Three Legal Community Luminaries, They Share a Love of Law and a Love of Arts

Thursday, December 18, 2025

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PERSONALITY PROFILE

THE COHENS

Three Legal Community Luminaries, They Share a Love of Law and a Love of Arts

Paul F. Cohen, Isabel Cohen, and Joshua Cohen.

By Kimber Cooley

The Cohens may be known in the Los Angeles legal community for making the law a family business, but all three Persons of the Year have also pursued a lifelong passion for the arts.

While some may be aware that Paul Cohen is an accomplished musician who has played jazz around the city since the late 1960s, many may be surprised to learn that his son and law partner, Joshua Cohen, has also seen success as a professional drummer, having spent seven years touring with industry icons before hanging up his sticks to pursue a career representing bicyclists and pedestrians who have been injured trying to navigate the mean streets of the car-obsessed Los Angeles.

Isabel Cohen, known for her calm, reasoned mind as a former Los Angeles Superior Court judge, is no stranger to the creative arts, having spent her youth taking dance, piano, sculpting, and drama classes at the now-famous “92nd Street Y” located in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She attended the Music & Art High School in New York City, where she majored in art and developed a particular love of sketching. While presiding over criminal cases, she continued her passion for drawing and painting, taking courses at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) for 10 years.

Isabel and Paul Cohen, along with their son Joshua Cohen, are each well-known leaders in the Los Angeles legal community, but not one of the luminaries planned on pursuing a career in the courtroom.

Paul and Joshua Cohen, both successful litigators, each started his professional life as an accomplished drummer who pursued music full-time, touring and booking gigs with well-known artists, before enrolling in law school.

For her part, retired Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Isabel Cohen says that she knew from an early age, in Manhattan. that she was going to do something different from what was considered “a woman’s occupation.” but did not imagine that a legal career, spanning six decades, would be in her future until she decided to enroll at the New York University School of Law in 1960.

Remarking that she originally thought she would pursue a career in medicine until she “bumped right into organic chemistry,” the Upper East Side native opines that “destiny was calling the shots” because she found herself sitting in class directly behind her future husband.

The two had met through a mutual friend years earlier at a bar in Harlem where Paul Cohen was playing drums in a jazz ensemble. Isabel Cohen says she wasn’t looking for romance at the time, but she does admit noticing that he was “cute as a bug” in his “blue University of Pennsylvania blazer.”

Natural Decision

Because he was the only person she knew at NYU, she says that it was a natural decision to start a briefing pool together. Commenting that “familiarity breeds more than just contempt,” she notes that the ensuing romance developed organically after the study group dropped down to just the two of them.

Paul Cohen remembers the courtship slightly differently, pointing out that she initially refused to date him but that he eventually won her heart by feigning disinterest.

After their second year at NYU, he was offered a summer job playing drums at a resort on Cape Cod. When he asked her to join him, she responded, “I’ll have to ask my daddy.”

Paul and Isabel Cohen are captured cutting the cake at their wedding ceremony in June 1962.

Her father, Maurice Raskin, gave his blessing on the condition that the couple embark on the adventure as a married unit. About a week later, on June 15, 1962, the two were married in an intimate ceremony in Raskin’s living room.

Drumming Career

Paul Cohen also says that he wasn’t planning on going to law school, having risen to become a first-call player for “some really good groups” booking gigs around New York City. After going on tour with a band through the Southern U.S. in 1960, however, he says that he discovered a distaste for life on the road.

Upon returning home from the tour, he called the admissions department at NYU School of Law shortly before classes were scheduled to begin. He asked if it was too late to enroll, having failed to respond to a letter of acceptance that he received earlier in the year. They gave him the green light to start a few weeks later.

The Pennsylvania native says that his touring experience did not affect his passion for music, noting that he “probably [drove] the neighbors crazy” with his practicing between classes. He continued playing at coffee shops and bars, even finding time to cut an album while completing his legal coursework.

Pennsylvania Move

After graduating, the couple moved to his hometown of Harrisburg for a time, and they each passed the Pennsylvania bar exam (Isabel Cohen is quick to point out that she did so while pregnant with their first child, Hallie Cohen). It wasn’t long, though, before the couple headed for the nation’s capital, as Paul Cohen had his sights on becoming a civil rights attorney.

