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Sam Cooper Leads Efforts Of Pennsylvania Bars Second Annual Diversity Summit

Dilworth Paxson partner Samuel T. Cooper, III recently chaired the Pennsylvania Bar Associations Diversity Summit Subcommittee which planned and hosted the Associations Second Annual Diversity Summit event in Philadelphia on October 23, 2007.

During the morning session of the day-long Summit, Mr. Cooper provided an overview of diversity in the legal profession and facilitated the days many speaking panels. He also introduced the events keynote speaker, Lydia Hernandez-Velez, Community Relations Executive and Senior Vice President with Wachovia Bank, and representatives of the Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network, Inc. who presented a luncheon program in honor of their Martin Luther King Internship Program. The luncheon program also featured an address by noted author and national political correspondent, Juan Williams. During the afternoon session, Mr. Cooper moderated the final panel of the day which covered follow-up efforts to the Summit. He also acknowledged and thanked the Summits sponsors, including Dilworth Paxson, for their overwhelming support.

Mr. Cooper, a member of Dilworths Public Finance Group in its Harrisburg office, has long been involved and dedicated to promoting diversity in the legal community. He has and continues to work with the Pennsylvania Bar Association, the Dauphin County Bar Association, other Pennsylvania county and minority bar associations, law firms, corporations, law schools and other organizations and entities in their efforts to bring more diversity and inclusion to the legal community. In addition, he is currently the Treasurer of the Continuing Legal Education Board and Vice-Chair of the Interbranch Commission for Gender, Racial and Ethnic Fairness.

Among his other professional activities, Mr. Cooper recently served on the Pennsylvania Bar Associations Board of Governors as its Minority Governor At Large and on a number of its committees, including, among others, the Board of the Conference of County Bar Leaders, the Minority Bar Committee, the Student Loan Forgiveness Implementation Committee, the Insurance Trust Board, the Judicial Evaluation Commission, and the Planning Committee. He has also served in its House of Delegates. In addition, Mr. Cooper has served on the Board of Directors of the Dauphin County Bar Association and a number of its committees, and currently serves on the Board of the Dauphin County Bar Foundation. He is a past President of the Dauphin County Bar Association.