Labor lawyer influential at UDC

A D.C. labor lawyer has exercised formidable influence in shaping the University of the District of Columbia’s leadership, which is the subject of a city ethics probe into favoritism in UDC’s high-paying executive hires.

Edmund D. Cooke Jr., a partner in the D.C. law firm of Winston & Strawn, helped his close friend William L. Pollard last year acquire his $200,000-a-year job as president of the District’s only public institution of higher learning. Mr. Cooke also helped Ernest Jolly last year secure the school’s No. 2 job of executive vice president, which boasts a $131,080 annual salary.

Mr. Pollard last month hired Mr. Cooke’s wife, Wilhelmina M. Reuben-Cooke, to fill the school’s No. 3 job of provost and vice president of academic affairs, which offers a $137,000 salary. The D.C. Office of Campaign Finance is investigating whether Mr. Pollard violated ethics laws in hiring Mrs. Reuben-Cooke, who The Washington Times first reported July 11 apparently lacks the requisite education and experience for the post.

Mr. Cooke did not return repeated telephone calls seeking comment for this story.

Mr. Cooke, a University of Michigan Law School graduate and an Air Force captain during the Vietnam War, rose to prominence in the D.C. legal community as a specialist in labor and government relations after a four-year stint teaching law at Syracuse University that ended in 1992.

In 1995, he became a partner at Winston & Strawn, one of the oldest law firms in the United States, with headquarters in Chicago and offices located in major cities, including the District, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Geneva, Paris and London.

Mr. Cooke’s status as a high-profile black labor lawyer was confirmed two years ago when the Coca-Cola Company named him to the task force overseeing the company’s compliance with a $192 million settlement of a class-action racial discrimination lawsuit brought by Coca-Cola employees.

But he achieved notable influence at the university through his work as president of the UDC Coalition, an incorporated organization he helped found in 1997 to promote the land-grant university and act as an independent advocate for UDC in its dealings with the D.C. Council and Congress.

His coalition work and close relationship with Reginald E. Gilliam Jr., the UDC board of trustees member who headed the search for the school president, added considerable weight to Mr. Cooke’s recommendation of Mr. Pollard for the school’s top job, according to UDC officials and coalition members familiar with the board’s hiring of Mr. Pollard.

Mr. Gilliam could not be reached for comment.

In a brief telephone interview with The Times last week, Mr. Cooke said he has known Mr. Jolly from working with him on the Executive Leadership Council and Foundation, a D.C.-based association of black senior executives of Fortune 500 companies. Mr. Jolly served as its board chairman and president between 1996 and 2001.

“I knew his skills, and I recommended him,” said Mr. Cooke, who declined further comment.

A university official familiar with Mr. Jolly’s hiring said Mr. Cooke promoted him as a “real bulldog” in business management who would run UDC’s day-to-day operations for Mr. Pollard in the newly created position of executive vice president.

Mr. Pollard, Mr. Jolly and Mrs. Reuben-Cooke did not return calls seeking comment.

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