Professors join law school faculty

David Case (JD 88) is no stranger to the UM School of Law, having studied the craft in some of the very rooms in which he will now be teaching. After law school, Case served as a clerk in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. After working at Ott & Purdy Law Firm in Jackson for seven years, Case made the transition from practicing to teaching.

“I decided to go into teaching because of my desire for an academic career,” Case said.

While earning a Ph.D. in interdisciplinary studies in environmental law, management and policy at Vanderbilt University, Case was a Bridgestone Americas Fellow in environmental management and a research associate with the Vanderbilt Center for Environmental Management Studies (VCEMS). Case has been on the faculty of the University Of Memphis School of Law for the past six years.

Case will be teaching environmental law, environmental torts, property and civil procedure.

He and his wife Catherine (BA 87), have four children: R.J., Jane Costner, Sarah Catherine and Sam.

Teaching law and living in the South are new experiences for Ben Cooper and his family.

Hailing from Philadelphia, Pa., Cooper said he put a lot of thought into making the move to Mississippi.

“It is a big decision, but I really wanted to teach, and we loved Oxford,” he said.

Cooper received his law degree from the University of Chicago law school in 1997. He then clerked for a judge on the 3rd Circuit
Court of Appeals before working at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., for three years. He also worked at the law
firms of Kirkland & Ellis in New York and Pepper Hamilton in Philadelphia. It was during his work at the firms that he became interested in legal ethics.

“The article I’m working on has to do with lawyers’ responsibility to report their malpractice to their clients if any occurs,” Cooper
said. “And my focus will be generally on ethical issues affecting large law firms.”

Cooper is conducting a seminar on college and university law as well as teaching Property in the fall; he will also teach Professional
Responsibilities and Civil Procedure in the spring.

Cooper and his wife, Michelle, who is working on her Ph. D. in music therapy from Temple University, have two young sons, Noah and Nathaniel.