Tanya Asim Cooper

Biography

Tanya Asim Cooper (she/her) serves as Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Restoration and Justice Clinic. In the Restoration and Justice Clinic, she trains law students to represent survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking in litigation matters. As full-time faculty, Professor Cooper also teaches other upper-division seminar courses and serves on law school committees.

Professor Cooper's research focuses on intimate partner violence in the Christian Church, and she has earned several grants from Pepperdine's Community-Based Research Program and Cross-School Collaborative Research Programs to train local churches how to recognize and address the problem. In 2017, Professor Cooper convened an interdisciplinary conference, In Search of Sanctuary: Strengthening the Church's Response to Intimate Partner Violence. And in 2018, Professor Cooper received a fellowship to attend the Summer Research Institute at Harris Manchester College in the University of Oxford, where she studied international responses to intimate partner violence in the Christian Church.

Before coming to Pepperdine, Professor Cooper taught at the University of Alabama School of Law, where she directed the Domestic Violence Law Clinic. In Alabama, she chaired a county-wide domestic violence task force, responsible for coordinating local domestic violence agencies, shelters, courts and law enforcement, and providing holistic services to victims.

Professor Cooper also previously taught at the University of the District of Columbia, David A. Clarke School of Law, where she directed a parent-representation litigation clinic. Professor Cooper helped reunify families and engaged in systems change and community organizing to improve DC's child abuse and neglect system.

Before teaching, Professor Cooper practiced at the Children's Law Center in Washington, DC, where she represented indigent children, parents, and caregivers in abuse, neglect, adoption, guardianship, custody, and special education matters. She also represented child witnesses in civil and criminal cases.

Professor Cooper's scholarship addresses sexual violence in collegiate Greek life, child victim-witness testimony, copyright and art law, and racial bias in American foster care. Her research has been cited by courts, legal scholars, students, practitioners, podcasts, amicus briefs, state legislatures, the National Crime Victim Law Institute, and the American Bar Association. Her essays on clinical teaching have appeared on the Clinical Law Prof Blog. Excerpts of her articles have also been reprinted in casebooks and textbooks, Children and the Law: Doctrine, Policy and Practice (6th ed.); Victims in Criminal Procedure (5th edition); and on websites, including “Race, Racism and the Law.”

Since joining Pepperdine, Professor Cooper has served on the law school’s and university’s Diversity Council. Professor Cooper is a National SEED (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity) Project Leader, and she has convened SEED conversational communities for the past five years. In 2022, she received the Faculty Belonging Award honoring faculty who contribute to inclusive belonging, equity for all students, and diversity at the law school.

Professor Cooper regularly serves the national clinical law community. From 2012- 2019, she served as editor of the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA) newsletter. In 2023, she was elected to the CLEA Board of Directors, and in 2024, she was elected to the Executive Committee as CLEA Secretary.

Professor Cooper is an active member of the California bar. She is also licensed to practice in Washington, DC and Alabama. She is married to Stephen Alexander Cooper, a lawyer and writer.

Education

• LL.M., University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law, 2012
• J.D., American University Washington College of Law, 2002
• M.A., Boston University, 1997
• B.A., Boston University, 1996