A first-generation college student, she knew Ohio State Newark was the obvious choice. “It ended up being the best choice I ever made,” Cooperrider claimed. “I knew joining the social work program was the path for me, so I seized on it. It was the only place I applied.”
She eventually transitioned to Ohio State’s Columbus campus. During her time there, she got some enlightening experiences in the Franklin County prosecutor’s office, where she remembers “using my skills to help crime victims.” After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in 1978, she dove headfirst into law school. “I was fascinated by the trials,” she said. “I thought I could do that too, even though there really weren’t any female lawyers.” Cooperrider became one after passing the bar exam in 1983. The Thornville native opened a practice in her hometown and quickly ascended to assistant prosecutor in Perry County — the first female attorney to fill that role.
But life as an attorney limited her ability to create lasting change.
“I knew I could be more effective from the bench,” she said. When a judgeship opened in 1990, voters chose Cooperrider as the county’s first female judge. Breaking the glass ceiling was just the first step. “It was a good change,” she said, “but the change I really wanted was to make lives better for kids and families.”
That’s exactly what this humble heroine has done for the past 35 years. She helped establish Perry County’s juvenile correctional facility, which keeps young offenders much closer to their families. She implemented the county’s first park district. She runs a free legal clinic. She is working to secure funding for Perry County’s first homeless shelter. She manages the Alpha School, which provides counseling and alternative learning methods to dozens of troubled young students every year.
Cooperrider is consistently the first one to advocate for the people in her community. “I come from them,” the judge justified, and recognition has come for her hard work. “I’ve gotten an alumni award from every school I’ve gone to,” she said, which includes winning Ohio State Newark’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2017. Among her almost 10 additional honors, she’s most proud of earning two awards from the Ohio State Bar Association. “It’s a pretty big deal to be selected by your peers.”
For a time, those peers were almost entirely men. Today, the Ohio State Bar Association says more than 37% of the state’s lawyers are women. It’s a new landscape that Cooperrider — who with grace and grit redefined the phrase “ladies first”— has helped cultivate. “Change can happen, and I’m living proof,” she stated. “You just have to believe that it will.”