When the U.S. economy was recovering from a recession in 1992, a price war broke out between some of the biggest airlines in the nation. Continental and Northwest were on one side, alleging that American Airlines, a bigger competitor, had unlawfully cut prices in order to control specific markets.
The case moved to a federal jury, which deliberated for less than three hours before returning an acquittal, with Americans facing fines of up to $3 billion.
Bob Cooper, a lawyer from Los Angeles, told a reporter for the New York Times that the good news for his clients was the legal equivalent of hitting a hole in one.
The American Airlines case proved to be one of several aces for Cooper, a titan in the field of antitrust legal defense. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he used his Midwestern charm and skillful approach to win over jurors and judges while defending some of the biggest and most well-known firms in the nation against antitrust and patent cases.
Cooper passed away on June 27 at his Indian Wells, California, home, according to Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, his longtime legal practice. He was eighty-five.
High-profile clients like Allergan, Callaway, Hewlett-Packard, Honeywell, Intel, Northrop Grumman, Sempra Energy, and Ticketmaster were represented by him as lead trial counsel.
Beginning at age 32, he effectively represented Pfizer in the biggest patent disputes in the nation at the time—antitrust proceedings involving antibiotics in Minneapolis, Philadelphia, New York, and North Carolina.
According to former Gibson Dunn chair and managing partner Ken Doran, he was unquestionably one of our greatest trial attorneys and, in my opinion, rose to become one of the best trial attorneys in the nation. He communicates in a genuine, convincing, credible, and believable manner.
Cooper won a long range of court cases thanks to his ability to persuade juries to trust him in addition to arguing a case. According to colleagues, his accomplishments helped his Los Angeles-based firm grow into a global powerhouse in the white-shoe industry.
Interestingly, Bob lost just one case in all those years, and even that result could have been overturned if the parties had decided to file an appeal instead of reaching a settlement, according to a memo sent to Gibson Dunn partners following his death. Acute myeloid leukemia, for which he received a diagnosis in 2023, was recorded as the cause of death.
According to Ted Boutrous, a partner at Gibson Dunn, Bob Cooper’s experience is a metaphor for the story of California and Los Angeles legal firms expanding nationally and internationally at the core of the world’s largest cases.
Born on September 6, 1939, Robert Elliott Cooper grew up in Kansas City. After attending Northwestern University, he went on to Yale Law School, where he served as the journal’s editor. He would work for Gibson Dunn for almost fifty years after graduating.
In his later years, he was regarded as a mentor at the firm, sharing cases that aided in the beginning of the careers of younger litigators. According to colleagues, he was usually level-headed, composed, and quick to give credit to others on his team, lacking the bluster and ego of typical trial lawyers.
One of the first things he taught me was that people will notice if you’re good at something. Jeff, Cooper’s son, remarked of his father, “You don’t have to tell them.”
According to friends, he was just as himself in court as he was outside of it. He was frequently seen making jokes on a golf course while sipping a Coca-Cola, whether it was morning, noon, or night. Playing the violin since elementary school, he would sometimes surprise friends with an impromptu serenade.
Following his retirement, Cooper also held the position of president of the Los Angeles Country Club, where he hosted the Walker Cup, a well-known amateur golf competition, in 2017.
Cooper is left by his wife, Elaine; three grandchildren, Amanda, Eli, and Robert; and children, Jeff, Greg, and Kathy.
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