Robert Cooter

"Not the Power to Destroy: An Effects Theory of the Tax Power," a paper Cooter coauthored with Neil S. Siegel (Duke Law professor), provided the legal framework for the Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act in 2012.

In October 2012, Cooter delivered the keynote address at the Eighth Annual Friedrich A. von Hayek Lecture, "Freedom, Innovation, and Intellectual Property," sponsored by the New York University Journal of Law and Liberty.

In 1999 Cooter joined two U.C. Berkeley economics professors, Aaron Edlin and Benjamin Hermalin, to create the online publishing platform called Berkeley Electronic Press, or Bepress. The current portfolio of Bepress includes ten peer-reviewed electronic journals, a platform called SelectedWorks for academics to create online professional pages, and the online law review paid submission program ExpressO.

Cooter works in the field of law and economics. He is co-editor of the International Review of Law and Economics, and was among those convened by George Mason University Law School dean, Henry Manne, in January, 1990, to discuss organizing a professional association, prior to formation of the American Law and Economics Association; Cooter was subsequently elected as a founding board member, then served as its president for 1994. In 1999 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Cooter began teaching in the Department of Economics at University of California, Berkeley in 1975, joining the Berkeley Law faculty in 1980. He has been a visiting member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and a recipient of various awards and fellowships, including Guggenheim, the Jack N. Pritzker Visiting Research Professorship at Northwestern Law School, and, the Max Planck Research Prize. He was an Olin visiting professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and lectured at the University of Cologne in 1989.

Robert D. Cooter (born May 2, 1945) is the Herman F. Selvin Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.

Cooter was born on May 2, 1945. He is married and has three grown children with his wife Blair. Cooter graduated from Swarthmore College in 1967 and attended Oxford University as a Fulbright Scholar from 1967–69, graduating with a degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. He earned a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1975. Cooter is the 2018 recipient of the Ronald H. Coase medal recognizing his contributions to the field of law & economics.