Gabriel A. Kohan is a member of the firm’s Commercial Litigation and Data Strategy and Security Groups. He represents clients on complex and high-stakes litigation, investigations, and regulatory matters in a variety of industries and on a range of technology issues, including national security, cybersecurity, privacy, supply chain security, and artificial intelligence.
Gabriel combines practical litigation experience with deep cybersecurity and national security expertise. He joined Debevoise after serving in the Biden-Harris Administration as the Senior Counselor in the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans. In that role, he served as a counselor to DHS leadership and led several priority initiatives regarding cybersecurity, supply chain security, international affairs, operationalizing public-private partnerships and congressional oversight. He was a principal architect of DHS’s regulations and guidance to institute minimum cybersecurity standards for critical infrastructure owners and operators, and also oversaw the work of the Cyber Incident Reporting Council, an interagency body with a congressional mandate to harmonize existing and future federal cyber incident reporting requirements. Gabriel brokered the ground-breaking expansion of the Abraham Accords into cybersecurity and several other homeland security cooperative agreements with DHS’s international partners.
Previously, Gabriel practiced complex commercial litigation and appeals at a litigation boutique firm where he regularly tried disputes, argued motions, and managed discovery. Prior to that, he clerked on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and the Southern District of New York. Gabriel holds a J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he won the Ames Moot Court Competition, and a B.A. with Honors from Stanford University, where he was awarded the Firestone Medal for Excellence in Research and the David M. Kennedy Honors Thesis Prize. He is a term member on the Council of Foreign Relations.