Stephen Neal, the chairman of Cooley, dishes with The Careerist about his competitors, the type of hire who succeeds at his firm, and why his shop is one of the “nice” firms in Silicon Valley.
Your firm is part of the old guard in Silicon Valley—along with Fenwick West and Wilson Sonsini. So what makes Cooley different from those firms?
We are more diverse in practice and in geography. The biggest difference is that Cooley has built out a full-service law firm that can also handle traditional work—not just emerging companies. We’re a 100-year old institution. We know how to do generational transitions. We want to raise the next generation of lawyers and support them in a way that will contribute to their stability.
