Ben Cooper is the Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and the Frank Montague, Jr. Professor of Legal Studies and Professionalism at the University of Mississippi School of Law.
A member of the faculty since 2007, Professor Cooper currently teaches Legal Profession and Civil Procedure. He writes, speaks and consults on legal ethics and the law governing lawyers. Professor Cooper is the co-author (along with R. Michael Cassidy, John P. Sahl & Margaret C. Tarkington) of a Wolters Kluwer casebook entitled Professional Responsibility in Focus now in its second edition. Professor Cooper’s scholarship has appeared in a variety of journals, including the Wake Forest Law Review, the Cardozo Law Review, the Cincinnati Law Review, the Baylor Law Review, Legal Ethics, and The Professional Lawyer.
Professor Cooper is an American Bar Foundation Fellow. He has served as a member of the Mississippi Bar’s Ethics Committee and as the United States Reporter for the Reports, Comments and Notes Section of the international journal Legal Ethics. He is past Chair of the Association of Association of Law Schools (AALS) Section on Professional Responsibility and previously served as a member of the Mississippi Supreme Court Advisory Committee on Rules. In 2016-2017, Professor Cooper was Co-Reporter for the ABA Commission on the Future of Legal Services. View the Commission’s Final Report.
Before joining the faculty, Professor Cooper practiced law in both the public and private sector. After graduating from law school, he served as a law clerk for the Honorable Anthony J. Scirica of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Professor Cooper then joined the United States Department of Justice via the Department’s Honor Program and, from 1998-2001, was a Trial Attorney in the Federal Programs Branch of the Civil Division, where he defended the legality of federal statutes and programs. From 2001 until he joined the faculty in 2007, Professor Cooper practiced commercial litigation and higher education law in the private sector, first at Kirkland & Ellis in New York and then at Pepper Hamilton in Philadelphia, and gained admission to the partnership at each firm.
Professor Cooper received his B.A. with honors from Amherst College in 1994 and his J.D. with honors from the University of Chicago Law School in 1997, where he was a member of the editorial board of the University of Chicago Law Review.
Education
J.D., University of Chicago
B.A., Amherst College
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