Miles B. Cooper

Compassion combined with trial experience, strategy, risk assessment, passionate communication, growth, relentless pursuit, and community involvement. These tools live at the top of Miles’s toolbox. How do they help solve problems?

Compassion: By embracing those who come to the firm for help, Miles takes uncertainty’s stress off their shoulders. This begins by listening to their concerns, educating them about the process, taking control of the situation, and thus allowing them to focus on their healing. Miles understands uncertainty’s anxiety-provoking nature through life experience. When the Coopers’ daughter was just shy of her third birthday, doctors found a rare lung cancer. The family spent her third birthday and several weeks thereafter in the pediatric ICU, a 24-hour fishbowl of poking, prodding, beeps, and whirs. Surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation, and feeding tubes – a year’s worth of medical adventures followed. Thankfully, she survived and thrives. This personal struggle through trauma, risk, uncertainty, reliance on medical professionals’ input, challenge, and ultimately success informs the Coopers’ compassionate approach with clients.

Trial experience: If compassion is the alpha, trial experience is the lawyer’s omega. Trial skills are becoming a dying art though, with 98% of civil cases settling. Miles sought out trials, building his skills and reputation early on. As a result, at age 39 he was admitted to the American Board of Trial Advocates, an invitation-only organization that admits trial lawyers based on their trial skills, ethics, and civility. Other lawyers who have not had the opportunity to be in trial regularly ask he and the team to take over cases shortly before trial.

The firm will do everything in its power to affect a great settlement. While the firm loves trial, trials carry higher risk and stress for clients. The team achieves great settlements by demonstrating trial readiness. If the other side does not step up, Miles and the team pour every available resource into winning through trial.

Strategy: Every situation has moving parts, frequently multi-layered and complex. Using decades of experience and a team case strategy session, Miles, Maryanne, and the team develop a targeted case plan. The plan provides a road map to victory while regular case meetings provide opportunities to counter any shifts in the other side’s tactics. Through creativity, the team shuns blunt litigation trauma unless absolutely necessary, instead finding nimble ways to resolution.

Risk assessment: Balancing settlement versus trial requires detailed risk assessment. Risk assessment is a 360-degree operation uniquely tailored to an individual client’s risk tolerance. Some people are compelled to tell their story to a jury, others prefer to accept a settlement to avoid the stomach-churning uncertainty of having strangers decide their fate. Miles and the team provide the tools and information for clients to fully assess risk and help them make the right decisions for themselves. Sometimes that’s trial. Sometimes not.

Passionate communication: As a writer, speaker, and communicator, Miles absorbs information, distills it, and presents it persuasively to decisionmakers. The communication style he employs – simple, straightforward, and heartfelt – is the same winning method used by the team to help others comprehend the full extent of harm people have suffered. He shares this approach with others in the legal community through his legal practice column, Back Story, which has educated and entertained Plaintiff magazine’s readers monthly for over 10 years.

Growth: The world is a dynamic environment, and life is learning and expansion. Miles embraces this, using every opportunity to expand skills, knowledge, and awareness. That quest extends to the rest of the team. Miles and Maryanne make sure everyone at Coopers LLP are constantly challenged, constantly growing, and constantly learning. This translates into the best possible team deploying creative and effective methods to win for the firm’s clients.

Relentless pursuit: Miles’s compassion for those suffering hardship because of others’ thoughtless acts drives his relentless pursuit of wrongdoers. Every angle gets considered, every step gets taken, every path gets pursued. The relentless drive for justice does not stop until the team achieves the best possible result.

Community involvement: For the world to improve, people must do their part. Miles makes his contributions through legal aid volunteer work, active transportation advocacy, and reducing his footprint. Miles has been a regular legal aid clinic and Project Homeless Connect volunteer with the Bar Association of San Francisco’s Justice and Diversity Center since 2007. He advocates for improved bicycle, pedestrian, and transit safety and access, transportation methods known as active transportation. He believes physical health, emotional health, environmental health, and quality of life improves as we become less car dependent. To that extent, he and Maryanne live car-free with their two children, relying primarily on a cargo bike for shopping and transportation.

