Michael J. Cohen

    Personal Stuff

    nightrain1

    Hi – I’m a 60 (!) year old attorney who transplanted from Boston to Miami in May 1986. I graduated Newton South High School in 1967, Boston University in 1972, and Suffolk University Law School in 1980. While in Massachusetts, I practiced mostly criminal defense work, but that changed when I came to Florida. I suppose the most important event in my personal history is that I got into recovery when I moved down here and have been clean and sober since then. Today, I’m very lucky to be able to combine my profession and my recovery on a daily basis. If you want to know more about my story, you can go here.

    Work Stuff

    I’m the Executive Director of Florida Lawyers Assistance, the program created by the Florida Supreme Court to help attorneys impaired because of drugs, alcohol, or psychological conditions. The job is full time, which means I actually get paid to help other lawyers……there are times I think there’s been a mistake – I should be paying someone to enjoy working this much! You can e-mail me at: michael@fla-lap.org

    I served on the American Bar Association’s Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs (CoLAP), the national “clearinghouse” for lawyer assistance programs around the U.S., Canada, and other countries, from 1997 – 2001, as well as on the CoLAP Advisory Committee and the  Commission’s Conference Planning Committee,  which is finalizing plans for the Commission’s annual week long workshop in Phoenix, Arizona in October 2009 and Indianapolis, Indiana in October 2010. I also served as Chair of The Florida Bar’s Quality of Life & Career Committee until 2004, and currently am a member of the Bar’s Standing Committee on Professionalism and the LOMAS Advisory Board.

    Play Stuff

    Living in South Florida, I love scuba diving and golf (well, “love” may be too strong a term for the latter). I get my aerobics quotient from bicycling around Surfside and Miami Beach and trying to keep up with my wife, Dawn. I also ride a 100th Anniversary Harley-Davidson Night Train every chance I get, which is a whole lot more than I could do in Massachusetts!