Cooley, Culture and Choosing an Associate Over the World's Richest Man
Law firm culture can be hard to define. But at least Cooley can say a single associate is more valuable in its culture than all the business Elon Musk's companies sent the firm's way.
January 20, 2022 at 07:30 AM
4 minute read
Legal Services
The original version of this story was published on Litigation Daily
Tesla CEO and space X founder Elon Musk. Credit:Naresh777/Shutterstock.com
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Lose that associate or lose my company's work.
That was reportedly the ultimatum that Elon Musk, the world's richest man and CEO at Tesla, gave to a partner at Cooley regarding a former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer whom the firm hired to work as an associate in its securities litigation and enforcement practice. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal over the weekend, the associate had no involvement in Cooley's work for Tesla, but had previously interviewed Musk while at the SEC when the agency was investigating the CEO's 2018 tweet saying he had secured funding to take the company private – a probe that resulted in a $20 million fine for Musk and an agreement that he would run tweets on certain topics past company lawyers.
Cooley refused to let go of the associate.
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