Paula Holland > Cooley (UK) LLP > London, England > Lawyer Profile

Cooley (UK) LLP Offices

Cooley (UK) LLP
22 Bishopsgate
LONDON
EC2N 4BQ
England
Visit website 020 7583 4055 020 7785 9355

Living Wage

Paula Holland

Paula Holland photo
+44 (0) 20 7583 4055 pholland@cooley.com View profile

Work Department

Compensation & Benefits
Emerging Companies
Fintech
Life Sciences

Position

Paula Holland has over 20 years of experience in executive compensation and equity incentive issues both domestically in the UK and internationally. Her wide-ranging transactional and advisory practice is focused particularly on technology and life science companies. She has worked with clients ranging from start-ups to multi-nationals, both public and private, headquartered around the world. She regularly advises on the exporting of US and UK equity plans to multiple jurisdictions and can give strategic advice on the tax, securities laws and employment law issues in over 60 countries. Paula also assist remuneration committees in their determinations relating to retention and incentive arrangements for board members and senior management. 

Paula is a partner in Cooley’s London office and is a member of the compensation & benefits practice group.

Career

Prior to joining the firm, Paula spent eight years as a partner at WilmerHale. Prior to WilmerHale, she co-founded the Shearman & Sterling executive compensation and employee benefits practice in London, having spent 10 years in the London office of Freshfields.

Education

  • Queen Mary University
    LLM, 1995
  • Chester College of Law
    LSF, 1993
  • University of Oxford
    MA, 1992

Lawyer Rankings

London > Employment > Employee share schemes

Praised by clients for the ability to ‘cover a wide range of countries and situations’, Cooley (UK) LLP frequently advises on the employee schemes aspects of large M&A transactions, and establishes new share plans for tech and life science companies. Additionally, the team frequently advises the boards of public and private companies on directors’ pay and hirings. Practice head Paula Holland sports extensive transactional expertise extending to UK and US IPOs. Nicola Squire, who was promoted to partner in January 2023, has longstanding experience in advising clients on private equity transactions and M&A. Bethan Chalmers has deep knowledge of share-based and cash-based incentive arrangements for employees and executives. Jia Xie is a key name to note.

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