He attended Columbia University, graduating in 1967, and officer candidate school at the Coast Guard Reserve Training Center in Yorktown, Virginia.
During his four years of active military service with the United States Coast Guard, Copeland was a combat information officer aboard the USCGC Androscoggin.
Copeland ran for political office again in 1980, winning election to the Virginia House of Delegates, on which he served until losing reelection in 1995.
[4] Copeland's loss to Thelma Drake, whom he was facing for the second time,[5] was considered a major upset,[6] as the 87th House district was the only constituency in which a Republican candidate unseated a Democratic incumbent.
[7] Copeland subsequently returned to the practice of law, and was a special justice presiding over legal cases regarding mental health between 2015 and 2019.