New York – December 8, 2021 – Cooley has been named a finalist for Startup Firm/Emerging Company Law Firm of the Year as part of Legalweek's Leaders in Tech Law Awards, which recognize innovation in legal technology and work on precedent-setting, game-changing projects and initiatives in the US. Partner Adam Ruttenberg has also been shortlisted for Innovator of the Year at the second annual awards ceremony, which will take place in New York on February 2, 2022.
The finalist distinction for Startup Firm and Emerging Company Law Firm of the Year underscores Cooley's commitment to entrepreneurs and the startup ecosystem, and particularly to making the sector more diverse, equitable and inclusive. Access to high-quality legal services and capital are two areas in which founders from underrepresented groups continue to lag behind their peers. To address and narrow the gap in capital, Cooley opted to include a diversity rider on term sheets generated from Cooley's award-winning entrepreneur resource, Cooley GO.
The diversity rider was developed by Alejandro Guerrero, a principal with Los Angeles-based Act One Ventures, after the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. As a day-one supporter of this initiative, Cooley quickly adopted and implemented it into the firm's internal term sheet generator for all clients, as well as the external term sheet generator for the general public on Cooley GO.
Beyond efforts in diversity, equity and inclusion, Cooley works with 7,000+ innovative, high-growth private company clients, from preformation founder teams to many of the largest and most sophisticated companies in the world throughout their full life cycle into mature public companies. In addition to document generators on Cooley GO, Cooley offers entrepreneurs and their businesses several other useful resources, including Cooley Protect, a resource that gives entrepreneurs and growth companies the information they need to make informed decisions about patent protection and strategy. Additionally, Cooley funded and developed Vanilla, a platform that allows fund managers to offer their investors a convenient, secure and efficient way to subscribe for and manage fund interests.