Weinberg College
of Arts & Sciences

Waldron Career Conversation with Khoury Cooper '08, JD'13: Corporate Counsel in Google's Youtube Division

This episode of the Weinberg in the World Podcast features a conversation Khoury Cooper ’08 JD’13, who is currently a Corporate Counsel in the Youtube Division of Google after Graduating from Northwestern with a Political Science Major and a JD in Law.

1:00: Impactful Northwestern Courses and Programs
3:55: Impactful Extracurriculars
6:10: Deciding to Go to Law School
8:15 First Job After School
9:55: How Did You Pick Your Career Path
11:55: Working Before Grad School
13:45: Working in Music
18:00: Working in Chicago and Priorities
21:05: Networking Advice
23:30: Arts & Sciences Background

Cassie Petoskey:
Welcome to the Weinberg in the World podcast, where we bring you stories of interdisciplinary thinking in today's complex world. This episode is brought to you by the Waldron Student Alumni Connections program, a resource in Weinberg College where we help current students explore career options through making connections with alumni. Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Khoury Cooper. Khoury graduated from Weinberg College in 2008 with a major in political science. He later went on to get his J.D from Northwestern's Pritzker School of Law in 2013, and Khoury is currently a corporate counsel in the YouTube division of Google. And Khoury, thanks so much for being here with us today.

Khoury Cooper:
No, thanks for having me. That's a huge honor, so looking forward to the conversation.

Cassie Petoskey:
Absolutely, and we're excited to hear what you're up to at Google, but we like to start out our conversations a few years back of when you were a student on campus at Northwestern. Can you share with us some of the impactful classes, internships, extracurriculars, things you did while you were on campus that impacted your post-grad path?

Khoury Cooper:
For sure. I'd like to say it was a few years back, but it's much longer than that looking at my start date in Northwestern. So I started in Northwestern in 2004, but really felt like I got a pre-start. So I was there the summer before my senior year in high school. This program called Lead Program in Business, it's really geared towards minority high school students who are interested in just understanding what it really means to work in business. I think when you're in high school and middle school, whatever the case may be, you hear a lot, "Yeah, I want to work in business," but what does that really mean? That program was really geared towards having students come in and take classes like [inaudible 00:01:32]. Have speakers come in, go visit corporations around the city and really understand the different opportunities that were out there. So during that summer, took full advantage of meeting folks, exploring the campus, exploring [inaudible 00:01:43] and exploring Chicago and really getting a feel for what it meant to be at Northwestern and was just totally sold on the experience.
So I was fortunate enough to get in, was dead set on going there. Had bought a bunch of Northwestern gear my senior year in high school before getting admitted. So very happy I was there after admitted, but once I got there, I think oddly enough, one of my most impactful courses was my freshman seminar. The first one, still remember the title. It was Rags to Riches, the Self-Made Man in American History. But it was impactful in a few ways. I think one, it was just nice to be in such a small learning environment. Obviously not a ton of folks in the freshman seminars. Got a chance to meet new people from all over the globe. We got a chance to learn in like I mentioned, a small environment, but it was also super discussion-based and that was just something I wasn't accustomed to.
In my high school, teachers taught and students listened for the most part and answered questions, and this was a lot different. There were prompts given at the beginning of class, we had assigned readings and we just got a chance to discuss among ourselves. That was just an eye-opening experience and something I grew to appreciate and expect in a lot of my Weinberg courses. And it's funny, I was kind of glancing back at some of the old books I have and the bookshelf here and definitely still have some of the books from that freshman seminar. So just kind of speaks to what is this, 18 years later, how impactful that actually was.
And then other classes I took throughout my four years there, a lot of the African-American studies courses, mostly because it was something that just wasn't offered at the high school I went to. We had history courses, but not each of them, but some of them had topics or sections on African-American history, but none did a deep dive. So for me, having a chance to do a deep dive for each quarter on a different topic in African-American studies was huge and just something I really appreciate not only meeting the folks who were in the classes with me, but also just really getting to talk to the professors after hours or in office hours and understanding where they were coming from.

Cassie Petoskey:
Yeah, absolutely. That's great and really helpful to talk through and hear you share what it was specifically about the courses that were different from what you had learned as education from high school, right? The discussion-based history, diving into specific topics. And thinking outside of the classroom, what were some of the impactful experiences you had beyond the academics?

