Cooley offices in Washington, D.C. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

Cooley's mergers and acquisitions team in New York has grown again with the addition of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz associate Kevin Cooper as a partner.

Cooper, whose LinkedIn profile indicates he started at Wachtell in 2010, said Cooley's presence in M&A has been growing over the years. He said he stayed in touch with Ian Nussbaum, a friend and former Wachtell associate who moved to Cooley in 2019 and made partner in January, and said those discussions eventually led him to move.

"I've focused my practice on being a top-notch M&A lawyer and being ready, willing and able to jump into M&A transactions of any shape and size," he said. Cooley said he has worked with clients in the tech, health care, media, retail, financial services and private equity industries on a range of transactions, securities offerings and corporate governance issues.

The hiring of Cooper comes on the heels of other lateral additions by Cooley's corporate team. Earlier this year, Len Jacoby, a tech transactions partner who had spent more than a decade at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, made the move. In March, Eric Blanchard, who had led Covington & Burling's capital markets practice, also came to Cooley.

The final steps in Cooper's move have unfolded as the coronavirus pandemic has escalated in the United States and other countries around the world, leaving millions jobless and generally hurting markets. Cooper said that he left Wachtell in the first week of March and went on a trip to Egypt, but cut his stay short and narrowly made it back to the U.S. before restrictions on global travel tightened.

Clients and their counsel are paying close attention to news about the pandemic and trying to figure out how its trajectory will affect their business, Cooper said. Corporate lawyers have said in recent interviews that some clients were pushing forward with deals while others were hitting pause, and Cooper broadly agreed.

Some companies may find new opportunities amid the market downturn, he said. For others, he added, now is a time "to think about governance, to think about activism preparedness and defense, if necessary … [Companies should] know what their strengths and weaknesses are."

He said the main difference from Wachtell that stood out to him was Cooley's culture. He said the people he has met there, in person and via videoconferences and calls, have been "very down-to-earth, very smart, very engaging."

Cooley recorded 8.4% revenue growth from 2018 to 2019 and grew its profit per equity partner past $2.5 million. The corporate-heavy firm is known for its strengths in Silicon Valley, but it's not all startups and funding rounds; deals last year included data visualization company Tableau's $15.7 billion sale to Salesforce and biotech firm Synthorx's $2.5 billion sale to Sanofi.

In a statement, Cooley's M&A co-chair Jamie Leigh said Cooper's "broad and cutting-edge experience" would be "incredibly relevant to our ever-expanding client base."

Wachtell did not respond to a request for comment on Cooper's departure.