How Richard M. Cooper Achieved Success as a Partner of Williams & Connolly

Summary

Richard M. Cooper is a partner at the prestigious law firm, Williams & Connolly LLP. He is an experienced trial lawyer and acts as counsel on a wide variety of litigation matters. Cooper specializes in complex, high-stakes litigation with a particular focus on white-collar criminal defense and government investigations.


Cooper's practice focuses on several areas and he has extensive experience in the areas of healthcare fraud and abuse, corporate compliance and internal investigations, FCPA and antitrust investigations, and False Claims Act litigation. He has also developed a national reputation for his work in the white-collar criminal defense and government investigations.

Cooper has helped many clients navigate the complex landscape of government investigations and has handled a variety of cases, from defending corporations and individuals in internal and grand jury investigations to trying cases in a variety of jurisdictions. He regularly appears as counsel in civil and criminal proceedings in state and federal courts and before regulatory and administrative agencies. Cooper also routinely advises corporate clients on compliance issues and on matters of corporate governance.

In addition to his legal practice, Cooper also serves on the board of directors of several Washington D.C. area non-profit organizations, including the Global Peace Partnerships, which promotes stability and the development of civil society in fragile states. He also serves on the executive committee of George Washington University Law School's Alumni Council and is a former board member of the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility.

Richard M. Cooper is a highly respected and sought-after trial lawyer and partner at the prestigious law firm of Williams & Connolly LLP. Cooper's practice specializes in high-stakes, complex litigation with an emphasis on white-collar criminal defense, government investigations, healthcare fraud and abuse, corporate compliance and internal investigations, FCPA and antitrust investigations, and False Claims Act litigation. He regularly appears as counsel in state and federal courts and before regulatory and administrative agencies. In addition to his legal practice, Cooper serves on several non-profit boards and the executive committee of George Washington University Law School's Alumni Council.
 

Richard M. Cooper, Partner at Williams & Connolly

Richard M. Cooper is a partner at Williams & Connolly, a well-established law firm known for its litigation practice. Originally established in 1969, Williams & Connolly has grown to become one of the leading law firms in the United States.

Mr. Cooper is a graduate of Harvard Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Harvard Law Review. Prior to joining Williams & Connolly, he was a partner at the law firm of Mayer Brown.

Mr. Cooper's practice primarily focuses on complex civil litigation, with an emphasis on class action, labor and employment, and complex commercial litigation. He has also represented clients in a variety of arbitration matters, including international arbitrations.

Mr. Cooper has represented a variety of clients in his legal career, ranging from major technology companies and corporate boards of directors to governmental entities and nonprofit organizations. His experience and knowledge allow him to provide high-level legal advice in a wide range of industries and practice areas.

Mr. Cooper is an experienced litigator who has successfully represented clients in numerous high-profile cases. He has appeared before state and federal courts, arbitral panels, and administrative agencies in the United States and abroad. He has also been involved in mediation and arbitration proceedings in many areas of the law, including public-sector labor disputes, international trade disputes, and class action matters.

<<Making partner at Williams & Connolly LLP is the dream of many attorneys. When Richard Cooper earned the distinction in 1977, he had little time to bask in his success. Just a few weeks later, duty called and Mr. Cooper joined President Jimmy Carter's administration, focusing on energy policy under former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, who went on to head up the Department of Energy when it was created in October 1977. At the same time, ''there was a very attractive job at FDA, which I was offered and took,'' Mr. Cooper said. ''I became the chief counsel at FDA at the beginning of October of 1977.''

Mr. Cooper said that moving into public service was an easy choice. He had started his career as a law clerk to Associate Justice William Brennan in the United States Supreme Court in 1969. After that, he knew he would return to working in public service one day. When the White House Energy Office was dissolved to create the new department, Mr. Cooper weighed his career options.

He stayed with the Food and Drug Administration until 1979, and that experience bolstered Mr. Cooper's future practice as a food and drug expert. Although he is often mentioned in the press as a ''tobacco attorney,'' Mr. Cooper says that is a small part of his practice and he has only worked on a few cases involving tobacco.