Khoury Cooper:
Yes. I joined Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated, the Alpha Mu chapter there in Northwestern my freshman year, like the spring quarter of my freshman year. And that was just kind of where I poured all of my energy for the most part outside of the classroom. It was the first opportunity I think I had to really be former brotherhood and be in an organization with a bunch of like-minded black males. Then it was huge for me to see folks focused on the common goal, not only for the fraternity and for the chapter, but also just for themselves to better themselves. I had a variety of leadership positions throughout the three plus years in the organization on campus, culminating in chapter presidency. What I really learned there was just how to coordinate and host events. To fundraise, create budgets and execute, really run a small business and how to network with organizations on campus, off campus and really just face my fear of public speaking was probably the biggest one there, just in terms of speaking at events that we hosted and the like.
So for me, just I'm an individual who likes to pick a few things to focus on. In this case less than a few, just school, one, and two, the fraternity. But I felt like I got so much out of that one experience, not just hanging out and partying, but also again, just kind of working with my peers and inspiring peers. Continuing to build on the business that had been established for the fraternity was huge for me. It's something I cherish today. We're actually, the chapter at Northwestern is celebrating its hundred-year anniversary this year. So a lot of folks are coming back to campus in October for homecoming, then separately later in the month for the hundred years. So it's just huge to see the longevity that the chapter has had on campus and how many lives it's impacted as we go through this planning to talk to folks who were around in the seventies and eighties and we were around in the 2000s. It's just awesome to see the impact and it's the fraternity, but also Northwestern. The purple bleeds through and through with folks.

Cassie Petoskey:
Yeah, that's amazing. That is so fun. A hundred years, definitely something to celebrate this fall. And it's so interesting, you talk about how the fraternity was like a small business, and I know you mentioned this business program you were in, and now you're in law. So where did we find this interest in law school? Can you share just a little bit about how you considered that and ended up going to become a lawyer?

Khoury Cooper:
Yeah, I was on a track for law and for business for the longest time. I didn't know which one. I didn't want to decide until it was absolutely necessary. I really enjoyed, like you mentioned, the program that I participated in, the fraternity, I had a business internship. I worked in business after undergrad for a bit. Really enjoyed it. But the legal aspect of it or the legal side of my pursuit pulled the strongest, both with speaking with attorneys at my first real job, if you will, after undergrad. And then also just the rigor of it. I really enjoy reading. I really enjoy analyzing. I really enjoy writing, and I know there's some of that in business, but it just, the pull just felt a bit stronger on the legal side. I, during my internship, worked at ADP out in the suburbs here in Chicago and enjoyed it.
But I spent a lot of time in Excel, spent a lot of time in Access and Visio, and just wasn't my thing. I preferred to be in Word to write and to read. So I started trending towards the law school aspect of it. But even with that, there are just a variety of areas that you can pursue and I didn't know which avenue I would go down. For a while, thought I would be a litigator or I would work in education or the government, but obviously ended up somewhere completely different at this point, but still tried to make sure I'm involved in those areas outside of work.
But it was a long-term decision I would say, starting from probably age 16 to probably 2022 or so. It was kind of an internal struggle, so I didn't have my mind made up when I graduated from Northwestern. And it's like, working for a bit, I took the LSAT, I took the GMAT and was a bit all over the place, which I think is totally fine because Northwestern, no matter your major, I think kind of sets you up to pursue a variety of careers. Even as a poli-sci major, I was able to go to the career fairs, get business analyst internships, do consulting interviews, do business analyst interviews, and also land a job that had nothing to do with political science.

Cassie Petoskey:
Yeah, that's great. It definitely sets you up to be able to do a number of different things. And you mentioned, so you left Northwestern still not sure, right? So what was your first job and how did that then impact your decision to go back to law school?

Khoury Cooper:
For sure. My first job was working at Sears Holdings. There was a business analyst rotational program, and it was almost like a three-tier program. So there were undergraduate students and there were two tiers of MBA student. And you came in, you went through some training and you got slotted into different groups. So I landed in the innovation group, and that was at the time when Sears and Kmart were still trying to figure out their merger and how they would work together. So we got paired with some MBA students or MBA graduates I should say. So this was their first job post-MBA, so got a chance to really pick their brain about what it was like to go to business school, what they were looking to do afterwards. Got paired with, at that time there was a new exec they hired who happened to go to Northwestern undergrad. So that was great.
So we hit it off and got to pick his brain a lot. And folks were just generally willing to meet with me. I got a chance to do some work with the legal department and understand what lawyers at a company do versus what lawyers at a law firm or in a governmental job do. So I took it as an experience to contribute to the company hopefully, but also as like, oh my God, I don't know what I'm doing. Let's try to figure out and talk to people who are enrolled, and help that steer my decision.

