US firm Cooley posted record global revenue for the 2025 financial year, pushing it well past the $2.3bn mark.
Revenue clocked in at $2.37bn, a 10.3% increase on 2024 levels, with profit per equity partner jumping 18.3% to $4.6m. Revenue per lawyer rose 11.5% to $1.8m.
The firmwide results, which followed more modest single-digit increases in 2024, were bettered in terms of the revenue growth rate by a 16.7% revenue rise in the firm’s London business to a new high of $110.3m. That marked a return to growth for the London office after an 8% decline in turnover in 2024.
Claire Keast-Butler, co-partner in charge at Cooley in London, said: “[Last year] was a transformational year for Cooley in London. This included the strategic expansion of our emerging companies and venture capital practice, which makes it the City’s go-to destination in the space. The team had a stellar year, working on some of Europe’s landmark venture deals.”
Over the course of the year, Cooley boosted its London bench with the hire of partner Charlotte Witherington from Taylor Wessing, where she was head of the UK financial services regulatory group, and Ashurst’s co-head of tech M&A, Jonathan Cohen. The firm opened in London in 2015 and over the past 10 years has nearly doubled its lawyer headcount in the city to more than 100.
James Maton, co-partner in charge at Cooley in London, added: “The UK is Europe’s leading destination for innovative and high growth life sciences and technology companies and their investors, and as a preeminent law firm in the space, advising across corporate, litigation and regulatory, we’re excited about the opportunities to continue to build our platform in London to serve the players front and centre of these ecosystems.”
Some of the firm’s wider highlights over the past year include advising Medicxi and other venture capital investors on Sanofi’s $1.6bn acquisition of Vicebio and EsoBiotec on its up to $1bn acquisition by AstraZeneca. In the field of biotech and specialty pharma partnering and licensing, it acted for China’s Hengrui on its up to $12.5bn licensing agreement with GSK, the biggest China licensing deal of 2025.
Its equity capital markets team also advised Wise on moving its primary listing to the US from the UK and GameStop on its $2.25bn convertible senior notes offering, while on the litigation side, it acted for Whirlpool Corporation in respect of the highly sensitive Grenfell Public Inquiry and all related litigation, the largest and most significant product liability case in the UK.
The San Francisco-founded firm has 13 US offices, alongside an international network that also extends to Brussels, Singapore, Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai.
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