Robert Patrick Cooper

Robert Patrick Cooper, senior counsel of Boston’s OneUnited Bank, was recently elected chairman of the National Bankers Association (NBA). Cooper is the first Massachusetts banker and attorney to be elected to this position in the association’s 80-year-old history.

The nation’s oldest and largest banking trade association representing minority- and women-owned banks, NBA represents bankers from 25 states and the District of Columbia, and nearly $50 billion in banking assets.

Cooper is the chief legal and regulatory strategist and architect for OneUnited, the largest African American-owned bank in the country. Since he joined OneUnited’s management team, it has acquired and turned around three troubled banks and grown from $56 million to $650 million in assets, making it the fastest growing African American-owned bank in the nation.

As a corporate attorney for over 20 years, Cooper has engaged in a broad range of business transactions, and has represented numerous small entrepreneurial startups as well as large international concerns. Prior to joining OneUnited, he honed his practice skills with the law firm of Hale and Dorr.

During his tenure, OneUnited Bank has also been widely recognized as one of the leading African American-owned banks in the country. In 2000, Black Enterprise magazine named OneUnited its Financial Company of the Year.

Most recently, Cooper has been invited to testify before the U.S. House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations regarding the role of minority banks and federal regulators’ compliance with Section 308 of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989.

As NBA chairman, Cooper plans to pursue an aggressive legislative agenda designed to help ensure minority banking can grow and prosper, and continue to serve as a beacon of hope to minorities in rural and urban communities across the country.

Admitted to practice in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, Cooper holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Yale College and a juris doctor degree from Harvard Law School.