After spending two years working for the Department of the Interior—a job, he points out, that he landed in 1964 after showing up for the interview with a portfolio of photographs he had taken and his jazz album as his credentials—he secured a position with the Neighborhood Legal Services Department in 1966.

Two years later, in 1968, he was hired as the executive director for the Washington D.C. office of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law where he spent his days engaging law firms to perform pro bono work on civil rights cases and helping to investigate the root causes of the race riots erupting throughout the country.

Paul Cohen says he found his way into the capital city music scene, playing in weddings, bar mitzvahs, and other “society” events before joining a rock band called “Natural Bridge.” Isabel Cohen, meanwhile, spent their “D.C. years” taking care of her daughter and doing legal work for her father-in-law, who was also an attorney.

Ready for Change

Noting that “Washington takes on the flavor of the [presidential] administration” in power at the time, Paul Cohen said he was ready for a change of scenery in 1969 as Richard Nixon was set to take office as chief executive. He called a friend who had moved to California and asked what the legal landscape looked like out west.

That call led to an interview opportunity with the Western Center on Law and Poverty. Isabel Cohen had just passed the D.C. bar exam, this time while pregnant with Joshua Cohen, and told her husband that she had no intention of moving.

Despite her reservations, the Western Center successfully lured the Cohens to Los Angeles in 1969, offering positions to each of them. Isabel Cohen notes, as an aside, that the California bar exam is the only one she took without a child in utero.

In 1972, Isabel Cohen moved to the Family Law Center at the Legal Aid Foundation, eventually rising to become the directing attorney, and from there went to the California Department of Corporations in 1977, helping the state implement the newly enacted Knox-Keene Health Care Service Plan Act.

Women’s Advocacy

She was active in the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles as well as the California Women Lawyers and she was elected president of the latter group in 1979.

That year, she was also appointed to the Los Angeles Municipal Court by then-Gov. Jerry Brown.

Judith Reel, a former deputy Los Angeles city attorney who had been assigned to Isabel Cohen’s courtroom in the late 1980s, describes Cohen then as “welcoming” and “kind.” Reel says that before she embarked on her first jury trial. Cohen helped to “steady” her nerves.

Isabel Cohen poses for a photograph at her enrobing ceremony in 1980 with Joshua, Hallie, and Paul Cohen.

She also recalls seeing Isabel Cohen riding in the “sidecar of [a] Harley Davidson, wearing a large motorcycle helmet, getting a ride through the mean streets of Van Nuys” and hearing about how she “led a jury through the back door of [the] courtroom during…a shooting [at the courthouse,] leading all to safety.”

In 1992, Isabel Cohen was elected to the Los Angeles Superior Court where she spent some time overseeing criminal trials before transitioning to family law matters. One criminal case stands out in her memory.

Carjacking Case

Saying the defendant was a “young kid” who had been involved in a carjacking, she recalls that, after the jury came back with a guilty verdict, the panel sent her a note begging her to take into account certain mitigating circumstances. The case was tried shortly after the Three Strike regimen came into effect in California.

Isabel Cohen says that she did not follow the new sentencing scheme but was careful to make five pages of findings supporting her decision, including notations indicating that no one was hurt, there was no property damage, and the defendant did not have a weapon. The prosecutors successfully appealed, and the case was remanded for resentencing.

Before the case was scheduled for rehearing, the California Supreme Court decided, in 1996, People v. Romero, holding that a trial court could, on its own motion, strike prior felony conviction allegations in a Three Strikes case. She says, “the defense took that case right back up and…the first appellate decision was reversed, and I was affirmed.”

In February 2000, Isabel Cohen retired from the Los Angeles Superior Court and moved into the private dispute resolution space, serving as a temporary jurist, a discovery referee, arbitrator, and other roles relating to family law and other civil matters. She says the change was motivated by a desire to have more control over her calendar.

Last year, she decided it was time to hang up her judicial hat for good.

