National Bar Association 40 Under 40 Nation's Best Advocates

Cooley partners TJ Graham and Tanisha James are recipients of the National Bar Association's 40 Under 40 Nation's Best Advocates awards. These annual awards recognize the nation’s top lawyers under the age of 40 who exemplify a broad range of high achievement in the legal field, including in advocacy, innovation, vision, leadership, and overall legal and community involvement.

Graham sits on the firm's board of directors, a position he was elected to in 2020. In the same year, he became the chair of Cooley's technology transactions practice group. He represents clients at all stages of their life cycles. Graham's representations include companies' most important technology and other business transactions, with a special focus on those involving high technology devices, software, data, consumer products and digital media. Deeply entrenched in diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and building a culture that respects, celebrates and values differences, he became the chair of Cooley's attorney diversity committee in 2019. The committee helps the firm recruit, hire, mentor and retain lawyers who reflect the diversity of our community and ensures the firm remains a leader in diversity initiatives within the legal profession.

James is a member of Cooley's antitrust & competition practice group. She advises clients, including major global businesses, on multibillion-dollar complex domestic and international mergers, acquisitions, strategic investments, joint ventures, licensing and collaboration agreements and government and private antitrust investigations. James is also heavily involved in Cooley's diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and is chair of the firm's Black Attorney Affinity Group (BAAG), and helped drive the creation and curation of BAAG's Allyship + Antiracism Resource Kit. She also serves on the firm's pro bono and mental health & wellness committees, and recently served on the nominating committee for Cooley's board of directors.

The National Bar Association is the nation's oldest and largest national network of predominantly African American lawyers and judges. It represents the interests of more than 65,000 lawyers, judges, law professors and law students.

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