''The tobacco work came in simply as part of the food and drug practice,'' he said. ''I was representing the industry in a particular case in which FDA was taking a position contrary to the position it had taken for many years and indeed had taken when I was at the agency. And so, as a matter of food and drug law, I thought we had the correct position. I was not taking a position on smoking more generally.''

Mr. Cooper, who grew up in Philadelphia, says the law was always a profession that interested him, but that he also considered a career in academics.

''[Becoming a lawyer] was always something in my mind because my father was a lawyer,'' he said. ''But I was a philosophy major in college and studied philosophy, politics, and economics at Oxford, and I seriously considered becoming an academic. I was particularly interested in moral philosophy as a student and thought of it as a set of values, principles, and rules for social living. And I concluded that it was transferable as a way of thinking to law, and that law would open up opportunities for practical use that would be less readily available to me as an academic.''

So after Oxford, Mr. Cooper enrolled in Harvard Law School, where he graduated summa cum laude in 1969.

After clerking for Justice Brennan, Mr. Cooper spent a year in Africa working for the Ugandan government, helping with legal development in the country. When he returned to the United States, he joined Williams & Connolly. He is now working on various cases involving arbitration and drug pricing and a case involving Plan B, the so-called morning-after pill. Mr. Cooper is representing the maker of Plan B, and the FDA is now considering whether to allow the emergency contraceptive to be sold over the counter with age restrictions.

Mr. Cooper says he expects a decision before the end of the year. Although Washington has grown more conservative since the recent elections, Mr. Cooper does not think the FDA will be swayed by politics in its decision making on Plan B.

''I think FDA will call it as it sees it on its merits and that leaves me optimistic,'' he said. ''The FDA has a statute to administer, subject to Congressional oversight and judicial review and of course commentary by the press and the public. And I think under whatever administration is in office, FDA historically has driven hard to call it as it sees them and to apply the law even handedly. It's not completely immune from tides of public opinion and policies of an administration. But the statute it administers comes first.''

Mr. Cooper urges young attorneys to consider public service. If they have law school debts to pay off, work in a big firm for a few years and then consider public service. He says the ''opportunity of public service trumps'' any financial sacrifice.

''You learn a lot of things when you serve in the government,'' he said. ''If you're in an agency, you learn how the agency works internally, although that evolves over time. You also learn how that agency interacts with other agencies and with the Congress, press, the Executive Office of the President. And you see the agency side of dealing with the entities, the trade associations, and their lawyers. So you understand a network of relationships, and that is useful whether you stay in the government or go into private practice or become an academic or take any other position that involves dealing with or commenting on the work of the agency.''

Because Mr. Cooper is a Democrat, he doubts he will return to public service any time soon. He was chief counsel of the credentials committee at the 1976 Democratic National Convention.

Mr. Cooper, who taught food and drug law at Georgetown University Law Center from 1987-1992 and 1996 and has written widely in the field, says it is important for attorneys to work in as many different areas as possible. He says his experience in all three branches of government has added more credibility to his private practice. Food and drug law, he said, will continue to be a high-profile area of law.

''I think it's a fascinating field. It brings together law and public policy, science and medicine, public health protection, consumer protection,'' he said. ''It is an area of significant public interest. People care about what goes into their bodies and onto their bodies and what's used to treat illnesses of their bodies and minds.''

Mr. Cooper said it is not necessary for attorneys to have science backgrounds to be good food and drug attorneys, but that they must be willing to ''grapple with scientific issues and learn how scientists think and how physicians think, how they approach problems and not to be deterred from diving into those issues.''

Mr. Cooper said it's important for attorneys to learn from every case and that education doesn't stop after law school.

''That's one of the benefits of being a litigator brings is that you see different areas of human activity, and you deal with people in different kinds of situations in life, different activities and different functions and the society,'' he said. ''And I think it's important to develop different kinds of skills for use as a lawyer. I think doing a variety of things helps you do all of them.''

The best experience for private practice, he said, can be working in public service.

''People who have not been in public service may not appreciate its full joys. It can be very exciting, very rewarding, in a non-financial way, and it can give immense satisfaction to serve the public interest,'' he said. ''And I think that is more-than-adequate compensation for the financial sacrifice one makes. It may not be something people can do until they pay off their debt. But if people have the opportunity to be in the government and to think really hard about what is best for the public, it is an exhilarating experience.''