Complete Control

Family law practitioner Bruce Cooperman of the Los Angeles-based firm Wasser, Cooperman & Mandles PC recalls one memorable appearance in her courtroom, saying that his “favorite example” of her unique style “was when one of the preeminent family law practitioners of the era, Sorrell Trope, was arguing a matter before her, and getting louder and more volatile than usual.”

He recounts:

“Judge Cohen looked at him from the bench, smiled, and softly said, ‘Oh, Mr. Trope, you are so cute when you get cranky like that.’ That simple comment stopped Sorrell in his tracks, his face turned red, he looked down at his feet and he smiled, now calm again as he got her message. I worked with Sorrell for many years and never saw him stopped in his tracks like that by any other judicial officer.”

Cooperman adds:

“Judge Cohen is an extremely intelligent, incisive thinker, carefully working through difficult and complex first impression issues, as she did in the case of Marriage of Drake I tried before her, a case involving adult disabled child support, where her careful opinion was affirmed by the Court of Appeal.”

Time to Leave

Paul Cohen, for his part, decided it was time to leave the Western Center after he witnessed a man get “shot dead in front of me” while attending, as a monitor, a demonstration in East Los Angeles in the early 1970s. He says the experience made him start to consider private practice.

After serving as a business litigation partner at a few Los Angeles firms, he opted to found the Law Offices of Paul Cohen in 1992, where he began taking on trusts and estates work.

One case that stands out to the litigator is Schwartz v. Lebow, in which he successfully argued before Div. Three of this district’s Court of Appeal that the attorney-client privilege belongs to the office of the fiduciary and not to the individual holding the title role. The published 2008 case continues to carry weight on the topic.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jonathan Rosenbloom says of the lawyer:

“The probate litigation community in Los Angeles does not lack for talent, but even in this respected (and, in my mind, revered) world, Paul had a place at the top, for his creativity, knowledge of the law, integrity, enviable instincts, mindfulness of his role, and a professional pleasantness….He made more friends from opposing counsel than any other lawyer I know. I cherish my friendship with Paul and Isabel and their family. The opportunity of working with Paul will always be one of the greatest gifts of my legal career.”

Attorney Justin Gold, a partner with the Calabasas firm Gold & Berkus, agrees, saying of Paul Cohen:

“Paul is a man of many talents, and his unique blend of musical talent and legal acumen, made him a fantastic attorney. I…knew that he would bring humor and a holistic look at any case we were working on, while at the same time being a dogged advocate for his clients.”

Vocal Lessons

Despite his dedication to the law, Paul Cohen always managed to find time for music and started taking vocal lessons in 1987. Soon enough, he found himself booking gigs as both a singer and drummer at clubs like the iconic Catalina Bar and Grill in Hollywood.

He says he then “hooked up with four other players and we started rehearsing weekly,” a practice he continues to this day.

In 2009, Jane Getz—an accomplished jazz pianist—approached him after a performance and suggested that he record a new compilation, with him singing and playing drums.

That conversation led to the release of his album, “I Want You Back” by Paul F. Cohen and Friends, in 2011, when the musician was 73 years old. He notes that the songs, which are still available for streaming on Apple Music and Spotify, “got fairly good play on the radio” when released.

Paul Cohen is shown playing drums and ready to sing during a 2016 performance.

At 87, he has recently taken up piano, securing lessons from award-winning musician Tyler Handelman, who Paul Cohen describes as “probably one of the best piano players in the world.”

His love of music and the law converged when he was asked to co-lead a summer skills conference on “Improvisational Mediation” for the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University School of Law in 2008. The course was the brainchild of Jeffrey Krivas, a well-known Los Angeles-area mediator and comedian who died last year.

Paul Cohen says that the idea behind the course was that “ideas in mediation bounce off the way improvisational music prompts a response.” He explains:

“Someone plays a phrase, and you can take it, reverse it, play it back at them, do it in a different order. It’s the same thing in improvisation in mediation….Someone has an idea how about this, and you can take it and say, well, you know, we could do this with it and move it around a little.”

Family Business

Describing himself as “more than semi-retired” these days, Paul Cohen’s son, Joshua Cohen, is carrying on the family business, serving as a partner at the firm his father founded, now known as Cohen Law Partners. As it turns out, the son is a chip off the old block in more ways than one, having played drums for artists such as Macy Gray, the Black Eyed Peas, and the Wu-Tang Clan.

