Mark D. Cohen - Distinguished Jurist in Residence

mcohen13@tourolaw.edu

Education
B.A.,Columbia University 

J.D., Hofstra University School of Law

Criminal Procedure

Mark D. Cohen served as a Judge of the New York State Court of Claims from 2006 to 2020. During that period, he was an Acting New York State Supreme Court Justice in Suffolk County, New York and from 2015 to 2020, was the Supervising Judge of the Superior Criminal Courts for the Tenth Judicial District (Suffolk). In 2016, Chief Judge DiFiore named Judge Cohen as a member of the State Judicial Advisory Committee on Evidence and in 2018, she designated him as a member of the State’s Continuing Legal Education (CLE) Board.

 

Judge Cohen has been an adjunct law professor at the Touro Law Center in Central Islip, New York since 1993. In 2004, Touro honored him as its Distinguished Public Interest Attorney in Residence. In 2009, the law school named him as its Adjunct Professor of the Year. In 2013, he received Touro’s Annual Award “In Recognition of Devoted Service to the Ideals and Purpose of Legal Education,” which in the past, had been reserved only for full-time faculty. During that same year, Touro’s Moot Court Honors Board presented him with the Annual Hon. George C. Pratt Award In Appellate Advocacy in recognition of his work with the law school's competitive moot court teams. In 2014, 2015, 2018 and 2019, Judge Cohen was voted Touro’s Best Adjunct Professor by the law school’s Student Bar Association.

 

Judge Cohen is a graduate of Columbia College, Columbia University, and the Hofstra University School of Law, where he was a member and editor of the Law Review. Upon graduation from law school, he was an appellate law clerk in Boston, Massachusetts. Judge Cohen was the Deputy Director and Chief Counsel of the New York State Office of Homeland Security from 2001 to 2006. During that time, he also served as Acting Director for the Office and Assistant Director for its Legal Division and held a Top Secret security clearance.

 

Judge Cohen was an Assistant District Attorney in the Suffolk County, New York District Attorney’s Office from 1976 through 2001 and served as Chief Assistant District Attorney for thirteen years under two elected District Attorneys. He also was Chief of the Office’s Appeals Bureau, Deputy Chief of the Special Investigations Unit, and a trial prosecutor in the Felony Trial Bureau. As a prosecutor, Judge Cohen argued more than 200 cases in the Appellate Division, Second Department, more than 20 cases in the New York Court of Appeals and 10 cases in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Judge Cohen has spoken extensively to judicial, governmental, bar, professional, and academic organizations across the country and has lectured for or been a member of the faculty of the New York State Judicial Institute, various Judicial Associations, the National College of District Attorneys, the New York Prosecutors Training Institute and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. He is a past-President and served on the Board of Directors of the Association of Government Attorneys in Capital Litigation and served as a Legislative Secretary and Treasurer for the New York State District Attorneys’ Association.

 

In 2018, the Suffolk Criminal Bar Association honored Judge Cohen as “Judge of the Year.

Judge Cohen has received the New York State District Attorneys Association’s highest honor, the Frank S. Hogan Award, and is the only non-elected or non-acting recipient ever given this award.