Rosenberg Law Alumni Spotlight: James “Jim” Woolery (Class of 1994)

James “Jim” Woolery (Class of 1994) says to look no further than the University of Kentucky J. David Rosenberg College of Law if you want practical experience.

To his eyes, the most beneficial part of receiving his degree from UK was the practicality of the education. “Attorneys need to be able to talk to CEOs and clients in lay terms and put together exec. summaries that non-lawyer trained people can understand. You can’t get through UK law without learning how to talk to ‘normal’ people. That gave me a professional edge.”

Originally from Ashland, KY, Woolery received his undergraduate degree from Wake Forest University but returned to Kentucky for law school. He says his plan was always to go into law and business.

Woolery has served as an advisor and principal at some of the world’s most prestigious firms, advising on many of the most complex and high stakes legal, financial, media and shareholder activist contests of the past two decades.

While still at law school, he interned at Cravath, Swaine and Moore LLP in New York City. After graduation in 1994, he worked for them for 17 years, making partner in 2002. He then went to work at JPMorgan Chase as their co-head of the North American Mergers and Acquisitions team. He later co-founded Hudson Executive Capital and worked for King & Spalding LLP as Head of M&A, Shareholder Activism and Corporate Governance.

Over the course of his career, Woolery has worked on several of the largest mergers, spin offs, joint ventures and LBOs of our time, including:

• leveraged buyout of TXU (largest in history at the time)
• the first public company M&A transaction between the U.S. and China – IBM’s sale of its Thinkpad Personal Computer business to Lenovo
• LBOs of J. Crew, Michaels Stores, Manor Care, The Container Store
• Affiliated Computer Services’ $6.4 Billion sale to Xerox Corp., resulting in the standard “Xerox language” for acquisition financing
• the Air Products/Airgas hostile takeover battle which resulted in the seminal Delaware poison pill case law in Airgas I and Airgas II.

Currently, Woolery serves as the founder of Woolery & Co – a boutique firm that specializes in highly tailored legal and transactional advice respecting high-stakes corporate and legal matters across a spectrum of capabilities.

Favorite Professor:  Bob Lawson – He was deeply experienced and had a lot of direct experience that he taught in his classes.

Best Memory:  Getting his job at Cravath in New York City. Jim was the first student from UK to be hired by Cravath for summer work and was offered a full-time job before beginning his 3L year.

Hardest Part:  Bar Exam. I realized after studying for the New York bar with friends from different law schools that my education was truer to the real-life practice of law – a more “grounded training” that involved a lot of common sense.

Biggest Surprise: Professional environment. The classes and students are more professional not just because of the higher degree but also because the students are more experienced, and the faculty treat them as experienced adults.

Proudest Accomplishment: All the people I’ve trained and worked with – especially the folks I’ve been able to help. I’ve had a lot of firsts in my work. But the people that benefit from those firsts are the most important reason for my work.

Best Advice:  There is a lot of breadth and depth to career opportunities once you have a law degree. Just because you go to law school does not mean you work in a court room. Law school teaches you how to think and those skills are transferable to any industry in our economy.