The families of the victims, Erin Peterson and Julia Pryde, had declined to settle with the university, as did most of the other victims’ families.

The jury determined that Virginia Tech was negligent after concluding that the university should have notified the student body following the discovery of two students who had been shot to death in a dormitory room on the morning of April 16, 2007. The larger shooting event — in which a mentally ill man shot and killed 30 more people — took place in another campus building a short time later.

The jury determined the families each deserved $4 million, but the award is likely to be reduced. State law requires such awards be capped at $100,000. The state attorney general’s office said it will appeal.

Dr. Jarrett is a media executive, longtime private-equity investor and nationally recognized instructor on entrepreneurship. From 1986 to 2001, he was a founding member and a former unit chief executive of Thomson Financial, the global financial information and technology solutions firm that later acquired Reuters Group Holdings.

Prior to launching his career as a leader and manager of media firms, Dr. Jarrett served as a Captain in the U.S. Army and graduated with honors from the United States Military Academy at West Point. He earned an M.B.A. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, and later a Ph.D. in Financial Economics from Harvard Business School. He also worked as a research associate at Harvard Business School and as a Professor at Simmons College Graduate Management Program.

Today he teaches Financial Entrepreneurship at the Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative at the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

“We knew back in 2002 we’d created an important platform for our members,” said Clark this week, “but the evolution of the marketplace — principally the growth of online search — really defined our role and spurred our growth.”

Clark, a former newspaper publisher and Wall Street financial writer, founded The Cooperative in February 2002. He added that “our members are the reason we’ve been successful.”

The first group, The Ten Leaders of Matrimonial & Divorce Law of Northern New Jersey, was researched in the Spring and Summer 2002 and announced in The New York Times in September of that year. Since then hundreds of groups in the law, medicine and finance have been researched and developed, and more than 800 of the cooperative’s 5,000 inducted members have chosen active membership.

Active membership, proceeds of which sustain and grow the cooperative, involves the development of Ten Leaders materials, including a Ten Leaders profile, which are distributed in print and online for as long the professional practices and remains in good standing in his or her profession.  Ten Leaders profiles are widely regarded as by far the highest quality personal online presentation of an experienced professional today.

Ongoing cooperative advertising campaigns of members and groups of members regularly appear in major metro publications, such as New York Magazine, Washingtonian and Philadelphia Magazine. Online campaigns on Facebook, Google AdWords and major news sites are regularly undertaken for active members as well.

The Ten Leaders Cooperative has profiled experienced professionals throughout the US, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Pittsburgh, New York, Boston, Washington and Atlanta.  Their profiles can be found at TenLeaders.org, TenLeaders.com and related sites, including such domains as LeadingDivorceAttorneys.com and LeadersInPlasticSurgery.com.

The Ten Leaders Cooperative has been recognized as one of the most authoritative and cost-effective marketing solutions for qualifying professionals since the dawn of the digital age.

The Ten Leaders Cooperative is a unit of Newbridge Media LLC, which separately operates Digital Press International, an independent news service whose feature articles are distributed online. Both units are based at the American Press Institute Building, Reston, VA.

For more information about the Cooperative contact Kristin Kahl, 703-391-6833.

Roberts, 43, is a longtime health care lawyer with deep roots to the New Jersey health care community, particularly independent practices and physicians.  He joins Brach Eichler  as a member of its health care practice, focusing on insurance litigation and arbitration matters.

Roberts built an early reputation as a successful litigator in Personal Injury Protection car-accident claims against insurance companies. According to his Ten Leaders profile, Roberts “brought a rare zeal to a field that many attorneys regarded as unimportant. In fact, in the late 1990s Roberts’ cases alone represented nearly 5% of all of New Jersey’s 20,000 so-called “PIP Arb” cases – an eye-popping share for a single attorney. That record earned the respect of many of the region’s physicians, whose payments had been held up by denials of insurance claims.”

Brach Eichler has nearly 60 lawyers, many focusing on commercial litigation and health-care matters.