Mergers & Acquisitions Resource Attorney

Cooley LLP; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 220,000 - 315,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical benefits

Health savings account

Dental insurance

Vision care

Parental leave

Fertility benefits

Vacation time

Job summary

Cooley LLP, located in Palo Alto, is seeking a Resource Attorney with a strong background in mergers and acquisitions. The role focuses on enabling practicing attorneys through research, drafting, and resource management.

The position involves supporting the M&A practice with knowledge management, document templates, and market updates. The candidate will collaborate with the M&A marketing team and education group, coordinating with attorneys on precedents and firm resources.

Qualifications

• Licensed attorney with at least 4 years of US M&A experience.
• Strong drafting and organizational skills are required.
• Knowledge of both public and private M&A trends and practice areas.

Responsibilities

• Input deal terms into the Transaction Database and coordinate with KM for audit and maintenance.
• Drafting and management of templates, precedents, and firm forms.
• Monitor regulatory developments and prepare summaries and alerts.
• Coordinate with legal education to support associate trainings on M&A.
• Collaborate with marketing on content for pitches, blogs and teach-ins.

Skills

Drafting

Organizational skills

Attention to detail

Flexibility

Team player

Education

Licensed attorney

Job description

2048PA

Resource Attorney

Palo Alto

Mergers & Acquisitions

Tuesday, October 6, 2026

Legal

SOPHIE LUMSDEN

Cooley is a leading global law firm with offices across the US, Europe and Asia. Our clients, ranging from entrepreneurs to emerging companies to Fortune 50 corporations, partner with us on transformative deals, complex IP and regulatory matters and high‑stakes litigation where innovation meets the law. As a firm we constantly strive to deliver the highest quality work and superior service on every matter entrusted to us.

Our lawyers are organized into two departments—Business and Litigation—which are further organized into practice groups. Given our uncompromising commitment to the quality of work that we produce, remaining on, if not defining, the leading edge of the law in a business and legal environment that is evolving daily, and working efficiently and cost‑effectively, we are intently focused on enabling our practitioners and practice groups to the greatest extent possible. One of the ways that we provide such support is by augmenting selected practice groups with resource attorneys whose overarching responsibility is to enable our practicing attorneys to be more informed and efficient. These attorneys do not work directly with firm clients and therefore do not bill time.

Position responsibilities

Among the tasks for which the M&A resource attorney will be responsible are:

• Transaction Database Management. Inputting deal terms from signed Cooley deals into our recently revamped Transaction Database and coordinating with Cooley’s knowledge management team to audit and maintain the database.
• Form and Precedent Drafting/Management. Preparing drafts (or revising existing precedent) of template documents. Curating and organizing the M&A group’s forms, precedents and other know‑how.
• Legal Updates. Monitoring legal and regulatory developments relative to M&A practice; preparing summaries and alerts regarding same; ensuring new legal requirements are reflected in our practice resources.
• Legal Education. Coordinating with Cooley’s legal education team to brainstorm content for associate trainings and other firm‑wide training efforts relative to M&A.
• Marketing/Business Development. Working closely with our M&A marketing team to strategize on Cooley M&A promotion generally (including content for our M&A blog), assisting the marketing team with the creation of content for pitches and teach‑ins (PPTs, articles, books etc.)
• Assisting with Individual Attorney Requests. Helping field day‑to‑day requests from attorneys for precedents, templates, and other resources.
• New Initiatives. Candidate would be involved in resource, knowledge management and practice innovation projects TBD.
• Other duties. All other duties as assigned or required

Skills and experience

The M&A resource attorney must be a licensed attorney with at least 4 years of experience in a US M&A corporate/transactional practice. The ideal candidate would have a basic handle on public and private M&A, corporate governance, board fiduciary duties and market trends. Strong drafting and organizational skills are required.

Success Factors

A successful resource attorney will possess and demonstrate many, if not all, of the following attributes:

• Attention to Detail. Detailed drafting needed for form documents; quality control testing of document generators requires minute attention to detail.
• Organizational Skills. Candidate will need to handle multiple, ongoing projects, including coordinating with attorneys and other stakeholders on projects requiring many inputs. Associate experience with M&A transactions, both public and private, should be transferable skill.
• Flexibility. Since resource initiatives are constantly evolving, candidate will need to be willing and available to work on additional projects and support new initiatives.
• Team Player. This will be the second Resource Attorney supporting the M&A group and, as such, will need to work collaboratively with the senior Resource Attorney.

The expected annual pay range for this position is $220,000 - $315,000. Please note that final offer amount will be dependent on geographic location, applicable experience and skillset of the candidate.

We offer a full range of elective benefits including medical, health savings account (with applicable medical plan), dental, vision, health and/or dependent care flexible spending accounts, pre‑tax commuter benefits, life insurance, AD&D, long‑term care coverage, backup care for children and/or adults and other parental support benefits. In addition to elective benefit options, benefited employees receive firm‑paid life insurance, AD&D, LTD, short term medical benefits as well as accruing vacation time at the rate of four weeks per year and sick time at the rate of two weeks per year and 10 paid holidays each year. We provide generous parental leave and fertility benefits. New employees will attend a detailed benefit orientation to learn more about our many benefits and resources.