Joel Cohen

June 06, 2023 | New York Law Journal

How far should a law school go in offering a platform for unquestionably divisive speech that claims to support such "human need" using the medium of scurrilous attack?

By Joel Cohen

6 minute read

May 30, 2023 | New York Law Journal

The jury room is different than what might take place during an informal conversation among acquaintances at a Starbucks. In court, we're not allowed to make the type of judgments we make about people and their motivations at Starbucks.

By Joel Cohen

7 minute read

May 09, 2023 | New York Law Journal

One supposes that criminal lawyers are often dentist-like in their professional undertakings— trying to "extract" truth from clients, witnesses and even prosecutors. Are we, however, immune from substitution by designated hitters who can hit the ball out of the park digitally?

By Joel Cohen

8 minute read

April 20, 2023 | New York Law Journal

People vs. Donald Trump: An Inside Account By Mark Pomerantz Simon & Schuster, 2023, 294 pages Why did Mark Pomerantz write a book about…

By Joel Cohen 

7 minute read

April 13, 2023 | New York Law Journal

Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg has chosen to venture significantly beyond using the bare-bones indictment. Accordingly, while did he file a spartan Trump indictment, contemporaneously he filed a 13-page "Statement of Facts" that was made available to the public.

By Joel Cohen and Gerald B. Lefcourt

8 minute read

April 07, 2023 | New York Law Journal

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis might have actually raised the conundrum whether a prosecutor can ethically create a policy that his or her office decline, across-the-board, to prosecute certain crimes on the books—without exercising discretion in the individual case whether or not to charge?

By Joel Cohen

10 minute read

April 04, 2023 | New York Law Journal

Federal and state legislators who vote on judicial nominees should indeed ask hard questions of nominees, white-collar defense attorney Joel Cohen writes. Unquestionably, though, those tough questions are often irrelevant to the decisions that the judiciary committee members will make.

By Joel Cohen

7 minute read

March 15, 2023 | New York Law Journal

Let him speak, and then speak out against it—and, if necessary, against him. If his thoughts are so odious, their odiousness will quickly become apparent to thinking people—that is, if your thoughts are better.

By Joel Cohen

5 minute read

March 01, 2023 | New York Law Journal

Unless remedial steps are taken to patch the hole in grand jury secrecy chiseled open by Emily Kohrs, the forewoman for a grand jury in the Trump election hoax case before a Georgia court, great risk exists that grand jurors around the country will conclude that if she did it, they too can wherever in America they might be impaneled, our columnist writes.

By Joel Cohen

6 minute read

February 17, 2023 | New York Law Journal

There is currently a debate in New York over whether to make disciplinary proceedings involving sitting state judges public. Currently, the New York State Senate is considering a bill that would bring into the open proceedings against state judges once they are formally accused of misconduct.

By Joel Cohen

7 minute read