Isabel Zagazeta is a 3L J.D. candidate and Dean’s Fellow at Cooley Law School in Tampa, Florida. Originally from Canada, she earned her undergraduate degree at Wilfrid Laurier University before moving to Florida to study law at Cooley. She has earned book awards, served on Law Review, mentored incoming students, and was part of Cooley’s Moot Court team that recently won first place at the 2026 Robert Orseck Moot Court Competition. With a passion for legal writing and healthcare compliance, Isabel is building a strong foundation for a future in law at Cooley.
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As Michigan voters cast their ballots in the Primary Election, Cooley Law School professors shared their legal analysis with media about the three state proposals and candidates in highly contested statewide races.
With the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the law school, it seems fitting to look back at where we have come from through the eyes of the Library. The Law Library has a substantial Cooley Law School Archives collection relating to materials collected that are historical in nature containing various publications created and distributed by the school. The collection is large with nearly 1,000 items. While there is little new material being added to this collection due to the role the internet plays in creating a communications presence, you might be surprised to know that it does continue to grow. Links have been added when possible to online additions and there are some messages that are best conveyed in a print format. That is where this collection becomes invaluable.
Of course, everything is online. While that statement is not actually true, most materials a practicing attorney are looking for can be found in a digital format. The questions are where to look and what resources are available?
Coolcat has been around since 1990, yet whenever I write about it, I say “Coolcat, the library online catalog.” It replaces the paper card catalog which is now something that very few current students even remember. When the Library developed its first version of the online catalog, it was likely one of the first 25 academic law libraries to do so. The visionary leadership of Judith Ansbach, with librarians Pam Bartlett and Rita Marsala, as well as staff member Susan Oliver, helped us quickly transition to the newly emerging high-tech record-keeping system that we still call Coolcat.
On January 4, 2021, the Brennan Law Library on the Lansing campus opened in a new location. Gone are the days of endless miles of shelving and study carrels in every corner to meet the needs of any type of studier. The new space is compact with movable compact shelving housing most of the collection.
The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine has many keyed into the impact on global oil supply, but the U.S. National Security Council is renewing its focus on another area of national security concern – the global water supply. Cooley Law Professor Michael C.H. McDaniel, former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Homeland Strategy Defense, spoke with Tom Jordan and Kevin Dietz of WJR-AM Detroit, sharing his perspective on this potential threat.
As the Russia-Ukraine War continues, Cooley Law School Professors David L. Finnegan and retired Brigadier General and former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Homeland Defense Michael C.H. McDaniel, experts on international law, have created a video-blog series sharing various interpretations of international law as it pertains to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The first three video-blog posts take a look at three important topics when looking into the violation of war crimes. Hosted on Cooley’s blog site, the video blogs also can be found on the Cooley Law School YouTube channel and are available for members of the media to share with their audiences.
Following the April 4 shooting death of 26-year-old Patrick Lyoya by a Grand Rapids police officer, many have expressed frustration over the use of deadly force, questioning police policy on de-escalation, as well as frustration over length of time to conduct and release information from the investigation.
Robin Sutara (Witherell Class, 2010) has always been a trailblazer. Perhaps an unassuming trailblazer, but she has definitely carved out a career and life path that has taken her to extraordinary places and heights. Sutara, who twice graduated from Cooley, garnering her JD in 2010 and then returning for her Masters of Law in Intellectual Property and graduating in 2013, was named as Microsoft UK’s first Chief Data Officer in January 2021. She is responsible for collaborating with Microsoft’s customers throughout the UK, learning about how they leverage data and artificial intelligence, and working closely with them to create new solutions for a variety of functions and across multiple industries, including retail, banking and healthcare. Sutara has been with Microsoft for more than two decades, serving in a number of leadership positions on the way to her current role with the company. Sutara’s previous roles included consumer support engineer, technical account manager, business operations manager and chief of staff, where she was responsible for all operations and business management functions for the corporate vice president for the Azure Data engineering organization. Azure is a cloud computing service operated by Microsoft for applications management via Microsoft-managed data centers.
