Cooley LLP announced today that leading corporate and capital markets lawyer Andrew S. “Drew” Williamson has joined the firm as a partner.  He had been a partner for more than six years at Latham & Watkins, where he began his career, and was most recently based in its Silicon Valley office.

Williamson has a broad corporate practice focused on representing investment banks and issuers in the technology, clean technology and life sciences sectors, for capital markets and M&A work.  His arrival marks a further strengthening of Cooley’s national offering to a sophisticated corporate client base that includes many of the country’s most innovative companies, as well as the world’s leading investment banks.  Williamson’s move comes at the same time as Cooley’s capital markets practice is delivering record-breaking results, as Cooley advised on five IPOs and 15 follow-on offerings, raising more than $2.4 billion in the first quarter of 2012 alone.  

“The business case for Drew is compelling,” noted Joe Conroy, Cooley’s New York-based chief executive officer. “His top-level reputation and connections with leading investment banks and many of the most exciting companies in Silicon Valley and beyond will further strengthen our capital markets and M&A groups.  After a stunning first quarter at Cooley, we’re all thrilled that Drew will play an integral part in carrying this momentum forward.”

“I am thrilled to be joining Cooley,” Williamson said. “I couldn’t be more excited for the opportunity to help Cooley continue to build and strengthen its capital markets practice.” 

According to figures released by Thomson Reuters and others, there were 19 venture capital-backed companies that went public in the United States in Q1 2012 – Cooley advised on roughly one quarter of them. Clients that Cooley helped take public or do follow-ons involved lawyers in Cooley’s nine offices across the country, and include Millennial Media, Inc, Jazz Pharmaceuticals and Yelp. Having advised Zynga on its groundbreaking IPO in December of last year, Cooley’s Zynga team also led on its $515 million follow-on offering that was completed in April 2012.

Williamson graduated from Georgetown Law School in 1997, and joined Latham & Watkins. He was elected to the firm’s partnership in 2005, and served as Co-Chair of Latham’s San Francisco Corporate Department before moving to the firm’s Silicon Valley office in 2009. He will be based out of Cooley’s San Francisco office.