Cassie Petoskey:
Yeah, that's really great. I definitely think it's great to hear you take advantage of an opportunity to explore even in a business role, what some of those legal jobs could be. And now I want to get to the in-between, but now you're working within an organization like you mentioned, right? So can you talk us through when you were in law school and you again had to explore, right? You were in Weinberg College, you were exploring what you were interested in. Now you're in law school, you're exploring what you're interested in. How did you pick the line of work you're doing now?

Khoury Cooper:
I look at it as people ask you what you want to be when you grow up, and my answer is I still don't know. And I've tried to pick a path or pick a skill set that's broadly applicable. So in law school, I took a variety of courses that I thought were applicable to a bunch of different career paths and ended up at a law firm, which I think a lot of folks do at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. And worked in mergers and acquisitions, which is completely different from what I'm doing today. But there are some underlying things, right? The ability to draft a contract, the ability to review provisions and negotiate those revisions. The ability again to jump on the phone with clients and understand their business perspective, which I think is hugely important in translating that business perspective or their points or their needs into actual contractual provisions.
So try to take, again, take a variety of courses with standard law school professors, but also practitioners. So one great thing Northwestern and other law schools do is they have folks who are actually working in the profession come in and teach classes in the evening. So try to take a bunch of those classes, again, just trying to explore and pick their brains on what they actually do. Because I think for me, I enjoyed, especially at Weinberg, at the law school, just the theoretical nature of it all, just in terms of learning and learning for the sake of learning and to be a more well-rounded human, but also struggled to know what that translated into and what that would mean as a professional in whatever profession I chose. In law school, just a variety of courses, a bit all over the place, I might say. But I think it all came together and worked out for the good, especially starting at the law firm in a very transactional role, I think helped to position me for the next five to seven years of my career.

Cassie Petoskey:
Yeah, and I really like that perspective of you seeking out specific courses because of the professors, and I think that's such an interesting mindset, so valuable probably to your experience of seeing, okay, here are people that are actually working in the industry. Do you think the two years you spent between or the time you spent between undergrad and law school gave you that perspective? Would you recommend to students to work for a little bit before going back to school?

Khoury Cooper:
I think it's huge because a lot of the legal profession is client services, and it's one thing to be able to write a brief, write a memo or draft an agreement, but it's a completely different thing to be able to understand a perspective that's not academic. And I think an easier way to do that is to have worked or lived in a setting that's not academic. So if you're going from college or going from undergrad to law school, for the most part, maybe you've had an internship, but you haven't lived and breathed as a working adult, frankly, in a professional setting. And you develop some skill sets within that that you just can't pick up in college. Some tangible, some intangible. And I think that's hugely important. It kind of propels you in your legal career in terms of being able to provide that client service.
And I frankly think clients pick up on it, which is a lot of the reason I think Northwestern tends to, at least at that point, tended to focus on students who have spent some time outside of undergrad. You bring in a different perspective. Law school is a bit friendlier. I think people are more willing to collaborate and work together because they know there's a bigger picture out there, there's a different world. It's not just like, "Oh my God, I must get this A, must finish at the top of the curve." Everyone wants to have a good GPA, finish towards the top of their class, but there's more to it. Once you graduate, what's next? And how have I worked with folks? How have I networked? How can I work with people going forward?

Cassie Petoskey:
Yeah, and developing some of that mindset going into law school helps you take advantage of it in a very different way. So you started at a firm and now you've worked your way as a corporate counsel in an organization. How did you get your way into a specific company outside of a firm? And then also I would love to hear just a little bit more about the specific industry you're in, knowing that you're in music, but living in Chicago, which seems like not the place where everyone in music is living.

Khoury Cooper:
Yeah, a few people. Yeah.

Cassie Petoskey:
Yeah, so talk to us a little bit about that.