University of San Francisco School of Law
San Francisco, California, J.D., 2000
Academic Distinction:

• American Jurisprudence Award, Maritime Insurance, 1999

University of California Berkeley
Berkeley, California, B.A., 1995

• California, 2000
• U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, 2000
• U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, 2000
• U.S. District Court, Central District of California, 2008
• U.S. District Court, Eastern District of California, 2012
• Washington, 2022
• Oregon, 2022

• American Board of Trial Advocates
• American Association for Justice
• American Bar Association
• Consumer Attorneys of California, Board of Directors, 2009-2013; Board of Governors, 2005, 2008-2013
• Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles
• Bar Association of San Francisco
• San Francisco Trial Lawyers’ Association
• King County Bar Association

• San Francisco Trial Lawyers’ Association
  Trial Lawyer of the Year Finalist, 2020
• Peer Review Rated “AV Preeminent” 5.0 of 5.0
  For Ethical Standards and Legal Ability by Martindale-Hubbell.
• Bar Association of San Francisco’s Volunteer Legal Services Program
  Outstanding Volunteer in Public Service Award, 2007-2019
• The National Trial Lawyers
  Top 100 Trial Lawyers in California, 2011-present
• California Super Lawyers magazine
  “Super Lawyer” in personal injury litigation, 2013-present
• Consumer Attorneys of California
  Consumer Attorney of the Year Finalist, 2010
• The National Trial Lawyers
  Top 40 under 40, 2011, 2012, 2013
• Northern California Super Lawyers Magazine
  Rising Star, 2009, 2010

• League of American Bicyclists
• California Bicycle Coalition
• San Francisco Bicycle Coalition
• Walk San Francisco
• Bike East Bay
• Silicon Valley Bicycle Association
• Marin County Bicycle Coalition
• Bar Association of San Francisco’s Justice and Diversity Center Legal Services Program

