Cooley Tested by Roller Coaster Market as Proffitt Takes Reins

Rachel Proffitt, who takes over as Cooley’s chief executive officer in January, has a choice to make: staff up for a possible return of the deals business or restrain lawyer headcount because the market will probably stay sluggish.

There have been fewer than 15,000 mergers and acquisitions in each of the past four quarters after companies topped that level for two years, Bloomberg data show. Initial public offerings, after numbering 933 in 2021, have fallen to 75 so far this year.

“Financial markets are not calming down,” said Eric Talley, a corporate law professor at Columbia Law School, who cited ...