Kevin Cooper, a native of Lakeport, Calif., has graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and is preparing to take the bar exam for the state of New York, where he will pursue his law career. Courtesy photo.

CAMBRIDGE, MA – Lakeport, Calif., native Kevin Cooper, a 2003 graduate of Clear Lake High School, graduated this spring from Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Mass.

At Harvard Law, Cooper worked with two of his classmates to establish a new student-edited law journal, the Harvard Business Law Review.

The Business Law Review was praised by the school’s dean for filling a void in both the student community and academic environment at Harvard, by providing students and professors with a collaborative environment to address important issues of corporate law and financial regulation.

Its first issue, titled “Dodd-Frank and the Future of Financial Regulation,” recently was published.

Cooper also excelled academically at Harvard. He graduated magna cum laude, ranking in the top 10 percent of his graduating class of 600 students.

During his second year at Harvard Law School, he won the school’s prestigious Sears Prize as a student with one of the top two grade point averages that year.

In light of these accomplishments, Cooper was one of seven graduates profiled on Harvard Law School’s Web site (www.law.harvard.edu) last month.

After taking the bar exam in July, Cooper will join the New York law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz as an associate in the corporate department.

Wachtell Lipton is one of the world’s leading law firms in mergers and acquisitions, takeovers and takeover defense, corporate and securities law, and corporate governance.

Cooper spent the summer after his second year at Harvard as a summer associate at Wachtell Lipton and the summer after his first year as an intern at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C.

Cooper was born and raised in Lakeport. He attended Lakeport schools from kindergarten through 12th grade and worked at Disney Water Sports during his high school summers.

Upon graduating in 2003 from Clear Lake High School, where he was a three-sport athlete and one of the class’s valedictorians, he attended California State University, Fresno.

Cooper played football for the Bulldogs on an athletic scholarship and graduated in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration.

After earning a master's of business administration from CSU Fresno’s Craig School of Business and working for two years in the Central Valley, he moved to the East Coast to attend Harvard Law in the fall of 2008.

He is the son of Lakeport residents Brian and Theresa Everhart and brother of Angela Everhart, who graduated from Clear Lake High School this year. Brian Everhart is the engineering technician for the city of Lakeport.