Other Online Resources from Laura D. Cooper, Esq.

Information on Income Cap Trusts

Problems with Employer-Sponsored Insurance Benefits

Information on Advance Directives

National Multiple Sclerosis Society Brochure: ADA and People with MS

Important Info for State & Local Government Employees

Rethinking Financial Planning & Health Insurance

Biography of Laura D. Cooper, Esq.

Laura D. Cooper graduated from the University of Washington Law School in 1986.  She has been a practicing attorney for the past seventeen years, including two as counsel to the Chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission in Washington, D.C.  She is a nationally-recognized expert in disability law as well as an expert consultant on life planning for people with chronic diseases and disabilities.

Ms. Cooper was teaching high school science on an Indian reservation in 1979 when she first experienced gait problems, vertigo, numbness, and tingling.  The severity of her MS forced her to leave her job at the age of twenty-two.  Her failing health and precarious financial circumstances put her, at the age of twenty-three, into a nursing home.

Despite these setbacks, Ms. Cooper decided to attend law school.  She escaped from the nursing home and even lived in her car for a time when she had no other resources.  She was awarded a full tuition academic scholarship for law school/  While in law school, she experienced several exacerbations that left her temporarily blind and virtually quadriplegic.  She finished her law degree at  the University of Washington in Seattle, following which she was named one of the twenty outstanding young American “Lawyers Who make A Difference” by the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division.

During her search for employment, Ms. Cooper received more than 300 rejections, until one law firm was willing to look at her abilities instead of her disabilities.  She was named a Finalist for White House Fellowship in 1990.  Based on her personal experiences, she was invited to provide testimony before the United States House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Right, during its consideration of the Americans With Disabilities Act.  She was the recipient of the 1994 National Multiple Sclerosis Society National Distinguished Service Award.  She served a term as member, then Chairperson of the National Advisory Board for Medical Rehabilitation Research within the National Institutes of Health.  She is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Endependence Center of Northern Virginia, and was co-founder of the Greater Independence & Mobility Project, LC, a personal assistance cooperative located in Arlington, Virginia.  Ms. Cooper has also served as the Life Planning and Independent Living Consultant as well as Legal Counsel to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

Ms. Cooper has therefore had both professional and personal experiences in constructing and troubleshooting insurance plans for people who have chronic illnesses or disabilities.  Her understanding of the dearth of professional assistance in insurance planning for the population of people who had already experienced medical exclusions is what led her to write her book in the form of a self-help workbook targeted toward people with chronic illnesses or disabilities.