About the Firm

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Kirk Cooper Antuna is an award-winning, board-certified appellate specialist and the founder of Cooper Appeals, P.L.L.C., a boutique appellate law firm based out of El Paso. The firm’s mission is to provide legal advocacy at the next level in courts throughout Texas, New Mexico, and beyond.  

Coming from a family of teachers and educators, Kirk understands the value of truth, hard work, and explaining complex ideas simply. He uses this skill, along with his deep knowledge of court administration and his love of the written and spoken word, to help achieve his clients' strategic objectives, both in written briefs and in the courtroom. Kirk is a second-generation Mexican-American. He attended public schools in El Paso, and is proud to base his practice on the border, in the city where he grew up.  

Kirk has devoted his entire legal career to appeals work. Since founding the firm in 2022, Kirk has served as lead appellate counsel and embedded trial counsel in cases before the Supreme Court of Texas, the New Mexico Court of Appeals, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the Texas intermediate courts of appeals, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, and in state trial courts in West Texas and Southern New Mexico. 

Kirk regularly works with and alongside trial attorneys litigating cases in the fields of employment law, personal injury law, civil rights law (including Section 1983 claims for constitutional rights violations), mental health law, real estate litigation, and commercial disputes. He provides strategic insights, long-term planning, a willingness to argue complex legal issues, and much-needed advanced legal research and writing know-how to busy trial lawyers looking to integrate an appellate attorney into their work.

Before founding Cooper Appeals, P.L.L.C., Kirk spent nearly nine years working at the Texas Court of Appeals for the Eighth District in El Paso. He began as a law clerk to then-Associate Justice (later Chief Justice) Yvonne Rodriguez in 2013 before eventually serving as the Court’s chief staff attorney from 2019 to 2022. In that role, Kirk oversaw the Court’s day-to-day operations, provided general counsel to all justices, advised the Court on all shadow docket/emergency matters, and helped manage the Court’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. During his full tenure with the Court, Kirk drafted more than 380 opinions total in civil cases involving employment law, arbitration, medical malpractice, contract disputes, multi-million dollar personal injury trials, and oil and gas law, along with criminal appeals ranging from traffic tickets to capital murder.

Kirk has always been driven by a high work ethic and a strong sense of justice. He strives to live his values by giving back through community and bar service. He was named El Paso's Outstanding Young Lawyer of the Year in 2017 for his service as president of the El Paso Young Lawyers Association. He has twice received the Trial & Appellate Advocate Award from the Texas Young Lawyers Association, and in 2023, he received a Presidential Citation from TYLA for his work co-chairing and drafting the problem for the Texas State Moot Court Competition for three years in a row.

Kirk currently serves as Secretary of El Paso Bar Association Board of Directors, as well as a member of the Texas Bar Journal Board of Editors,and as an associate of the George A. McAlmon American Inn of Court. He is also a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, the New Mexico Trial Lawyers Association, the Southern New Mexico Bar Association, and the State Bar of Texas Appellate Section’s Diversity Committee, which seeks to increase the number of women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ lawyers arguing before the nation’s highest courts.

Kirk is an emerging voice in appellate law, and he speaks frequently on topics related to legal writing, diversity in the legal profession, and organizational leadership at CLE events and conferences throughout the Southwest and nationally. His written work has appeared in The Advocate, the Texas Bar Journal, and the El Paso Bar Journal.

Kirk is fluent in Spanish and conversant in Arabic. In his spare time, Kirk enjoys volunteering, traveling, spending time with family and friends, supporting local art and live music, and watching El Paso Locomotive F.C./D.C. United/U.S National Team soccer.