• “Let the sun shine,” Plaintiff, September 2021
• “Value proposition,” Plaintiff, August 2021
• “Production line,” Plaintiff, July 2021
• “When is a door not a door,” Plaintiff, June 2021
• “Discovery process,” Plaintiff, May 2021
• “Settle up,” Plaintiff, April 2021
• “Compensating for something,” Plaintiff, March 2021
• “Asking for a friend,” Plaintiff, February 2021
• “Give me a break,” Plaintiff, January 2021
• “This is the end,” Plaintiff, December 2020
• “Pre-party,” Plaintiff, November 2020
• “Admit nothing,” Plaintiff, October 2020
• “Settle in,” Plaintiff, September 2020
• “Strained relationships,” Plaintiff, August 2020
• “Future shock,” Plaintiff, July 2020
• “Selective Service,” Plaintiff, June 2020
• “Enough Stuart Smiley,” Plaintiff, May 2020
• “Going viral,” Plaintiff, April 2020
• “Don’t lose focus,” Plaintiff, March 2020
• “Sure footing,” Plaintiff, February 2020
• “The know nothing party,” Plaintiff, January 2020
• “The lion in winter,” Plaintiff, December 2019
• “An important asset,” Plaintiff, November 2019
• “Cross-examination of the defense expert,” American Board of Trial Advocates’ Masters in Trial, October 23, 2019
• “Pandora’s box,” Plaintiff, October 2019
• “I am the business,” Plaintiff, September 2019
• “The verdict,” Plaintiff, August 2019
• “Squared away,” Plaintiff, July 2019
• “Prime time,” Plaintiff, June 2019
• “First Impression,” Plaintiff, May 2019
• “Questionnaire Questioner,” Plaintiff, April 2019
• “Personal justification,” Plaintiff, March 2019
• “That’s deep,” Plaintiff, February 2019
• “Objection,” Plaintiff, January 2019
• “Publish and perish,” Plaintiff, December 2018
• “Defusing anti-cyclist bias,” Consumer Attorneys of California Annual Convention, November 16, 2018
• “How appealing,” Plaintiff, November 2018
• “Take it to the limit,” Plaintiff, October 2018
• “Brain drain,” Plaintiff, September 2018
• “Wage war,” Plaintiff, August 2018
• “Staff privileges,” Plaintiff, July 2018
• “Informal discovery: sites, collisions, and products,” San Francisco Trial Lawyers’ Association, June 17, 2018
• “Expert examination,” Plaintiff, June 2018
• “Complaint department,” Plaintiff, May 2018
• “Decisions, decisions, decisions,” Plaintiff, April 2018
• “I am not my smartphone,” Plaintiff, March 2018
• “Lawyers who lunch,” Plaintiff, February 2018
• “Party Bus,” Plaintiff, January 2018
• “The watcher,” Plaintiff, December 2017
• “The man comes around,” Plaintiff, November 2017
• “The internets and social media,” San Francisco Paralegal Association, October 14, 2017
• “It’s for my glaucoma,” Plaintiff, October 2017
• “Self-discovery,” Plaintiff, September 2017
• “A brush with death,” Plaintiff, August 2017
• “Mediator, go work your magic,” Plaintiff, July 2017
• “Ride sharing,” Plaintiff, June 2017
• “Trial boot camp,” San Francisco Trial Lawyers’ Association, May 23, 2017
• The prepared witness,” Plaintiff, May 2017
• “Selection criteria,” Plaintiff, April 2017
• “Okay, now cough,” Plaintiff, March 2017
• “Whippersnappers,” Plaintiff, February 2017
• “A minor compromise,” Plaintiff, January 2017
• “Out of character,” Plaintiff, November 2016
• “The Stoic,” Plaintiff, December 2016
• “Digital evidence: Laying the foundation during discovery for admission at trial,” Consumer Attorneys of California Annual Convention, November 12, 2016
• “Pave the planet,” Plaintiff, November 2016
• “Reporting for duty,” Plaintiff, October 2016
• “That’s not our policy,” Plaintiff, September 2016
• “Pick a winner,” Plaintiff, August 2016
• “The road more traveled,” Plaintiff, July 2016
• “Throw me in the briar patch,” Plaintiff, June 2016
• “I’ve got a CACI jones,” Plaintiff, May 2016
• “A brief word,” Plaintiff, April 2016
• “Rationally irrational,” Plaintiff, March 2016
• “So this is what a courthouse looks like,” Plaintiff, February 2016
• “Not on the roster,” Plaintiff, January 2016
• “I got 99 bottles but a beer ain’t one,” Plaintiff, December 2015
• “Have laptop, will travel,” Plaintiff, November 2015
• “Police and prosecutions in bicycle incidents,” CalBike Summit, October 26, 2015
• “Countdown to trial,” San Francisco Paralegal Association, October 23, 2015
• “The exhibit’s the thing,” Plaintiff, October 2015
• “Avoid the green ones, they’re not ripe yet,” Plaintiff, September 2015
• “Visuals for cases,” San Francisco Trial Lawyer’s Association, August 4, 2015
• “Sudden emergency,” Plaintiff, August 2015
• “Relax, I’m a professional,” Plaintiff, July 2015
• “A lawyer for all seasons,” Plaintiff, June 2015
• “MIST me,” Plaintiff, May 2015
• “The tweet’s the thing: helping clients who are too social on social media,” Plaintiff, April 2015
• “Electronic Evidence: Introducing and objecting to digital media at trial,” Alameda County Bar Association, March 26, 2015
• “Portions of this trial were previously recorded: using video depositions at trial,” Plaintiff, March 2015
• “The right cross: conduct a precise cross-examination using visuals,” Plaintiff, February 2015
• “Winning with trial presentation technology,” State Bar of California Litigation section webinar, January 22, 2015
• “A child’s eyes: Identify the issues and refocus your case to highlight the story that a jury will understand,” Plaintiff, January 2015
• Anatomy for Lawyers, San Francisco Trial Lawyer’s Association, December 2, 2014
• “Anatomically correct: teaching the injuries to those in juries,” Plaintiff, December 2014
• “Duty Calls: Jury service – a learning opportunity,” Plaintiff, November 2014 and Advocate, December 2014
• Presenting the Expedited Jury Trial, American Board of Trial Advocates Masters in Trial series, October 2014
• “Read it and weep: Inadvertent disclosure of privileged documents,” Plaintiff, October 2014
• “Under Pressure: Managing back to back trials as a small firm practitioner,” Plaintiff, September 2014
• “Chance favors the prepared: Making the Expedited Jury Trial (EJT) work requires cooperation from both sides of the aisle,” Plaintiff, August 2014
• “No more bike or pedestrian cases? Where do I sign up?: Vision Zero and the idea that we can do a better job for everyone on our streets by reducing fatalities and injuries,” Plaintiff, July 2014
