Monica Cooper > The Lanier Law Firm > Houston, United States > Lawyer Profile

Monica Cooper

713-659-5200

Work Department

Member of The lanier Law Firm trial team.  She is also engaged in product liability, personal injury, pharmaceutical liability among other practice groups.

Position

Attorney

Career

As an Assistant District Attorney with the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office in Conroe, Texas, she was a chief of the domestic violence division. As chief, she worked to restructure the division to better address emergency response and intake within the first 24-72 hours after the crime. She was also a member of the Vehicular Crimes Team, where she responded to the scenes of intoxication manslaughter and assault crimes.

Before becoming a prosecutor, she was an associate in the labor and employment division at Locke Lord LLP in Houston. Her work there included EEOC complaint responses for corporations and handling misappropriation of trade secret and conversion cases. As an associate, her pro bono work included representing indigent clients in a social security administration hearings to obtain disability benefits.

Most recently, Ms. Cooper was an integral part of The Lanier Law Firm trial team that achieved a groundbreaking verdict in which a jury awarded $4.69 billion to 22 women and their families who alleged that decades of daily use of Johnson & Johnson’s (NYSE: JNJ) asbestos-laden talcum powder products caused their ovarian cancer.

Memberships

She is a member of the Houston Bar Association.  She was a Chief Symposium Editor of THE REVIEW OF LITIGATION, Volume 31 (2009-2011), a member and Historian of the Black Law Students Association and further served as a mentor in The University of Texas School of Law Society Program from 2009-2011.  Ms. Cooper also served as a Teaching Assistant for Professor Sarah Buel (First Year Criminal Law Course) in 2009.

Education

Ms. Cooper completed her undergraduate work at The University of Texas in Austin, earning a B.A. in Sociology with Highest Honors.  She was also a member of Phi Beta Kappa.  She then completed her J.D., with honors, from University of Texas School of Law, as well. Her student attorney work included representing indigent defendants charged with misdemeanors and acting as attorney ad litem for children in cases in which the State sought custody or termination of parental rights based on allegations of abuse and neglect.  She was also a member of The University of Texas Interscholastic Mock Trial Team 2009-2011, where she was selected to compete every eligible semester.

Other honors, during this time, included being named to the International Academy of Trial Lawyers Award (Best Mock Trial Advocate in Graduating Class), Order of Barristers (Top Ten Advocates in Graduating Class), the Thurgood Marshall Mock Trial Competition 2010, Regional Champion & National Semi-finalist, the Stanley P. & Claudie P. Wilson Presidential Scholarship 2010 (Best Second-Year Advocate), the Strasburger & Price Senior Honors Mock Trial Competition 2011, Champion, the Voir Dire Competition 2011, Champion and the Thad T. Hutcheson Moot Court Competition 2009, Octofinalist.