About Us

Woolery & Co was established in 2020 under the leadership of James C. Woolery (Jim), a distinguished former Cravath Senior Partner, J.P. Morgan Co-Head of Mergers & Acquisitions and hedge fund co-founder. Backed by Mr. Woolery's experience advising on over $1.5 Trillion in transactions, we are a strategic advisory firm specializing in highly tailored legal and transactional advice. Our unwavering focus extends to high-stakes corporate and legal matters, covering a spectrum of capabilities including mergers & acquisitions, shareholder activism and hostile takeovers, corporate governance and shareholder engagement, direct investing, bet-the-company and corporate governance dispute litigation, crisis management and media relations and pre-IPO restructuring and recapitalization.

Mr. Woolery has advised on some of the most complex and noteworthy corporate matters over the last two decades including the Xerox $34 Billion takeover bid for HP, TSYS $54 Billion merger with Global Payments, Dell $24.4 Billion leveraged buyout, Air Products tender offer and proxy fight for Airgas and TXU Energy $48 Billion leveraged buyout.

What sets Woolery & Co apart is our distinctive approach - our fundamental structure is to remain lean and focused on unique matters, relationship capital and optimized outcomes. Our industry-leading proprietary network of family offices, investors and transactional specialists allows Woolery & Co to facilitate capital introductions, assist in the selection of other advisors and deliver premium scale and execution to any complex corporate or legal matter. This ensures our clients benefit from the collective knowledge and talents of the best in the industry.

We do not aspire to replace existing law firms or financial advisors. Instead, Woolery & Co offers an added advantage to all groups by bringing strategic relationships and deal expertise as a collaborator. Woolery & Co fits neatly into and drives synergies amongst the network of deal advisors by leading the commercial strategy and ensuring each advisor is deployed in a targeted manner in line with their expertise and the client's goals. This distinctive approach streamlines the complexities inherent in high-stakes matters and ensures the work product remains organized and cost-effective.

Our client base includes institutional funds, public and private corporations, founders and large-name family offices, all of whom benefit from our ability to navigate bespoke situations. Unlike larger firms, Woolery & Co maintains independence, operating free from the conflicts often encountered in the industry. Our results-based billing model enables the firm to be truly aligned with our clients and the transaction. 

At the helm of Woolery & Co is Jim Woolery, a seasoned professional with decades of experience in navigating high-stakes transactions. His leadership ensures that our team brings unparalleled expertise to every engagement, providing nuanced and strategic advice tailored to the unique demands of our clients and the industries we operate in. 

  • We bring a high-quality proprietary network of subject matter specialists, regional experts and other non-legal advisors to deliver premium scale and execution.

  • We have served as advisors and principals at some of the most prestigious firms, including Cravath, Skadden and J.P. Morgan advising on many of the most complex and high stakes legal, financial and activist contests of the past two decades.

  • Our proprietary network extends to 50+ SFO’s, institutional funds and investment professionals, allowing us to add value through potential capital introductions and fundraising. We do not act as a broker dealer but are able to make valuable and unique introductions for clients where helpful.

  • With a unique combination of legal, banking and investment experience, we are singularly focused on delivering independent advice that meaningfully impacts our clients most important business goals alongside all advisors on each matter.

  • Our firm is lean by design and, alongside our valued affiliate advisors, can scale up to any and all matters ranging in size and complexity. Our streamlined model works as an asset to our partner firms, enabling us to have a senior-level partner on each deal alongside them working in collaboration.

Firm Collaboration

We routinely collaborate with clients’ existing legal, strategic and financial service providers. Given our unique role as strategic advisor, Woolery & Co is accretive to and does not seek to displace other firms. Instead, our team acts as an added advantage, bringing strategic relationships and deal expertise as a partner.

Our extensive, proprietary Firm rolodex is made accessible to our clients to facilitate capital introductions, assist in the selection of other advisors and deliver premium scale and execution to any matter. The firm highly values our relationships with outside law firms, industry leading financial advisors and consultants, all of whom we regularly work closely with to our clients’ advantage.

Consider Woolery & Co as a strategic project leader - bridging connections with, and driving value from, each project stakeholder. The result is a merger of boutique advice with high-quality scale on a targeted basis to create a best-in-class and bespoke advisor group.

Several case studies with proprietary material regarding our prior collaborations are available and can be provided upon request.

Value-Driven Model

Unlike most law firms, Woolery & Co operates under a success-oriented fee model, not an hourly model, aligning the firm directly with the client and their success.

Backed by our team’s experience, we start with the client, permitting a step by step, person by person approach, which allows for increased efficiency and lower costs. Leveraging our world-class Firm rolodex, Woolery & Co is also able to build a bespoke team for each client and project, mitigating unnecessary costs and timing delay associated with one-stop shopping. Cost savings is part of our strategic legal advice, adding material and accretive value for law departments, CEOs and investors.

Senior Level Focus

We intentionally limit which clients we represent and which matters we advise on, such that Senior Partner level focus is dedicated to each project.

This helps lower overhead as we do not use boilerplate as a starting point, there is no large deal team to pass through and no junior associate training costs.

Creative Freedom

We are not primarily responsible for large scale diligence and document production teams.

This allows us to focus on commercial deal points only, thus avoiding a boiler plate approach and related costs.

Holistic Perspective

We have experience as investors, bankers, corporate development executives and lawyers.

This provides us with extensive business development contacts and allows us to increase output from other team members by ensuring we have client-aligned personnel and billing.

Results-Oriented

We have a track record of defining and driving execution to key milestones and solutions.

This creates overall cost savings, a stated goal of ours, derived from our focus on results rather than aggregate hours and volume.