Andrew (Andy) Cohn is a retired partner from WilmerHale where he practiced in the real estate and energy areas. Before law Andy did graduate work in social anthropology and did fieldwork among the Kikuyu of Kenya and later a community study in the U.S. focused on political socialization, receiving his Ph.D in 1972. His experience as a fellow at the MIT-Harvard Joint Center for Urban Studies changed his direction from academics to law. After law school he clerked on the First Circuit and then spent 35+ years at Hale and Dorr/WilmerHale.
In addition to active law practice Andy was involved in many pro bono programs and received the firm’s Reginald Heber Smith Community Service Award. He was chair of the Real Estate Section of the Boston Bar Association, and has continued to serve on that section’s Public Service Committee which helps to administer the Lawyer-for-a-Day (LFAD) program in the Eastern Housing Court. Andy has also worked on bench/bar committees promoting expansion of LFAD programs throughout the Commonwealth in conjunction with the recent state-wide expansion of Housing Court jurisdiction.
After retiring from WilmerHale in 2015, Andy continued his pro bono legal involvement while becoming the president of a former client, Longwood Medical Energy Collaborative (LMEC), the energy and utility consortium of Harvard Medical School and its five affiliated hospitals: Beth Israel Deaconess, Boston Children’s, Brigham & Womens, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Joslin Diabetes Center.
After retiring from LMEC in 2019, Andy has continued with public service and pro bono legal work, including serving as president of the board of the Volunteer Lawyers Project, and on the board of 826 Boston which runs youth tutoring and writing programs in the Boston Public Schools. In 2016 he was a fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation center in Bellagio, Italy where he wrote about programs for narrowing the ‘civil justice gap’ for indigent populations.
As a Fellow, Andy will partner with Volunteer Lawyers Project (VLP). VLP’s mission is to increase access to justice by delivering high quality pro bono civil legal services to eligible clients in the Greater Boston area.