Khoury Cooper:
Yeah, so I was at a law firm for a bit, made some good friends there. One happened to be a Northwestern law alum, so made good friends there and just really kept in touch with him. He went on to work at Amazon, which is where I landed first after the firm. And we kept in touch, like I mentioned. We did some deals together at the firm. He's like, "Hey, there's some openings here. They're not in music, but there are openings at the company." And how a lot of big tech companies work are, if you get in the door, you can work in a certain group for a particular amount of time, and then you can kind of switch groups if you've networked internally and people are fans of your work. So that was the case there. So made the move in-house, worked there, learned the culture, learned how lawyers at Amazon maneuver and made the switch to music, which is the group I'm in now, which is a huge thing for me.
It's an area I was always passionate about, didn't think I would land in high school thinking about college. It's hard to talk to your parents and say, "Hey, I want to work in music." It's not a super safe choice when your parents are thinking about investing in you for the next four years. So it came back around to me at the age of 30 versus 17, but totally fine. It worked out and I'm super happy about it. But yeah, the work I do now is I'm at YouTube, which is a subsidiary of Google. And the work I'm doing now is primarily music licensing, which means going out on the record label side. So going out to the Sonys, the Universals, the Warners of the world to get the rights to include their music and include their sound recordings in the YouTube service, or whether that's YouTube music, which is similar to Spotify or Apple or the YouTube service overall that I think a lot of folks are familiar with when you just go to the website is a huge part of my job.
But I also negotiate some of our festival agreements when we're sponsoring those and some of our upcoming product launches that are a bit TBD at the moment, but still a good variety of transactional work. So I developed those skills, again, at the law firm. But once you are working in-house, there's still a lot of reading and writing where I think my experience at Weinberg comes into play. Just in terms of being comfortable, not only typing in agreement, that type of English, versus typing up a document that describes a product launcher or being able to convey legal concepts in non-legal terms, I think has been hugely helpful.
And a lot of that I think has to do with just my desire and passion and focus on just literature and the written word versus, like I mentioned, my intern experience in Excel and Visio. Wasn't my thing, but I knew I could convey things on paper. And that's proven hugely helpful in-house where companies I think are starting to move away a bit from putting things on PowerPoint some more. So like, "Hey, let's put some thoughts on paper so we can make sure we're fully vetting this.

Cassie Petoskey:
Yeah, super interesting. And so I want to hear just a little bit more about the specifics. I know you talked about putting arguments to paper and some of these things that you do with getting music licensing, and what are some of the challenges that you face if you didn't get the right licenses for this? What are some of the things you're trying to avoid based on the work you're doing?

Khoury Cooper:
Yeah, I think you're trying a few things. You're trying to avoid a bad user experience. You want your users to have access to all the content they want to make the end product they want. You want to obviously respect the copyright owners and get the proper rights of the content, or you face upsetting those folks. You face lawsuits, you face statutory damages and the like. So you're obviously actively trying to avoid those sorts of things, but you also I think want to spin it in a more positive light just in terms of like, "Hey, here's how we can achieve this. Here's the path forward." So I think in-house, working at a corporation is less like, "Okay, I can do this legal job for you," but let me also come to the table early on as we're designing these products and point out some of the potential pitfalls and point out some of the potential challenges. And help everyone in the room think around those or think through those before we get into a spot, run into the things I just mentioned.

Cassie Petoskey:
Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate that positive spin. And I know we alluded to it about how there's not a huge music scene in Chicago. How many people are doing what you're doing or similar work in the city of Chicago?

Khoury Cooper:
I think very few. Very few. I don't know for a fact, but my guess would be less than five and probably less than that, probably me and maybe one or two other people in a similar role at a streaming service. A lot of the music industry is focused in LA in the US, it's focused in LA and New York. I was just fortunate enough and Google was kind enough to allow me to work here in Chicago and take this role. And for me it had come to a point, my wife and I were living in Seattle. We were considering making a move, wanted to be closer to friends and the family. Chicago's a great big city. My wife's from Philly, I'm from St. Louis. We could be closer to folks in those locations. When it came to a point where, hey, I had to decide or I thought about deciding whether I needed to choose between music and what I wanted outside of work.
And I think folks will come to that point at some point in their careers where they need to make a decision on what's more important, the type of work that they're doing or the industry they're in or location or family. And for me, I was over-indexing on family, and I was like, "Hey, I really want to be here in Chicago." And if it had come down to leaving music, I think that would've been the case. I was exploring other opportunities, but I was fortunate enough to land this role. But I think it was only because I frankly put in my time at another company in Seattle. But outside of that, I don't know how flexible companies would be. I think if there is such a thing, one silver lining of the last couple of years has been companies allowing folks to work remotely. I'm not fully remote. I do go into the Google offices here and there are some other attorneys there as well. None doing music or YouTube, but there are other attorneys there. But I think it was just the stars just happened to align and it was hopefully meant to be.

Cassie Petoskey:
Yeah, no, I love that and I really appreciate you kind of walking through the different elements of your decision making because I think that so often. There's so much more to it than a simple job offer. There's a lot to consider. Family, being close to family, industry, the role, and it's really helpful to hear you kind talk through just how impactful some of those things were for you because I know students in the middle of their college career, but they're also considering, "What is my family thinking? What are my parents? They're supporting me." So family plays in decisions along the way.

