Jennifer Cowan is the firm’s Pro Bono Counsel and a member of the firm’s Litigation Department. She leads the firm’s award-winning pro bono program, which includes litigation, corporate and tax matters, and involves more than 800 pro bono matters each year. She also oversees pro bono initiatives and, with the Co-Chairs of the Pro Bono Committee, sets the strategy for the firm's pro bono work.
Ms. Cowan leads teams on a range of pro bono representations including impact litigation, immigration, not-for-profit organization law, and housing matters and mentors and provides strategic guidance to lawyers working on pro bono matters.
Her commercial practice includes white collar and regulatory matters, including defense of government investigations, internal investigations and general commercial litigation. Ms. Cowan has extensive experience representing clients in trading inquiries by FINRA after the announcement of corporate transactions and other significant events. She also provides advice to clients on federal, state and local pay-to-play and campaign finance laws.
Ms Cowan is a Fellow in the Sterling Network NYC, a decade-long multi-sector network tackling issues of economic mobility in New York City.
She is a member of the Board of the Jacob A. Riis Neighborhood Settlement House, in Long Island City; and a member of the Board of the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation.
Her professional affiliations include being a member of the National Women’s Law Center Leadership Advisory Committee; the Pro Bono and Public Service Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York; the Public Service Committee of the Federal Bar Council; and the Government Relations Committee of Nonprofit New York.
Ms. Cowan was the recipient of the Legal Aid Society Public Interest Law Leadership Award in 2021.
Prior to joining the firm in 1998, Ms. Cowan was a law clerk to the Hon. Jan E. DuBois in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Ms. Cowan received her J.D. in 1997 from Columbia Law School, where she was a Stone Scholar, a research and writing editor for the Journal of Law and Social Problems and a recipient of the James A. Elkins Prize in Constitutional Law. She received her B.A. magna cum laude in Political Science, with honors, from Barnard College in 1991.