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Howard Cooper honored by Best Lawyers in America as Civil Rights Law 'Lawyer of the Year' in Boston

Howard M. Cooper was named 2019 Civil Rights Law "Lawyer of the Year" in Boston by Best Lawyers in America.   Only a single lawyer in each practice area in each community is honored as a Lawyer of the Year.

Mr. Cooper, first selected to Best Lawyers in America in 2006, is a Founding Partner of Todd & Weld.  He regularly handles significant civil rights legal matters that are often of public significance.

Noteworthy civil rights matters that Mr. Cooper has handled include:

  • Persuading a federal judge to permit a civil rights class action to proceed against the City of Methuen, its police chief, and several individual police officers for using a factually inaccurate and coercive Spanish-language advice-of-rights form during OUI arrests.
  • Facilitating a settlement on behalf of his client, the Islamic Society of Greater Worcester, in a contentious dispute with the Town of Dudley, Mass., over the siting of an Islamic cemetery in that town.  The settlement included an initial six-acre cemetery with the right of the Islamic Society to expand after 10 years.
  • Representing South Middlesex Opportunity Council (SMOC), an anti-poverty agency, in its landmark and highly successful case against the Town of Framingham and numerous Framingham public officials in which the agency sought to secure fair housing rights for the disabled.  South Middlesex Opportunity Council v. Town of Framingham, et al., 752 F. Supp. 2d 85 (2010).  The widely reported settlement resolving the case included payment of $1 million to SMOC, and a commitment by public officials to training and future compliance with applicable civil rights laws.
  • As lead coordinating counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union and National Lawyers Guild, successfully representing the Occupy Boston movement in 2011 in obtaining a temporary restraining order allowing protesters to remain encamped in Dewey Square in Boston for nearly a month after other encampments had been dispersed nationally.
  • Successfully representing a Boston area Islamic group related to its building a Mosque and Cultural Center in Roxbury in the face of attacks by Islamaphobic organizations following 9/11.


In addition to civil rights law, Mr. Cooper was also recognized in the 2019 Best Lawyers in America directory for Commercial Litigation and First Amendment Law.

First published in 1983, Best Lawyers lists are compiled based on an exhaustive peer-review evaluation. Over 87,000 leading attorneys globally are eligible to vote.

For the 2019 edition of The Best Lawyers in America, 7.8 million votes were analyzed, which resulted in nearly 60,000 leading lawyers being included in the new edition.  Lawyers are not required or allowed to pay a fee to be listed.  

Corporate Counsel magazine has called Best Lawyers "the most respected referral list of attorneys in practice."