J.D., George Washington University (2013)

• Mock Trial Board (Cohen & Cohen Competition Quarterfinalist)
• Moot Court Board (Van Vleck Competition Quarterfinalist)
• Vice President, Hispanic Law Student Association

B.A., International Studies (magna cum laude), University of North Texas (2009)

Minors: Spanish and Journalism

• Assignments Editor, North Texas Daily
• Keith Shelton Scholarship, Mayborn School of Journalism
• Outstanding Defense Delegate, National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations Southwest Model Arab League Competition (2008)
• Charter member, UNT Chapter of National Association of Hispanic Journalists

U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholar (Arabic), Centre d’Etude Maghrébines à Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia (Summer 2008)

• State Bar of Texas
• State Bar of New Mexico
• United States District Court for the Western District of Texas
• United States District Court for the District of New Mexico
• United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
• United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit

• El Paso County v. Flores, No. 08-22-00060-CV, 2023 WL 2435669 (Tex.App.—El Paso Mar. 9, 2023, pet. denied Nov. 10, 2023) (preserved client’s disability discrimination claim for trial on the merits in interlocutory appeal from denial of county’s plea to the jurisdiction).

• Illumina v. Federal Trade Commission, No. 23-60167 (5th Cir. 2023) (served as amicus counsel to the Open Markets Institute before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in antitrust case dealing with cancer-screening technology).

• Fifth Circuit appeal (2023): negotiated confidential settlement for appellant-client on appeal from a take-nothing summary judgment rendered against client's whistleblower claim in the district court

• City of El Paso v. Cangialosi, No. 08-22-00155-CV (Tex.App.—El Paso Aug. 19, 2022, order) (provided litigation support to trial counsel in plea to the jurisdiction proceedings and successfully opposed City’s request for a stay of trial proceedings pending interlocutory appeal from a denied plea to the jurisdiction based on governmental immunity in police chase injury case; case proceeded to trial during appeal, where trial team obtained $1.1 million verdict)

• Speaker, Greatest Hits: Common Appellate Issues for the New Practitioner, State Bar of Texas Advance Civil Appellate Seminar (Civil Appellate 101 Course)--Austin, TX, Sept. 2023

• Stays and Emergency Relief Pending Resolution of Texas Interlocutory Appeals and Original Proceedings, 102 THE ADVOCATE (TEX.) 15 (2023)

• Speaker, Building an Appellate Practice, “Transitioning to Appellate Practice CLE,” State Bar of Texas Appellate Section Diversity Committee & Texas A&M School of Law—Fort Worth, TX, April 2023

• Speaker, Making Objections That Count: How to Preserve Errors that Work on Appeal, El Paso Criminal Defense Lawyers Seminar—Ruidoso, NM, Nov. 2022

• Speaker, Standards of Review, State Bar of Texas Advanced Civil Appellate Seminar (Civil Appellate 101 Course)—Austin, TX, Sept. 2022

• Sharpening Your Legal Writing Skills: A Plain Language Approach, American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division CLE Webinar Series—August 2022

• Panelist, Recognizing Implicit Bias in Trial Practice, Texas Bar College 24th Annual Summer School: Sun, Sand, and CLE for the General Practitioner—Galveston, Texas, July 2022

• CLE Course Director and Speaker, American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division Western States Summit—El Paso, Texas, May 2022.

• Panelist, Beginning Diversity/Equity/Inclusion Conversations in the Workplace, American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division Western States Regional Summit—Santa Fe, NM, November 2021

• Speaker, The Texas Rules of Pandemic Procedure: What Changed (And Didn’t Change) In State Litigation, State Bar of Texas Appellate Section, Diversity Committee, Apr. 2021.

• (With Patricia Askew), “Help Us Help You: Brief-Writing and Oral Argument Tips from Court Staff,” State Bar of Texas Advanced Civil Appellate Seminar (Civil Appellate 101 Course)—Sept. 2020

• “Disaster Planning for Texas Appellate Practitioners,” 83 TEX. B. J. 306 (May 2020)

• “The Texas Junk Science Writ: A Look Six Years In,” 82 TEX. B.J. 798 (November 2019)

• Panelist, Doing More With Less: Leading a Bar Association Without an Executive Director, State Bar of Texas Local Bar Leaders Conference—Austin, Texas, July 2018

• Panelist, Chief/Senior Staff Attorney Roundtable, Texas Association of Appellate Court Attorneys Conference—Austin, Texas, Sept. 2017, Sept. 2018, and Sept. 2019