Judge Michael E. Cooper: Professional Background and Legal Expertise

Hon. Michael E. Cooper (Ret.) was a judge for the Kittitas County Superior Court in Washington. He was elected to the bench in 1988. Cooper retired in 2011.

While on the bench, Cooper is credited with helping to create the Kittitas County Drug Court.

He completed a J.D. at the University of Montana School of Law.

During his military service, Cooper provided physical security of nuclear weapons and secret documents as a security officer in the United States Army and was later asked by the Judge Advocate General’s Corps to preside over probable cause hearings in investigations of soldiers as an Article 32 judge.

Upon leaving the Army, Cooper relocated to Helena, Montana, where he spent time working for the Montana Attorney General’s Office. He later moved to Tacoma, Washington, to serve as a city attorney there. Then, in 1977, Cooper became the city attorney in Pasco, though his time there would be brief.

The following year, he moved to Ellensburg to work as a private practice attorney for the next ten years. As such, he spent some of that time as a sole practitioner at his own private practice. He continued to work in the private sector until his election to the Superior Court in 1988.

Cooper was born in New York and grew up in Tacoma, where he graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School.

After retiring from the bench, he and his wife, Susan, hoped to devote time supporting Ethiopian women as part of a mission there.