About Theodore M.
Theodore M. Cooperstein has built a career that crosses public service, military duty and private practice. He studied history at Dartmouth College and received his B.A. in 1984. He earned a J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1987 and later pursued comparative and international law at Georgetown University Law Center, completing an LL.M. program. He also holds a Master of Arts in Strategic Studies from the United States Army War College.
His early career began in the federal courts. He clerked for Judge Morris S. Arnold on the Western District of Arkansas after law school. That clerkship preceded a series of associate positions in New York and elsewhere during the late 1980s and early 1990s, including Dewey Ballantine and Davis Scott Weber & Edwards. He moved into public-interest and government roles in the mid-1990s, serving as general counsel at the Atlantic Legal Foundation and then as assistant general counsel at the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1995.
Cooperstein's resume includes significant federal practice and Department of Justice experience. He spent time as counsel to the deputy attorney general in 2003 and later held several U.S. attorney’s office positions: a special assistant U.S. attorney in the District of Maryland in 2006, an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Florida in 2007, and an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Mississippi in 2018. He also returned to private practice, establishing Theodore M. Cooperstein PLLC in 1999.
His background includes military service as a major in military intelligence. He completed advanced studies at the U.S. Army War College as part of that trajectory. Cooperstein’s bar admissions span multiple jurisdictions, including the District of Columbia, New York, New Hampshire, Mississippi and Florida, and extend to numerous federal appellate courts and the Supreme Court of the United States.
Active in professional groups, he has been a member of the American Bar Association since 1988 and has served in practice group leadership for the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy since the mid-1980s. He is listed in the Capital Area Bar Association and is a member of Circle Lodge 638, F.&A.M.
Over a multi-decade career he has moved between trial work, appellate matters, government counsel roles and private practice. He currently practices through Theodore M. Cooperstein PLLC and handles federal litigation and appellate work.
