Early Life, Education, and Law Career
Cohen was born in Memphis, Tennessee on May 24, 1949, the son of Genevieve (née Goldsand) and pediatrician Morris David Cohen. He has two older brothers, Michael Corey and Martin D. Cohen. He is a fourth-generation Memphian, and is a grandson of Jewish immigrants from Lithuania and Poland. His immigrant grandfather owned a newsstand. Cohen contracted polio when he was five, and the disease caused him to shift his attention from sports to politics at an early age. When Cohen was eleven, John F. Kennedy made a campaign stop in Memphis, and Cohen took a picture of Kennedy sitting on a convertible. Cohen describes Kennedy as his political hero; the picture still hangs in his office. In 1961, Cohen’s family moved to Coral Gables, Florida where his father took a residency in psychiatry at the University of Miami. From 1964 to 1966, the Cohen family resided in Pasadena, California where Dr. Cohen completed a fellowship in pediatric psychiatry at the University of Southern California. Cohen, who attended Polytechnic School, returned to Florida in 1966 to graduate from Coral Gables High School before returning to Memphis where his father established his private psychiatry practice.
Cohen graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1971 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. In 1973, he graduated from the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law of Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis) with a Juris Doctor. From 1978-2006, Cohen was the sole practitioner of his own law firm, practicing civil and criminal law until his election to the U.S. House of Representatives.
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