Notable

Virginia L. Cooper has joined the legal counsel staff as senior associate general counsel for health care litigation at SIU. Based at the School of Medicine in Springfield, Cooper has experience in the areas of medical malpractice litigation and health and insurance law.

Virginia Cooper

Since 1994, Cooper served as an assistant state's attorney in the civil actions and public interest bureaus in the Cook County State's Attorney's Office. She also worked for two private law firms in Chicago and Virginia Beach, Va. For 13 years before entering law school in 1989, Cooper was a registered nurse, specializing in critical care and surgical nursing.

Cooper earned her law degree at Regent University School of Law in Virginia Beach, Va., in 1992. She earned a bachelor's degree in nursing in 1976 at Loyola University of Chicago.