Sara Cooperrider embarks on her bar presidency amidst a continuing global pandemic. The task laid before her is already sizeable: lead a membership organization of some 3,500 attorneys and legal community members in its 150th anniversary year. Now throw in a global pandemic, rife with healthcare law implications that impact her professional work, and societal issues.
But she is up for the challenge.
“Coming off Judge Wagner’s virtual year, I look at my presidency as ‘the hybrid year’,” said Cooperrider. “It’s good that the car industry already has a lot of positive things associated with the word hybrid.
“We’ve learned in the past year how to create hybrid solutions by moving from in-person to virtual programming. As we begin to reintroduce in-person options, we will continue with virtual solutions as well, which is what members want going forward as we look to the future, particularly with respect to continuing education and committee work.”
A Cincinnati native, Cooperrider joined the CBA in 2010, and it was her work on the team building the newly formed nonprofit law committee that impressed former CBA president John Tafaro.
“Sara was just incredibly organized and dedicated and thorough in the way she handled things,” said Tafaro, former president of Chatfield College and an attorney with Kohnen & Patton.
Cooperrider, Darlene Kamine and Alison Kropp brought the committee to life.
“That’s where I saw her leadership potential. She was also willing to do behind-the-scenes work, where there wasn’t any credit,” said Tafaro. “This isn’t high-profile stuff.”
Cooperrider paid her dues along the way, but becoming a lawyer wasn’t always on her horizon.
“In undergrad [at Miami University,] I started as a mathematics major,” she said. “I was also interested in teaching.”
Cooperrider had her pick of opportunities before her, but a few formative experiences in undergrad made her choice apparent. First was time spent as a mediator with the Butler County Juvenile Court.
“It was a diversion program for juveniles who had minor offenses. For many, it was truancy. I met with kids and their parents,” said Cooperrider. “It was fascinating to me, to be at an intersection point and help families put together plans to try to have a better life and live within the legal bounds with respect to kids attending school.”
Next came an internship with Northwestern University law school’s legal clinics and serving as a CASA for Cook County in Chicago. (She also served as CASA guardian ad litem in Butler County upon returning from her internship.) As part of Miami University’s Honors Program, Cooperrider researched and wrote on the topic of juvenile false confessions, for which she received the school’s Engel Award for Outstanding Promise in the Field of Law.
“Those experiences in college confirmed my desire to go to law school,” she said.
At George Washington University Law School, Cooperrider continued to distinguish herself. She received the Pro Bono Award for Outstanding Service During Law School; served as the president of the Student Health Law Association; participated in the GWU Community Legal Clinics’ Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment and Appeals Project; and received the ABA-BNA Award for Excellence in the Study of Health Law
Now a partner with Taft Stettinius & Hollister practicing healthcare law, Cooperrider also earned a master’s in public health and serves as an adjunct professor at her alma mater, teaching public health ethics and policy.
Public health and healthcare have been at the center of the global conversation during the COVID-19 pandemic, and its many attendant considerations have spread far across the legal field. Telehealth, in the era of social distancing, has become increasingly relevant. That relevance is being borne out daily in many health care specialties. Locally, UC Health, for example, uses telehealth technology for some stroke assessment (which has been the subject of presentation at a past CBA seminar.)
“These types of solutions have existed for many years and have caught the attention of the government and private health care payers, who are working to support them beyond the pandemic,” said Cooperrider, who is involved with efforts underway to provide data and comments for policy decision makers through health care associations. “It is neat to see ways the technology combined with the expertise of the provider who is able to see the patient over telehealth can save lives and improve health outcomes.”
Cooperrider will be the CBA board president when the organization celebrates its 150th anniversary in February 2022. The CBA was founded in 1872, in a different world — four years before even the telephone was invented, long before women had the right to vote, but at a time when women were beginning to graduate from law school. While it is important to look to the future, she has found guidance through researching the CBA’s forebears and origins. She is ruminative on the career of Alphonso Taft, the CBA’s founder and first president (and grandfather of the Taft law firm’s namesakes.)
In addition to founding the CBA and practicing law, he was a teacher, jurist, U.S. Attorney General, and Secretary of War. He served on Cincinnati City Council and was a member of the boards of trustees of the University of Cincinnati and Antioch College.
“His story is fascinating to me and I think it could be the story of any of us with his level of determination, personal ethics, and natural talent,” she said. “While his family of Irish descent was educated, they were not considered wealthy. He was also reportedly involved in good-natured pranks and humor, a cause near and dear to many of our young hearts.”
Taft reportedly moved to Cincinnati from the East Coast finding those in New York to have become greedy. Once a jurist in Cincinnati, around the same time he founded the CBA, Taft was the sole dissenter in a case brought before the Cincinnati Superior Court, Board of Education of Cincinnati v. Minor (1872), wherein the school board wanted to cease Bible readings in public schools. In his dissent from the majority opinion, Taft said: “The government is neutral, and, while protecting all, it prefers none, and it disparages none.” The case was later overturned by the Ohio Supreme Court in favor of the school board, and in agreement with Taft’s dissent.
“That was 150 years ago, but a lot of elements of his life and his career are important reminders for all of us about the rule of law, professional conduct, and leadership within the Bar,” said Cooperrider.
“To think how much someone can do in a career, in a life. We have a career practicing law, but we also have all these other things we do as humans to try to leave this place a little bit better than we found it.”