Noted attorney to represent 38 former lacrosse players in suit

The AP reports:

More than three dozen current and former Duke lacrosse players plan to file a federal lawsuit against the university, the city of Durham and others involved in the case.

A spokesman for Washington-based attorney Charles J. Cooper said the civil lawsuit will be filed Thursday on behalf of 38 players who were not charged in the notorious case.

Spokesman Robert Bork Jr. declined Wednesday night to release the specific allegations made in the 30-count, 100-page lawsuit.

"It covers a whole lot of things, including violation of privacy," Bork said. "It's not just emotional distress."

Duke officials declined to comment

The rest of the brief story is here.

I understand from a source the filing will be this morning and there'll be a news conference involving attorneys for the players at 1 PM Eastern.

While we wait for more news, here's some information about the plaintiffs' lead attorney Charles J. Cooper.

From Wikipedia - - -

Charles J. "Chuck" Cooper is an appellate attorney and litigator in Washington, D.C. and a founding member and chairman of the law firm Cooper & Kirk, PLLC. He was named by The National Law Journal as one of the 10 best civil litigators in Washington, he has over 25 years of legal experience in government and private practice, with numerous cases in trial and appellate court as well as several appearances before the United States Supreme Court.

Cooper graduated in 1977 from the University of Alabama Law School. Shortly after serving as law clerk to Judge Paul Roney of the Fifth (now Eleventh) Circuit Court of Appeals, and to Justice (later Chief Justice) William H. Rehnquist, Mr. Cooper joined the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in 1981. In 1985 President Ronald Reagan appointed Mr. Cooper to the position of Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel. In that capacity, he worked with Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito.

And the following from the Web site of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy described as "an independent, nonpartisan, education and research organization that develops and promotes public policy consistent with the Virginia tradition of individual liberty, dynamic entrepreneurial capitalism, private property, the rule of law, and constitutionally limited government." Cooper serves on its board of directors. - - -

Charles J. Cooper has almost two decades of legal experience in government and in private practice. In 1977–78, Mr. Cooper served as law clerk to Judge Paul Roney of the Fifth (now Eleventh) Circuit Court of Appeals, and in 1978–79 he served as law clerk to Justice (now Chief Justice) William H. Rehnquist.

In 1982 Mr. Cooper was appointed deputy assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division in the Reagan Justice Department, where he supervised all of the division’s litigation in the federal courts of appeals and in the Supreme Court. In 1985 President Reagan appointed Mr. Cooper to the position of assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel.

During his three years as head of that office, Mr. Cooper worked on virtually all issues concerning constitutional law, particularly on federalism, separation of powers, and First Amendment questions. Mr. Cooper also served as chairman of the President’s Working Group on Federalism and as a member of the National Security Council’s Policy Review and Planning and Coordinating Groups.

Mr. Cooper left the Justice Department in 1988 and reentered private practice as a partner in the Washington office of McGuire, Woods, Battle & Boothe. From 1990 until he founded Cooper & Carvin, a Washington, D.C. based law firm, he was a partner at Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge, where he headed the firm’s Constitutional and Government Litigation Group.

Mr. Cooper has argued several cases before the Supreme Court and has also appeared before all but two of the thirteen federal courts of appeals.

In 1998 Mr. Cooper was appointed by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist to serve as a member of the Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United States.

Mr. Cooper is also a member of the Federalist Society and serves as chairman of its Practice Group on Civil Rights. In addition, he is a member of the American Law Institute and the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, and he has spoken and published extensively on a wide variety of constitutional and legal policy topics.

Stay tuned, folks. You know there's lots more to come despite what we've been told by MoveOn.Duke and the editorial board of The Chronicle, Duke's student newspaper.