Interview: Jeffrey A. Cohen, Philadelphia Lawyer, Business Entrepreneur & Now Author
I had the pleasure of interviewing a fascinating new author with a unique background. Jeffrey A. Cohen is a former trial attorney, a founder of hugely successful technology companies, he sold them then began another passion, writing.
Author Jeffrey A. Cohen
Jeff has written his first novel that will publish in September titled: The Killing of Mindi Quintana. We won’t reveal the ‘edge of your set‘ plot and twists until its release, but like Cohen’s other ventures, this novel will undoubtedly be his next successful venture. Cohen revealed he has a few more novels he is writing that will follow his first publication.
Jeffrey A. Cohen is a name I urge everyone to remember as a future talented novelist.
Below is the Q and A interview I conducted with Jeff. It is an inspiration to all of us that no matter what you have accomplished, it is never too late to begin and pursue any of your dreams.
Q: What is your law background? Do you have any special memories of practicing law?
A: I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1988 and have wanted to be a lawyer and writer since childhood. My father is a lawyer and during my early childhood he began taking me to criminal trials at Philly’s City Hall. When I got older, I’d take the train into town and show up at his office (located across from City Hall), sometimes on school days, and he’d circle trials listed in the Legal Intelligencer for me to go try and see across the street. I guess he figured that’d be as good a day’s education as anything I’d have learned in class. I’d have to agree. I saw parts of many major trials, and my fascination with trial work and issues in criminal law dates from those days. When I was about twelve, my father took me to Washington to see oral arguments in the Supreme Court on the death penalty, and, if I wasn’t sold before that, my fate as a lawyer was sealed.
After law school, where I interned at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia, I became a litigator, joining one of Philadelphia’s large firms. Over time, I specialized in appellate and corporate litigation.
For a time, I volunteered to represent children, sometimes the victims of abuse, or living in squalor with a drug-addicted parent. I represented a six year-old girl who lived with her crack-addicted mom in a house sometimes lacking electricity, and a smell you wouldn’t believe. She’d been molested by one of her mom’s men friends. She was scared to death in court, and during the hours we spent waiting, my efforts to keep her feeling safe and secure became less and less effective. When finally our case was called, she took one look up at the judge on her high bench, and couldn’t say a word. Case against the guy dismissed. Everyone involved knew he did it. And there he went, out the door, the mother still involved with him.
What these experiences, and then my legal career, taught me is what every lawyer knows. The system we’ve built provides the most justice to the most people most of the time—yes. But when it doesn’t—boy, it’s heartbreaking. Incidentally, the lawyer in my novel, The Killing of Mindi Quintana, faces just this situation in defending a very evil client he’d love to see pay for his crime. Difference is, he does something about it.
Q: How did you got into the technology business, what kind of companies did you develop?
A: After eight years practicing law, I went into business with my brother in 1996. We’re serial entrepreneurs, having built and sold four companies together. Our companies have all been technology-related. Voice FX and two sister companies were Interactive Voice Response (“IVR”) and Speech Recognition service bureaus. We provided services to financial institutions, colleges and universities, and to corporate America generally. For large banks, we took many millions of telephone calls yearly during which consumers applied for credit cards. We scripted and programmed the call flows, provided the telephone network, and stored and delivered the caller data to our clients.
Through Campus Direct we provided grade reporting, course registration, and transcript purchase services to students at about 80 colleges and universities. Students would call-in or log-on and get their grades, register for courses, and order transcripts. (Please see also bio page attached.)
Q: What made you decide to sell the companies?
A: When people ask why I sold the companies, I always answer, “Because I grew up in a row home.” One reason I sold the last one was that it gave me the opportunity to work internationally—we had operations in 42 countries. The main reason, though, is that I now look on my first two careers (law and business) as wonderful background for writing. They’ve provided me with two very different and wonderful windows on the world; and with two bodies of fascinating subject matter to explore. Situations in both law and business are intense, and with much at stake. Character is always on display as fundamental issues–of justice, of success and failure, ethics–play out. And both are splendidly peopled with the best and worst of us, their stories dramatic and enlightening, as they build, destroy, win, lose, help and hurt.
Q: While practicing Law and developing technology companies, did you always write or dream of writing?
A: I have always written. While practicing law I published some short stories and legal articles, and wrote two novels, the first of which is coming out shortly. The Killing of Mindi Quintana is about celebrity through murder, the fascination we have with violent criminals, and it delivers the comeuppance we all wish for when we think of O.J., Scott Peterson–any killer with a book or who seems to love the limelight.
Q: Do you write about the law and business in your novels?
A: I’ve always been fascinated by the trial process, and there is always a legal theme or element in my writing, and always courtroom drama. Time, during a trial, is suspended, it seems. We pluck twelve people from life, stick them in a box, and call them society. A defendant sits in purgatory waiting to be judged. Will he be cast out as a transgressor, or accepted back as one of us? It’s an epic battle that’s always fascinating, and my novels all have a trial at their core.
Q: What are your future goals as a writer?
A: I will continue to write. I’m working on my next novel now, which brings together the legal and business worlds in the context of the trial of a major corporate America CEO.
Q: Who are your role models ?
Mostly they’re authors. You can’t talk about loving novels without mentioning Tolstoy, and he’s written my favorite books. But there’s Catch 22, which is the book that made me want to write, and there are the books that I’ve loved even while disagreeing with something running through them—like The Executioner’s Song and In Cold Blood.
Q: Can you share a small blurb about your upcoming book?
A: The Killing of Mindi Quintana is about celebrity through murder, the fascination we have with violent criminals, and it delivers the comeuppance we all wish for when we think of O.J., Scott Peterson–any killer with a book or who seems to love the limelight.
Q: Do you have any other passions you wish to share with us?
A: One of my great passions is traveling, and I do it a lot. My next novel is partially set in Rio de Janeiro, including its mountain slums or favelas. I’ve been there once and will be going back soon for some more…research.
Karen Ammond
Publicist
KBC Media | kbcmedia@att.net
David Wilk
Marketing
Booktrix
david@booktrix.com