The Honorable Cynthia J. Cohen (retired) served as an Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Appeals Court from March 8, 2001, until her retirement on January 1, 2017. While on the Appeals Court, Justice Cohen was a Commissioner on the second Access to Justice Commission. She also chaired the SJC Steering Committee on Self-Represented Litigants, which, over a seven-year period, developed a number of court system initiatives to address the needs of litigants without counsel, including Limited Assistance Representation, judicial guidelines for hearings involving self-represented litigants, and training programs for judges and court staff. In addition, Justice Cohen chaired the SJC Committee to Study the Massachusetts Code of Judicial Conduct, which drafted and proposed a comprehensive revision of the Massachusetts Code, drawing on the 2007 ABA Model Code and addressing new topics such as specialty courts, self-represented litigants, and judicial outreach to improve public understanding of the courts. The SJC approved a new Code of Judicial Conduct effective January 1, 2016, and appointed Justice Cohen to chair a reconstituted Committee on Judicial Ethics, which advises judges on ethical questions. In retirement, she continues to serve as a member of that body.
Before joining the bench, Justice Cohen was a principal in the Boston law firm of Meehan, Boyle & Cohen, P.C. (now Meehan, Boyle, Black & Bogdanow), where her civil litigation practice emphasized tort, insurance, and appellate matters. Trained in alternative dispute resolution, she also provided mediation and arbitration services. She served a four-year term on the Board of Bar Overseers, including one year as chair. She was active in the Massachusetts Bar Association, where she held several leadership positions.
Justice Cohen is an Oliver Wendell Holmes Fellow and former Trustee of the Massachusetts Bar Foundation. She has taught Appellate Practice as an adjunct faculty member of Suffolk University Law School and has lectured at numerous continuing education programs for attorneys and judges.
Justice Cohen is a 1969 graduate of Brown University where she received her bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, with honors in English and American Literature. She received a master’s degree from the University of Chicago in 1972, and her law degree, cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1975. In September, 1975, she joined the Boston law firm of Parker, Coulter, Daley & White, where she worked as an associate and later as a partner, until co-founding Meehan, Boyle & Cohen, P.C. in 1985.
For her fellowship project, Justice Cohen will work with the Access to Justice Commission on the Massachusetts Justice for All Project, a collaborative effort by the Commission, the courts, legal aid providers, bar associations, law schools, social service organizations, litigants, community groups, and others to develop and implement strategies to increase access to effective assistance for those with essential legal needs. The Massachusetts Access to Justice Commission is working to ensure that everyone in Massachusetts has access to the Justice they deserve.