G. Ben Cohen
The University of Akron School of Law has announced that G. Ben Cohen has joined the faculty as an assistant professor of law.
Cohen began his legal career as a law clerk at the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta and continued working in capital defense at the Louisiana Crisis Assistance Center in New Orleans. He co-founded the Capital Appeals Project in 2001, where his work led to the exoneration of two condemned individuals, the reversal of six capital convictions and the setting aside of more than a dozen death sentences. He later co-founded the Promise of Justice Initiative, where he was counsel on landmark cases such as Kennedy v. Louisiana and Ramos v. Louisiana.
In 2021, after more than two decades as a capital defense attorney, Cohen was hired as chief of appeals for the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office as part of a reform effort to restore confidence in the legal system.
He has co-authored chapters in textbooks on implicit bias and innocence and published over a dozen law review articles. He created a course entitled The Promises, Compromises and Challenges of Progressive Prosecution, which he taught at Tulane Law School and the University of Iowa College of Law. Most recently he was a visiting professor of law at the University of Missouri School of Law.
Cohen earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Arts in English from Bowdoin College. During law school, Cohen created an externship to South Africa for students and clerked for then Judge Edwin Cameron at the Law Commission on HIV.
“We are pleased to welcome Ben Cohen to Akron Law,” said Dean Emily Janoski-Haehlen. “He is the perfect addition to our practice-ready program. I think Akron Law’s students will benefit from his many years of real-world experience in the criminal legal system.”