Isaiah D. Cooper
- Additional Crew
Isaiah D. Cooper is a business and entertainment attorney. After years as a performing trombonist, Mr. Cooper resisted becoming an entertainment attorney after law school. However, soon after he moved to Connecticut in 1994, he met Guy Ortoleva who was a film and television production professional who had gone to law school. Mr. Ortoleva was appoint as the director of the Connecticut Film Division by Governor John Rowland. Mr. Ortoleva encouraged Mr. Cooper to list his credentials with the Connecticut Film Division's Production Resource Directory. This meant that various filmmakers found Mr. Cooper when Connecticut's Film & Production tax credits became effective in 2007.
Mr. Cooper was raised on a chicken farm outside of Middletown, New York. His family raised chickens and sold eggs. They belonged to a farmers' cooperative located in the next county where his parents grew up and sold some of their eggs through the coop. They also sold eggs to a number of small groceries stores in Middletown as well as in nearby New Jersey. They also sold eggs from a drive-in window which Mr. Cooper's mother had built into their mud room before banks, fast food joints and pharmacies had drive-in windows. As a kid, Isaiah collected, candled and packed eggs, weeded the garden and sold eggs from their drive-in window, learning to count out the customer's change properly. This turned out to be good early business training.
Before attending law school, Mr. Cooper studied music and became a professional trombonist. He obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in trombone, summa cum laude, from the State University of New York at Buffalo (now the University at Buffalo) in 1978, a Master of Music degree in trombone from Youngstown State University in 1981, and did additional doctoral or professional trombone study at Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis) from 1980 to 1982, the University of Southern California from 1982 to 1984 and at the Staatliche Hochschule Für Musik Und Darstellende Kunst, in Stuttgart, Germany in 1984-85.
Isaiah's first paid gig was marching in a parade for the Franklin, NJ Fire Department Band. As an undergraduate he played with a Salsa band in Buffalo and performed with the Equinox Soul Band, a 10 person band which was 1/2 men and 1/2 women, 1/2 black and 1/2 white, and 1/2 Jewish and 1/2 Baptist. The Equinox Soul Band had four women gospel singers who took turns singing lead and back up for a variety of songs. One of them could sing anything which Aretha Franklin had recorded! During undergraduate school Mr. Cooper started performing with a trombone quartet that included one of his teachers, Don Miller, who was then the bass trombonist in the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.
Mr. Cooper eventually performed with the Memphis Symphony, Memphis Ballet, and the Memphis Opera. He performed as principal trombonist with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Santa Monica Symphony, the Japaneses Orchestra of LA, the Korean Orchestra of LA, the Orchestra of the Barrio from 1982 to 1984. Mr. Cooper recorded jingles at a studio in Memphis and for the TV show "Knightrider" at Universal Studios in Burbank, CA. He performed as the principal trombonist for the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra in Israel in 1985-86.
Mr. Cooper returned to the US in 1986 and worked as a paralegal for the products liability defense firm of Hertzfield & Rubin for two years before attending NYU School of Law from 1988 to 1991 when he received his Juris Doctor degree.
Mr. Cooper worked from 1991 to August 1994 as a tax attorney at the now defunct firm of Gordon Altman Butowsky Weitzen Shalov & Wein where he represented Carl Icahn among others. He moved to Connecticut to take a position in New Haven with Bergman Horowitz and Reynolds (now Withers Bergman) from September 1994 to August 1996. He took a position in Hartford with Pepe & Hazard (now McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter) from September 1996 until December 2001 where he transitioned from working as a tax attorney to becoming a transaction attorney. He worked at the firm of Gregory and Adams in Wilton, CT from the end of December 2001 through the end of 2003 before opening Cooper Law LLC in New Haven in the beginning of 2004.
Mr. Cooper was raised on a chicken farm outside of Middletown, New York. His family raised chickens and sold eggs. They belonged to a farmers' cooperative located in the next county where his parents grew up and sold some of their eggs through the coop. They also sold eggs to a number of small groceries stores in Middletown as well as in nearby New Jersey. They also sold eggs from a drive-in window which Mr. Cooper's mother had built into their mud room before banks, fast food joints and pharmacies had drive-in windows. As a kid, Isaiah collected, candled and packed eggs, weeded the garden and sold eggs from their drive-in window, learning to count out the customer's change properly. This turned out to be good early business training.
Before attending law school, Mr. Cooper studied music and became a professional trombonist. He obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in trombone, summa cum laude, from the State University of New York at Buffalo (now the University at Buffalo) in 1978, a Master of Music degree in trombone from Youngstown State University in 1981, and did additional doctoral or professional trombone study at Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis) from 1980 to 1982, the University of Southern California from 1982 to 1984 and at the Staatliche Hochschule Für Musik Und Darstellende Kunst, in Stuttgart, Germany in 1984-85.
Isaiah's first paid gig was marching in a parade for the Franklin, NJ Fire Department Band. As an undergraduate he played with a Salsa band in Buffalo and performed with the Equinox Soul Band, a 10 person band which was 1/2 men and 1/2 women, 1/2 black and 1/2 white, and 1/2 Jewish and 1/2 Baptist. The Equinox Soul Band had four women gospel singers who took turns singing lead and back up for a variety of songs. One of them could sing anything which Aretha Franklin had recorded! During undergraduate school Mr. Cooper started performing with a trombone quartet that included one of his teachers, Don Miller, who was then the bass trombonist in the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.
Mr. Cooper eventually performed with the Memphis Symphony, Memphis Ballet, and the Memphis Opera. He performed as principal trombonist with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Santa Monica Symphony, the Japaneses Orchestra of LA, the Korean Orchestra of LA, the Orchestra of the Barrio from 1982 to 1984. Mr. Cooper recorded jingles at a studio in Memphis and for the TV show "Knightrider" at Universal Studios in Burbank, CA. He performed as the principal trombonist for the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra in Israel in 1985-86.
Mr. Cooper returned to the US in 1986 and worked as a paralegal for the products liability defense firm of Hertzfield & Rubin for two years before attending NYU School of Law from 1988 to 1991 when he received his Juris Doctor degree.
Mr. Cooper worked from 1991 to August 1994 as a tax attorney at the now defunct firm of Gordon Altman Butowsky Weitzen Shalov & Wein where he represented Carl Icahn among others. He moved to Connecticut to take a position in New Haven with Bergman Horowitz and Reynolds (now Withers Bergman) from September 1994 to August 1996. He took a position in Hartford with Pepe & Hazard (now McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter) from September 1996 until December 2001 where he transitioned from working as a tax attorney to becoming a transaction attorney. He worked at the firm of Gregory and Adams in Wilton, CT from the end of December 2001 through the end of 2003 before opening Cooper Law LLC in New Haven in the beginning of 2004.