastings, that focus on litigation with great exit opportunities.

Anyone have any insight into Cooley's NY office? Considering a position with their Cap Markets team.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 20, 2020 5:26 pm

What type of L&E work do you want to do? I interviewed at Cooley a while back for an L&E position, and while I liked the firm and partners, ultimately decided I did not want to do M&A support work. If you are fine with that, then by all means it’s a great firm.

However, if you want to focus on litigation and advice work, you might want to look elsewhere. There are other Bay Area firms, like Morgan Lewis and Paul Hastings, that focus on litigation with great exit opportunities.

Thanks so much for your insight! Would you be willing to share more about what exactly their M&A support work entails (if you know)? How were the people and culture from your impression? Did you see it as a problem for future laterals and exit options? What would be the exit option for lit versus the M&A support work? I'm currently wage and hour class action litigation with the standard array of discrimination, harassment, wrongful termination, misclassification, etc. I had fairly average grades. Are there other firms you would recommend? Thanks a million!

Not sure what their M&A supper work would entail, but I was told it was around 30% of their L&E practice, which was a dealbreaker for me. Otherwise, I had a great impression of the firm and partners—I got the impression that it was relatively laid back compared to my firm and the others I interviewed at.

As far as other Bay Area biglaw firms, Paul Hastings, Orrick, and Morgan Lewis have particularly strong groups. Another that comes to mind is Sheppard Mullin, although I have heard of some cultural problems there.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 21, 2020 3:01 pm

Anyone have any insight into Cooley's NY office? Considering a position with their Cap Markets team.

Bump - any insight in the NY office and their Cap Markets team?

FWIW, I have anecdotally heard of very positive junior associate experiences across a range of groups there at both Nyc and boston offices.

In fact if somebody said “what v50 firms have you anecdotally heard the best stuff about (vis a vis associate happiness),” Cooley would definitely be very near the top of the list

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 22, 2020 3:20 am

Not sure what their M&A supper work would entail, but I was told it was around 30% of their L&E practice, which was a dealbreaker for me. Otherwise, I had a great impression of the firm and partners—I got the impression that it was relatively laid back compared to my firm and the others I interviewed at.

As far as other Bay Area biglaw firms, Paul Hastings, Orrick, and Morgan Lewis have particularly strong groups. Another that comes to mind is Sheppard Mullin, although I have heard of some cultural problems there.

Thank you!! As someone who did a lateral on L&E, can I pick your brain on what made you choose whichever firm you're currently with? (I don't mean to ask which firm you're at as that would compromise your anonymity, but like what were the important factors for you and what was special about the place you ultimately chose?) What kind of cultural problems at Sheppard? Did you get any sense of whether Cooley is a hard cut-off on GPA for laterals? I'm assuming the other big shops you mentioned like Paul Hastings, Orrick, and Morgan Lewis are hard cut-off firms?

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 19, 2020 5:56 am

Anyone know about Cooley bankruptcy culture wise. They aren’t like a huge player but if you look them up they def have business.

Any more insight on this? Specifically about culture and how slammed they might be now?

Any other culture or other pros and cons about Cooley in general? Details about Palo Alto, would be even better. Thanks all!

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 27, 2020 12:54 pm

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 21, 2020 3:01 pm

Anyone have any insight into Cooley's NY office? Considering a position with their Cap Markets team.

Bump - any insight in the NY office and their Cap Markets team?

I interviewed there a while back, work across from them all the time, and am pretty close to several associates in that group. Their whole cap markets group has been extremely busy for the last few years. They are (desperately) looking to hire additional associates, particularly at the junior and mid levels. They keep bringing in business and lateral partners, but it doesn't seem like they can keep up with recruiting associates (it doesn't help that no associates in NY have offices - shared or otherwise). Associate morale is not great, though I get the sense that people like the work they do.Having worked across from Cooley frequently, I can say the quality of the work they produce is usually below that of comparable firms. despite apparently having pretty good lawyers. I assume that this is a product of everyone being stretched too thin. People are generally nice, though the culture is a bit fratty at times.

If you want to do equity capital markets, there probably aren't many better opportunities for experience. If you're concerned about billing 3000+, it's probably not a great group.

Anon for obvious reasons. Mods, please message me before identifying me if you think there is a need for further explanation.

Wow that NY office sounds so different from the Palo Alto office insights above. Anyone else have any insight on the Palo Alto office? Out of curiosity, Associates do have an office at Palo Alto, right? Is it common to not have an office at a law firm for attorneys??

Cooley Palo Alto associates generally have their own offices (when going to the office was a thing). First and second years aren't guaranteed a single occupancy, window office - they either get a single occupancy interior office or a double window office (which are former big partner offices and pretty spacious). This is mostly due to the office having grown a lot (and while a suburb, Palo Alto real estate is not exactly inexpensive). At this stage of the pandemic I wouldn't want to speculate about what the future holds for any office in terms of whether there will be shared offices, open office plans, or just fewer people coming into the office.

Oh interesting, I didn't realize 1st and 2nd year associates sometimes shared offices. Is this something that happens at other Big Law firms too? It sounds like 3rd years definitely have their own office on the outside with a window then? How doe a shared office even work considering attorneys are on calls all the time? Is a shared office something that happens at other big law firms? Do I dare speculate that some firms even have attorneys in cubicles??