• The bicycle and pedestrian issue, Plaintiff, July 2014 – Guest Editor
• Technology in the courtroom, San Francisco Trial Lawyer’s Association, June 2013
• “Naming rights: Finding and naming the proper entities in a premises case,” Plaintiff, June 2014
• “One day, one trial: Expedited jury trials—an underutilized tool in minor injury auto cases,” Plaintiff, May 2014
• “Deserve’s got nothing to do with it,” Plaintiff, April 2014
• “Treat them right: The joys and pitfalls of treating doctors,” Plaintiff, March 2014
• “Order out of chaos: The strategy and skills behind witness order and scheduling at trial,” Plaintiff, February 2014
• “Ch-ch-ch-changes: How to effect a successful PI practice transition,” Plaintiff, January 2014
• “All in the family,” Plaintiff, December 2013
• “Land wars in Asia,” Plaintiff, November 2013
• “Social media: the seven-headed Hydra,” Consumer Attorneys of California, November 2013
• “The code war: The international classification of diseases and why you should care about a big change on the horizon,” Plaintiff and Advocate, October 2013
• “A death in the family: Caring for your clients – the blessings and the burdens,” Plaintiff, September 2013
• “The ministry of culture: Staying current with pop culture may help with your jury… and at cocktail parties,” Plaintiff, August 2013
• “The map is not the territory: Why it is so very important that you personally go to the accident scene,” Plaintiff, July 2013
• Mastering simple trial technology presentation skills in one hour, SFTLA, June 2013
• “Make them an offer they can refuse (in bad faith),” Plaintiff, June 2013
• “With case-management software, it’s all relative,” Plaintiff, May 2013
• “The people on the bus: Taking the bus, train or public transit buys you time to concentrate on the case,” Plaintiff, April 2013
• “An expert is born: helping novice experts to improve the outcome,” Plaintiff, March 2013
• “Very superstitious: Good or bad, our superstitions and ‘spidey-senses’ give us confidence,” Plaintiff, February 2013
• “Department Zero Dark Thirty,” Plaintiff, January 2013
• “The document speaks for itself,” Plaintiff, December 2012
• “Who moved my typewriter,” Plaintiff, November 2012
• Using metadata at trial, American Board of Trial Advocates Masters in Trial series, October 2012
• “Help them keep their settlement,” Plaintiff, October 2012
• “Show and tell,” Plaintiff, September 2012
• “I dialed 911 a long time ago,” Plaintiff, August 2012
• “Craft a plan for jury selection,” Trial, July 2012 (with June Bashant)
• “I feel your pain: the Gerry Spence method taken over the top,” Plaintiff, July 2012.
• “An ounce of protection,” Plaintiff, June 2012.
• “Help around the house,” Plaintiff, May 2012.
• “The way of the Jedi lawyer,” Plaintiff, April 2012.
• “The price of admission: knowing and using the business records exception to hearsay,” Plaintiff, March 2012.
• “Be the best you can be: effective ways to perform as or work with co-counsel and second seats,” San Francisco Trial Lawyer’s Association New Lawyers’ Division Ski and CLE Conference, February 25, 2012.
• “Presenting injuries at trial effectively with an expert,” San Francisco Trial Lawyer’s Association New Lawyers’ Division Ski and CLE Conference, February 25, 2012.
• “Tech tools to help you maximize your clients’ recovery at mediation,” San Francisco Trial Lawyer’s Association, February 21, 2012.
• “The Cross Whisperer,” Plaintiff, February 2012.
• “Presenting arm and hand injuries at trial,” Trialsmith web seminar, January 26, 2012
• “Perception is reality,” Plaintiff, January 2012.
• “On legal writing: Hemingway, not Faulkner,” Plaintiff, December 2011.
• “Social media run wild: the ethics of social media,” Legal Marketing Association, November 15, 2011.
• “The Pincer Move,” Plaintiff, November 2011.
• “Help! I need somebody!” Plaintiff, October 2011.
• “Settlement: It’s not over until the foreperson sings,” Plaintiff, September 2011.
• “Marketing for Lawyers,” San Francisco Trial Lawyer’s Association, August 23, 2011.
• “Directing the Direct When Your witness is not an Expert,” Plaintiff, August 2011.
• “Second Chair is Much More than Second Fiddle,” Plaintiff, July 2011.
• “What the Camera Does Not Show: The sub rosa camera can be made to lie and you can expose it,” Plaintiff, June 2011.
• “Seeing is Believing – Jury Selection” San Francisco Trial Lawyer’s Association, November 9, 2010.
• Voir Dire Workshop, University of San Francisco Intensive Advocacy Program, June 2, 2010.
• “Successful and Ethical Marketing” Consumer Attorneys of California, February 11, 2010.
• “Successful and Ethical Marketing” Consumer Attorneys of Marin, November 19, 2009.
• “100 Days Before Trial Through Opening Statement: A Three-Part Presentation” Trialsmith Web Seminar, October 22, 2009, November 19, 2009, and December 3, 2009.
• “Marketing for Lawyers” San Francisco Trial Lawyer’s Association, April 21, 2009.
• “Juror Questionnaires: Crafting, Getting Approval, and Using Questionnaires” Trialsmith Web Seminar, April 16, 2009.
• “Trial Director Presentation Software” San Francisco Trial Lawyer’s Association, January 22, 2008.
• “Anatomy for Lawyers & Paralegals: Understanding and Presenting Medicine In a Meaningful Way” Trialsmith Web Seminar, November 29, 2007.
• “Biomechanics: From High Speed to Low Speed” Consumer Attorneys of California College of Trial Arts Vehicle Dynamics and Handling Seminar, August 10, 2007.
• “Engaging in the Resolution Discussion – Opening a Dialogue to Set Up Cases for Resolution,” TrialSmith Web Seminar, May 22, 2007.
• “A Just Cause,” Litigation Supplement to The Recorder, May 21, 2007.
• “Jury Selection,” San Francisco Trial Lawyer’s Association, April 10, 2007.
• “PowerPoint: Effective Mediation Presentations,” San Francisco Trial Lawyer’s Association, February 28, 2006.
• “Be Open to Openings – Defendants and Plaintiffs Alike Can Benefit from Early Settlements,” The Recorder, July 25, 2005.
• “Maximizing Recovery – Loss of Household Services in the Personal Injury Case,” The Trial Lawyer; Fall 2004.