Louis R. Cohen

Louis R. Cohen is a Senior Counsel at WilmerHale, an international law firm where he spent almost his entire career.  He served as law clerk to Justice John Marshall Harlan for the 1967 term of the Supreme Court and as Deputy Solicitor General of the United States in 1986-88.  A highlight of his career was arguing 16 cases in the Supreme Court.

Lou, who joined the TWC Board at the end of 2021, has served on several other boards of arts organizations, including the Folger Shakespeare Library (chair), Levine Music (chair of strategic planning), Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Telluride Jazz Celebration, and Pinhead Institute (which teaches science to children in Telluride and surrounding San Miguel County, Colorado).

Lou graduated from Harvard College (majoring in classics), spent a year as a Henry Fellow at Wadham College, Oxford (learning, he says, that his Greek was never going to get good enough for a professor of classics), then went to Harvard Law School, graduating in 1966. 

Lou is married to Bonnie R. Cohen and they have two children who both live in the DC area, Amanda Leiter, Associate Dean of American University Law School, and Eli Cohen, a Principal of GenTrust Wealth Management.  Amanda, Eli, and their spouses have given Lou and Bonnie five grandchildren.  Neither Lou nor Bonnie can sing, but by some miracle their grandchildren can, and several have joined local children’s choruses.  Lou and Bonnie live in Washington but they escape all summer to Telluride and they have traveled widely.