04/20/92
CONTACT: Stanford University News Service (650) 723-2558
STANFORD -- For the third straight year, Stanford Law School's leading scholarly journal, Stanford Law Review, will have an African American president.
The incoming president, who was elected by fellow members of the student-edited Review, is Christopher Cooper, 25, of Orlando, Fla.
Popularly known as Casey, Cooper graduated from Yale in 1988 with highest honors (summa cum laude) and membership in the national academic honor society, Phi Beta Kappa.
He spent two years after college as a research analyst with Strategic Planning Associates, a management consulting firm in Washington, D.C.
Since entering Stanford Law School in the fall of 1990, Cooper has volunteered for the East Palo Alto Community Law Project, serving as co-chair of the student steering committee and member of the legal aid service's board of directors.
At the same time he has been the law school's senator to the Stanford University student government, a member and political chair for the law school's Black Law Students Association, and a participant in a local elementary school tutoring program.
Cooper already has been offered and has accepted a prestigious judicial clerkship for the year following his graduation in 1993. He will be clerking for Judge Abner Mikva, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.
Last summer, Cooper was a student intern with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. in Washington, D.C., where he researched various fair-housing cases.
He also spent time in San Francisco as a summer associate with the law firm of Heller, Ehrman, White & McAuliffe.
While in San Francisco, he wrote a courtroom drama, The Trial of Salieri, which was performed at the San Francisco Symphony's Mozart Festival.
As president of Stanford Law Review, Cooper will have ultimate responsibility for all administrative, financial and editorial aspects of the influential law journal.
"Stanford Law Review has the potential to make a direct and immediate impact on legal thought and practice," he said recently.
"It should seek out novel ideas, new approaches, provocative arguments and controversial topics, no matter their source or ideological bent."
The African American students who immediately preceded Cooper as president of the Review were Derek Anthony "Tony" West (1991-92) and Shauna Jackson (1990-91).
The first black student to hold the post was Vaughn C. Williams (1968-69), now a partner in the New York law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.
Stanford Law School has a diverse student body with nearly 40 percent of enrollment consisting of members of ethnic minority groups. Approximately 10 percent of current students are African American.
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