As an undergrad at Syracuse University, Vincent Cohen Jr. played basketball under the legendary head coach Jim Boeheim. Cohen had his eyes on playing basketball in the NBA.

But it was not to be.

“Like many other kids who played basketball in college, my first dream was to play NBA basketball,” Cohen told Corporate Crime Reporter in an interview last month. “But it didn’t work out.”

“As I kept moving down the depth chart on the basketball team, I realized that I wasn’t going to the NBA. I figured I needed to do something else to feed myself and sustain myself.”

Cohen’s father, Vincent Cohen Sr., was one of the first African-American attorneys to make partner at Hogan & Hartson – now Hogan Lovells.

So Cohen had a role model for a different career path right there in his home – his dad.

He went to Syracuse Law School, then became a prosecutor and ended up at Dechert.

For his first year as global managing partner at Dechert, Vincent Cohen Jr. spent much of his time traveling, meeting Dechert partners in offices around the world.

“I came to Dechert and joined the white collar corporate investigations group,” Cohen said. “I do FCPA work, health care fraud defense, securities fraud defense, false claims defense work and international investigations as well.”

“While I was working my practice, I was brought into leadership positions at the firm. I got voted onto the policy committee – a group of twelve partners who run the firm. It’s the firm’s management committee, but we call it the policy committee. I was elected to that committee in my fifth or sixth year here. And then I was elected as the global management partner along with Sabina Comis. We began as global managing partners in July 2023.” 

How does your time break down in terms of managing the firm versus working on your caseload?

“When it first started, there was a lot to understand, there was a lot of balancing to do. One of the wonderful things about the policy committee is that we meet every month and we usually meet in a different office around the world. I’ve gotten to meet a lot of partners in Munich, Singapore, Ireland, Dubai – wherever we have offices. I wanted to make sure I met partners around the world.”

“At the beginning it was about 60 percent global managing duties and about 40 percent my practice. Once I got a grasp of my global management partner duties, it became about 80 percent practice and 20 percent firm administration.” 

On the practice side, what part of your practice is corporate versus individual?

“Pretty much all of it is corporate. And the individuals we represent are C-suite individuals. It’s mostly corporate defense work.” 

Dechert is one of the top 50 corporate defense firms in the world. How would you describe the reputation of the firm in terms of practice areas?

“We don’t do everything. But what we do we do very well. We are the firm you come to when you have questions that are not run of the mill and issues that others can’t figure out. We do the most difficult mergers and acquisitions, the most difficult corporate securities work, the most difficult litigation. We are the go to firm for the difficult question and we will get your answers.” 

What do you focus on in the corporate criminal defense unit?

“It’s government facing issues that companies have – we help them resolve it. We are crisis managers. If you don’t know who to call with a problem, you contact us and we have lawyers to help you figure out a comprehensive global plan to get through whatever issue you have.” 

“We stand in between the company and the regulators. Anything that’s government facing. Or let’s say you have an internal problem. Somebody called the audit committee.” 

“Or somebody called the whistleblower hotline and you have an internal issue. You don’t know how to investigate it. We will come in and investigate it, put together a privileged report, put together remedial measures or whatever you need to disclose to the regulator. And we will handle that problem for you. The best way to describe it is crisis management – when you don’t know what to do, you call us in.”

The vast majority of major corporate crime cases are today settled with deferred and non 

prosecution agreements. I was thinking back to when you said that as a young lawyer, you wanted to be on your feet in the courtroom and that’s why you wanted to be in the U.S. Attorney’s office trying cases. But that’s not the case for the average corporate criminal defense attorney today. You are basically negotiating settlement deals with the government. What about the transformation of the practice from a litigation practice to a settlement practice?

“There’s nothing like a trial,” Cohen says. “I was able to get that experience at a volume that most other people can’t. But in a big corporate case, you have to do an internal investigation. That’s literally like putting together a case for a trial. And it always ends up as a presentation of some sort. That could be a presentation to a special counsel. That could be a presentation to the board of trustees. That could be a presentation to the general counsel’s office or the audit committee. But you have to put together all of your interview memos, you have to put together your quotes from the witnesses you spoke with, the emails you have gathered. It’s very similar to preparing for a trial.” 

“And you are doing a bunch of bench trials during your career as a corporate lawyer. And often you have to present your findings to the Department of Justice. You have to be persuasive and convince them to give a deferred prosecution or a non prosecution. That’s a huge win if you can get those. You have to work for that. You have to put together a trial presentation. You are trying to convince the Department, just like you are trying to convince a jury or a judge. It’s very similar to what you have done at trial.” 

“I recruit from the U.S. Attorney’s office in DC because I know they have 30 or 40 trials, when attorneys from other offices have three and four and five.”

Why is it the case there are so few African American attorneys at major corporate defense firms? And why fewer yet in leadership positions?

“African Americans and minorities are underrepresented in law schools, which leads to an underrepresentation in law as a career. That comes from systemic issues we’ve been facing for decades. I was general counsel of 100 Black Men of Greater Washington. And one of our mottos was – they will be what they can see.”

“Traditionally, you don’t have the role models because of the systemic issues that have been prevalent throughout this country. I was lucky because I saw my role model right in my house. My dad was a lawyer. He was a partner in a law firm. It was easier for me. And I could see what I could be, because it was right there. There are not that many examples of minorities in firm leadership. That plays a role.”

“If we can break the cycle and get more African Americans interested in the law, into law school –  it’s a difficult career path, but it’s a fruitful and noble path – then we will get more folks into these law firms and into leadership. And you don’t have to go to big law once you graduate.”

“And once we get minority attorneys in these firms, and brought up through the ranks and looked at for leadership positions, then younger attorneys will see that leadership and see that they can do it.”

“One of the reasons I came to Dechert is because I saw that Hector Gonzalez, who is now a district court judge in Brooklyn, was on the policy committee when I came here. Vernon Francis was the first African American to be the editor in chief at the Penn Law Review. He was here at Dechert. I saw minorities in leadership here which gave me the understanding and belief that I too could be in leadership. But if you don’t see that, oftentimes you don’t think you can make it.” 

What can be done to encourage young African American undergraduate students to go to law school?

“What I and some of my peers have tried to do is speak to younger students where they are. I’m on the Board of Trustees at Syracuse. I go back often and not only speak at the law school but also to the undergrads. I let them know that I was an undergrad at Syracuse, I played basketball at Syracuse, I pledged a fraternity there. But I also went onto law school and I’m able to make a decent living and feed my family with that career path. And that’s a path you can go into as well.”

“You have to go back as far as you can and go to the younger prospective law students to let them know that this is a viable career for them.  Law school is difficult, but not impossible. And they will start to see it as a career and an option. And that will increase the numbers. It’s important for you to meet those young students where they are so they understand – this is a regular guy, he’s hard working, he’s smart – I can do this too.”

[See the complete q/a format Interview with Vincent Cohen, 38 Corporate Crime Reporter 33(12), August 26, 2024, print edition only.]