Joe Conroy of Cooley, On Culture And Strategy In The Evolving Legal Market

David Parnell from Forbes speaks with Joe Conroy to get a better picture of some of the values, strategies, and motivations that drives Cooley. Below are excerpts from their conversation.

"First and foremost, we want to be an elite firm with all that entails: Elite in terms of talent and capability, elite financially, and elite from a brand perspective. In addition to being elite, it is imperative that we remain focused on, and branded around, technology, venture capital, and life sciences, and the representation of innovation and those that fund it. And therein lies the big opportunity for us, as we feel that we are the only elite firm that is focused and branded that way."

"Fundamentally, for us, what we've found is that our principal distinguishing factors are the deep historical roots in these business areas which are now not just lucrative, but are increasingly thought of as being durable. Now, it only works if you're able to represent them in the highest profile, highest impact, most profitable ways. So we've needed to expand to be able to litigate massive cases. Our firm's chair, Steve Neal, recently won an arbitration for a global life sciences company where there were tens of billions of dollars of market cap at stake—arguably one of the largest such cases of all time. We didn't get that case just because of life sciences; we got that case because we have these high-end litigation capabilities, a deep bench of trial lawyers."

"Clients are more loyal to those that they feel are most bought into their business; not just those who understand their business, but those who put themselves up on the line, too, with respect to the risks being taken."

Read the full interview here. 

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