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How many years have you been practicing?
You want to reverse engineer my age, do you? I was admitted to the bar the same year as the Bankruptcy Code was enacted and took my first bankruptcy case in 1980. It was a stunningly successful fluke, because a classmate and I had opened our own office right out of school. Because the Code was so new, I quickly knew as much or more bankruptcy law as most of the generalists around me and my rookie quality was not so obvious.
Who is your mentor – who do you look up to professionally?
Edward Kent got me started in bankruptcy and gave generously of his time to sharpen my approach. His example fired my venture with BankruptcyMastery.com to try in turn to teach the next generation of bankruptcy lawyers.
I have a NACBA posse that I go to when I need to be dragged off a ledge, or have an idea vetted: Wayne Silver, Doug Jacobs, and Jay Fleischman. Their email addresses constitute an email list called “Brain Trust.”
Three others stand out: Dan Press, John Rao, and Tara Twomey. Their input on an issue is invaluable.
What is your favorite part of being a consumer bankruptcy attorney?
Two things about this practice stand out. The first is the incredible complexity of federal law laid over state law in the equally complex world of people's lives. You keep seeing new issues and interactions, and wonder why the hell haven't I seen and considered that before.
The second is the ability to make an almost immediate and significant improvement in the lives of clients. What could be better?
The garnish on those favorites is the character of the bankruptcy bar and bench. Courtesy and compromise are nigh on to universal.
Name an area of the law that you’d like to learn more about:
I'm adding student loan work to my legal quiver, with a hand from Josh Cohen. I would love to do more purely consumer law work, till I remember how draining litigation is.
Most memorable moment in NACBA:
The first time I spoke at a NACBA convention. I was so gratified that I had something to add that people were polite enough to listen to.
In another life, you’d be……
Well the two things I almost was include a participant in government/politics/public service. I worked on staff to two (unsuccessful) Congressional campaigns. My brother Chris Cooper is likewise bitten with the public service bug and was a colleague of our lobbyist Jon Yaralsky (sp?) on the staff of the House Judiciary Committee.
The second career I just missed was in newspapers and publishing. I'm really a journalist at heart: witness BankruptcyinBrief.com; BankruptcySoapbox.com; and BankruptcyMastery.com.
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