Backseat, Freezing Meetings: How Cooley Opened a Chicago Office

Welcome back to the Big Law Business column on the changing legal marketplace written by me, Roy Strom. Today, we meet Cooley partners who interviewed dozens of Chicago lawyers during Covid to help launch a new office. Sign up to receive this column in your inbox on Thursday mornings.

When Yvan-Claude Pierre moved to Chicago from New York a year ago, a lull in Covid-19 cases allowed the meet-and-greets required for a law firm to open an out-of-town office.

But by January, as the virus surged, the Cooley partner known simply as “YCP” was meeting lawyers in homes or ...