As the tech market continues to boom in New York, Cooley has added Greenberg Traurig M&A partner Meredith Beuchaw to its global mergers and acquisitions practice, the firm announced Monday.
So much of what I do is in the tech and innovation space, and to me this is the place [to] further build out my practice, Beuchaw said in an interview.
Beuchaw began her career at White & Case in 2006 before making the move to Greenberg in 2015. With a background in M&A and counseling corporate and private equity clients on investments, divestitures and other related work, Beuchaw now specializes in technology acquisitions and sales.
Over the last couple of years, my practice has gone more and more in the direction of tech and innovation, and that is Cooley s main focus, Beuchaw said.
With clients on both coasts, Beuchaw, who tapped legal recruiter Mark Rosen for her move, said that she anticipates working closely with Cooley s West Coast lawyers.
Competition has been heating up among law firms to capture work in the budding New York technology and start-up scene, which is still far behind Silicon Valley but which benefits from its proximity to Wall Street capital.
Earlier this year, Fenwick & West made its first major hire in its New York offices, which opened up in 2016, bringing on transactional partner Ethan Skerry from Lowenstein Sandler. In April, the San Francisco-based firm brought on Jeffrey Greene, vice chair of Foley & Lardner s intellectual property group. Goodwin Procter added Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian of counsel Salil Gandhi as partner to its technology companies group last week.
We see the New York tech space really starting to grow up to be on the same level as the West coast, Beuchaw said. There are plenty of Cooley clients here who will be looking to exit via IPO or sales to strategic or financial acquirers, but we also see the East Coast tech clients growing to the size where they re doing their own acquisitions now.