In the bail reform debate, periodically we hear that changes should emulate the Washington D.C. system of bail which replaced the private sector of bail and with a government pretrial services department.
The guest for this episode of The Bail Post is a life long resident of Washington D.C. He is Frederick Douglas Cooke, Jr. and he was born and raised in the District of Columbia. He attended the District of Columbia public school system and graduated from McKinley Technical High School in 1965. After high school, Mr. Cooke enrolled at Howard University and graduated in 1969 with a degree in Psychology and a commission as a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force. Mr. Cooke deferred some of his U.S. Air Force service and enrolled at the Howard University School of Law where he was Managing Editor of the Howard Law Journal and Chairman of the National Conference of Law Reviews for the 1971-1972 school year. He graduated with honors from the Law School in 1972.
Upon graduation, Cooke served as the Law Clerk for the Hon. George W. Draper, II an Associate Judge of the Superior Court for the District of Columbia. In 1973, Cooke was appointed a Captain in the Judge Advocate General’s Department of the U.S. Air Force and served four years in that capacity.
In 1977, Cooke returned to the District and joined a large corporate law firm specializing in telecommunications, higher education, entertainment, and corporate law. He became a partner in that law firm 1982. In 1987, he was appointed by Mayor Marion Barry to serve as the Corporation Counsel of the District of Columbia (now called the Attorney General for the District of Columbia) where he was the head of a law office of about 250 lawyers and an equal number of support staff.
In 1990, he left government service and returned to the private practice of law. In his practice, he works primarily on governmental relations, municipal finance, telecommunications, land use, public contracting, sports, advertising, litigation, intellectual property education, general corporate matters, and civil and criminal litigation matters.
Join our discussion as we discuss bail reform, learn about the Washington D.C. bail system and surprisingly find common ground on what works and what does not work on bail reform issues.