Khoury Cooper:
Even my college choice, I wanted to be close to home. I wanted to stay close to home after college. I didn't get adventurous until 26. So looking back, I would tell my younger self maybe to be a bit more adventurous earlier on, but I was fortunate enough that it all worked out. But at 35, index on the family, having kids at some point that I had a good run in my opinion in terms of chasing my dreams and achieving my dreams and working in spaces I never thought I would be able to work in. So ultimately I had to decide what I wanted for the rest of my life.

Cassie Petoskey:
Yeah, absolutely. For students who are listening to this and are saying, "I really want to do what Khoury does," what advice would you have for these students who want to go down, want to maybe work in music or be corporate counsel, in-house? What advice would you have for these students who are currently an undergrad right now?

Khoury Cooper:
Yeah, for sure. I would say take advantage of the alumni network. I'm definitely not the only person working in the entertainment space. Take full advantage. I think people are very willing to talk, especially if they can talk about themselves. People are willing to pick up the phone or respond to an email, whatever the case may be. But still, I would say don't have a narrow focus. Still explore, still develop a broad skill set, still do what to enjoy because a lot of times, admission to grad school will depend on your undergraduate grades or your test scores. I think on the former, your grades are formed by you taking classes that you enjoy and that you're thrilled with. That was the case for me for undergrad and for law school. I could have taken a certain course set because I thought this would get me to music, but maybe I wouldn't have done as well.
Maybe I wouldn't have enjoyed myself. But I think it's still so important to do well and to really enjoy the journey and just have faith with the network, talking to folks, reaching out. I think also just being, dogging and pursuing your passions. Like, "This is what I want to do." For me, I wanted to do this at 17, didn't happen. I didn't necessarily give up on it, but I definitely put it on the back burner. But when it presented itself again at around 30, arms wide open, was prepared, had done the things necessary, positioned myself to have a broad skill set. Well, even at Amazon, I did my interviews here in Chicago. And essentially the person who made the ultimate hiring decision was Northwestern alum. It worked out. Just rely on that very heavily. Same with my internship, same with Sears. It just worked out. So trust the network and just, I don't know how easy it is, but come through alumni. I'm happy to talk to folks. Phone's always open, email's always open and have done so. But just rely on and put in the work on your side.

Cassie Petoskey:
Yeah, I love that. I really appreciate that advice, Khoury, that there isn't really, there's not one set way to make it happen, right? There's study what you're excited about and learn and grow along the way, and your path will evolve. And so easy to say that it all fits when you're looking back on it, rather than when you're an 18, 20-year-old. You have an idea of what you want to do, but it evolves over time.

Khoury Cooper:
Yeah, for sure.

Cassie Petoskey:
That's so great. And I know as a lawyer, I'm sure you use a lot of the skills you learned in law school, but what are some of the things, specifics about reading and writing that you learned from your arts and sciences background that you still use today?

Khoury Cooper:
Yeah, I think critical reading. Sometimes you read for pleasure, but you also sometimes need to scrutinize the author, scrutinize the work, and that comes a lot. It comes across a lot when you're doing someone's revision of a contract. Where are they coming from, what are they really trying to get across? So that definitely comes into play. And then also reviewing your own drafts frankly, to make sure and as crisp and as concise as can be. I think people will think of lawyers, they're super wordy, but that's not what your clients want to hear, want to read.
You need to be very concise, use as few words as possible. So that comes across from I think my writing and learning at Weinberg as well. Just having really good professors and going to office hours and getting feedback on drafts and getting feedback on essays and not just taking the grade and being like, "Oh, well that's unfortunate, I'll do better next time." But just really trying to understand and be critical of myself as well I think was super helpful. And then also just taking advantage of the ability to take a wide array of courses and them still being able to work together so you can graduate with your major. But you just learn so many different perspectives and I think it just helps you as a well-rounded human and professional.

Cassie Petoskey:
Absolutely. I think that's so helpful hearing about some of the African-American studies courses you took in history and just how that impacts your mindset moving forward. And I really appreciate you sharing a little bit more about the arts and sciences background, but also more about what you're doing today and your advice for students. Khoury, it's been so helpful chatting through your career path for students, and we just want to thank you again for being here with us today.

Khoury Cooper:
No, thank you all. This has been great. It's been a joy, and I'm serious about my offer. If students want to chat, please reach out to me. Thank you.

Cassie Petoskey:
Thanks for listening. If you want to hear more of these conversations, links to the full videos and podcasts are below. For more information about Weinberg College and this podcast, visit weinberg.northwestern.edu and search for Waldron. As always, we would love to hear your feedback. Please email us with your thoughts on the program. Have a great day, and go Cats.