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Rachel Proffitt has worked on some of the biggest Bay Area IPOs in recent decades. The CEO of Cooley thinks we'll soon see a whole lot more.
Anyone who’s faced a moment of self-doubt could take solace from Rachel Proffitt.
The partner and CEO of global law firm Cooley, has advised some of the biggest companies in the world and worked on some of the largest Bay Area initial public offerings in recent decades.
Proffitt took the top job at Cooley in January 2024, yet in the early years of her career she carried a phobia not typically associated with the cut-and-thrust of the legal profession.
“I like to tell people now that even some years into being a lawyer, I was truly terrified of public speaking,” Proffitt said.
By taking increasingly large steps outside her comfort zone Proffitt was able to conquer that fear and build a stellar legal career. She joined Cooley in 2017, after spending 15 years at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.
Founded in San Francisco in 1920, Cooley has carved a niche advising clients on tech, intellectual property, venture capital and IPOs. It’s a global firm with strong local roots, reflected in a clientbase rich with tech and life science firms. According to PitchBook data, Cooley ranks near the top for law firms with AI transactions.
With market conditions potentially becoming more bullish for IPO watchers in 2025, Cooley appears well positioned to continue its record of helping companies go public. And in Proffitt, the firm has a leader who doesn’t just talk a good game.
You’ve been in San Francisco since 1999, how do you reflect on how the city has changed since then? I’ve watched it turn into a mecca of venture capital and startup land. It’s changed as a lot of folks exited the city but there are still some big behemoths.
AI has been great for the city. I think it’s injected new life. It’s brought people back, particularly the types of companies that believe that having people in the office is critical, that we can’t just do all this on a headquarter-less, office-less, basis.
How do you feel about the impact of AI on the legal profession? It is undeniably going to change the way we approach both the business of law and the delivery of legal services. We’ve all seen these embarrassing articles where people ran unchecked and headlong into it and embarrassed themselves. It’s really nascent and while it seems like it’s doing all the things, it is still very imperfect. But that’s the beauty of it. In my mind, you still have lawyers and humans who can oversee it and play with it and hopefully gain efficiency, which is what we’re all moving towards, but definitely, nothing to be trusted blindly.
There’s a lot of buzz around AI valuations, what does the IPO landscape look like? For the first time since we’ve found ourselves in this trough, we have banks and underwriters feeling optimistic, or more optimistic than they have, about 2025 and that feels good, because that means it’s not just us crossing our fingers and hoping for the best. We obviously spend a lot of time in boardrooms where folks talk about IPO readiness and at what point they’re going to need to access the capital markets.
I think it’s safe to say that we have a good pipeline of folks that are primed to take advantage of a 2025 IPO window, should it open. And I think there is a lot of optimism and hope that it will, on the tech side.
What would you want your leadership to be remembered for? As a time when we were seeking the highest levels of ascendancy without losing our way. To me, not losing our way is part and parcel with being good to each other, doing right by each other, doing right by our clients, doing right by the community, basically being good humans. And I don’t know that that is an ethos that is necessarily a norm in our profession, but I would like it to remain a norm within Cooley.
What advice do you have for lawyers coming up today? Don’t be afraid to push yourself.
To do this job, to do it at the levels at which Cooley plays, you have to also really want to do it and dedicate your time and energy to it. It’s not a nine to five, and our clients don’t expect it to be a nine to five. It’s got to be a fire in the belly moment. This is not a thing to just add to a resume. You’ve really got to actually deeply desire to do it.
How did you move beyond your fear of public speaking? I’d be lying if I told you it was totally gone. I got up on stage last week in front of our whole partnership, around 400 people, and I was pretty damn nervous, but I think it went OK.
You have to give yourself permission to try and fail, and to know that if you don’t get yourself out of that comfort zone, you may be putting yourself under a ceiling.
In my case, it was not because I had grand ambitions of becoming some masterful public speaker. It was because I wanted to be the best I could be at what I was doing. As you progress as a lawyer, one of the things you will necessarily have to do is stand in front of at least a boardroom full of people and sometimes talk about really hard things.
I saw that there was a choice: Am I OK with the ceiling? With being a bag carrier, being a number two? Or if I really want to stand in those rooms and to be the first chair, that first phone call and the person that folks can rely upon to be their advocate, to help them solve problems?
For most of us, we can get through those things, but you have to be willing to push, for it to be uncomfortable and to know that on the other side of some decently uncomfortable times there will be a place of calm and and better.
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