Joshua Cohen says that “there were always drums in the living room” and that his dad had him playing “when I was very, very young.” The Hollywood Hills native recalls that “there were not a lot of kids in the neighborhood to play with,” so he spent his childhood days playing jazz and riding his bike to get around.

He first started playing with some “buddies in junior high school” and continued into his college days, but he says that there was “no scene” around Sonoma State, where he started his collegiate career, or at UC Santa Cruz, where he earned his bachelor’s degree. After college, he returned to Los Angeles and toured with some major names in the music industry between 1992 and 1999.

He says he grew tired of the lifestyle and low wages. However, the time was fruitful in more ways than one because he met his future wife, Michelle Cescatti, while he was playing a gig “at an Italian restaurant in Los Feliz that was owned by the Mexican Mafia.”

Saying that he noticed her in the crowd because she “sparkled like a jewel,” he gathered the courage to go over to her and say “hi.” The two quickly became involved, and she encouraged him to try substitute teaching as a break from the grueling touring schedule.

Calling to Law

A call to pursue a legal career started developing in the early 2000s when he was “becoming increasingly concerned about climate change and air pollution,” saying that he applied to Vermont Law School because it was known for its environmental law program.

He graduated in 2008 with a Juris Doctor degree and a master’s in environmental policy. After a short stint working for a firm in San Francisco doing toxic tort litigation work, he decided to return to his hometown and start working with his father.

Joshua Cohen says that he used his bike as his primary mode of transportation in the Bay Area, trying to do his part to clamp down on pollution, but recalls getting “hit and harassed” while riding, noting one incident on Saint Patrick’s Day in 2009 when he collided with a car that turned abruptly into the biking lane.

Focus on Cyclists

He says those experiences led him to “focus on representing vulnerable road users” and “use my earnings to sponsor organizations interested in safe streets advocacy.” He has followed through on that commitment, having served on the boards of the California and Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalitions, and rising to prominence as an advocate for those injured in cycling accidents.

Describing “traffic violence” as being “as big a problem as if we had…someone shooting guns,” he points out how difficult it can be for people with mobility issues to cross the street safely. He experienced the problem firsthand when, after a hip injury in 2017, he had to cross Fairfax Avenue on foot at Third Street, saying:

“It was terrifying because the light changed halfway across the street. People were just looking at me and…it fe[lt] like every single person in a car was aiming a loaded gun at me….All it takes is for one person to just [not care].”

Joshua Cohen is depicted riding his childhood bicycle in 1990.

He says his practice is his way of keeping true to his commitment to environmental law.

Now a husband and father of a teenage girl, he says that “I do love touring and I miss gigging,” but those passions have taken a backseat, at least for now.

Family Trip

Isabel and Paul Cohen could not be prouder of their son, bragging about how he took them to Spain last year. As to what prompted the trip, Paul Cohen jokingly remarked that “the inspiration was that Josh…wanted to take us somewhere and North Korea was not a good idea.”

Jim Wuthrich, an entertainment industry executive who has served as the board president of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, says of Joshua Cohen:

“In the crowded category of personal injury law, Josh stands out as a true advocate for vulnerable road users. Josh is ‘Biking the Bike’ as an avid cyclist himself and understands the challenges of active transportation. Beyond representing his clients, he’s been involved in the advocacy space for years, serving on the boards of Calbike and BikeLA as well as volunteering and donating money to make streets safer for all users.”

Wuthrich remarks that Joshua Cohen’s “commitment to the community” came through during a campaign to pass the “Healthy Streets LA” initiative, a ballot measure, approved by voters last year, mandating the city to implement upgrades like bicycle lanes and pedestrian improvements whenever the municipality repaves or significantly modifies certain road segments. The former board president notes:

“In addition to helping fund the measure, Josh collected ballot signatures on his daily rides, carrying his clipboard and ready smile as he greeted fellow cyclists with a ‘Hey, would like to make LA safer for riding?’ His work is not just a job—it’s his calling.”