I missed this news earlier. Here is a report from IP-Watch:
“Aaron Cooper, the US Senate Judiciary Committee’s chief counsel for intellectual property and antitrust law, left his job to return to private law practice and lobbying with Covington & Burling in Washington. Cooper had been with the committee since 2006, and, in his new role, will help expand the firm’s intellectual property and antitrust expertise, since those issues spur action in Congress. “A lot of really hot topics that you read about in the press every day can’t really gain traction in Congress,” Cooper told Politico. “IP issues really do have that ability to gain traction.” Cooper joins former Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, and Democratic Rep. Howard Berman of California, to help corporate clients on IP and antitrust issues. Covington & Burling also hired Richard Hertling, former chief counsel and staff director of the House Judiciary Committee and IP policy expert, in April.”
This from an earlier Poltical report. He is actually returing to his old firm, now as a rainmaker.
Cooper has had the top intellectual property job at Judiciary since 2009, where he helped develop and pass the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act of 2011, Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act of 2010, the Theft of Trade Secrets Clarification Act of 2012.
Cooper started his career as an associate for Covington in 2001. He has been on Capitol Hill since 2005.
While working for Leahy, Aaron Cooper did much of the staff work on the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act, also known the Protect IP Act, or PIPA, the Senate version of SOPA.