Stewart Cohen is one of Pennsylvania's most successful and influential trial lawyers, having built a courtroom record in a range of complex cases that places him firmly in the elite of the profession. In recent years Cohen has tackled and prevailed in cases from medical malpractice claims, to major pharmaceutical-marketing fraud to major health-care claims denials, representing large groups of working people and union-based health plans. He's widely regarded as a creative, aggressive litigator happy to challenge opponents with innovative arguments and strategies. As a result his practice - with partners Harry Roth and Christopher Placitella - has in the last decade grown dramatically: Today the firm has 24 lawyers, including eight who are of counsel. Still, for all his successes, Cohen possesses a sense of purpose and humility some lawyers lack. As such he's a good example of the abiding virtue of the oft-maligned plaintiffs' bar: "We're a source of power for everyday people, and I'm proud of that." Further, Cohen, a born-and-bred "city boy," reflects the uniquely civil culture of Philadelphia lawyers; he has worked some of the legends of the profession. Growing up in Mount Airy, Cohen says "I knew was going to become a lawyer." His working-class family encouraged high expectations and performance. (His two older brothers are a lawyer and an accountant, practicing in Florida, today). At Penn State, he earned a graduate fellowship before heading to Temple Law School; he excelled in all venues. As a student, he sat in on trials of great city lawyers of the day: Arnold Kessler, Joseph Lurie and Jim Beasley, among others.

Cohen joined the firm of Meltzer & Schiffrin, gaining valuable trial experience in his early years. After a merger he found himself a partner at the large, commercially oriented firm of Fox Rothschild. He later joined Kessler's firm, well known for representing negligence victims; in the last 15 years Cohen helped the firm evolve into one of the largest and influential plaintiffs' firms in the state and region. More recently Cohen has won major awards for clients throughout Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In recent years Cohen has taken on major pharmaceutical companies for deceptive marketing practices and for denials of multi-million-dollar refunds to union health-care plans; one such case took class-action status. He recently took on a complex case challenging informed-consent procedures for organ donors; the case had an influence on improving the practice of medicine in the region. He has written and lectured frequently on insurance and tort-law matters. A longtime resident of Lower Merion, Pa. (for a decade he served on that municipality's planning commission), he and his wife, a speech pathologist, have three daughters. He enjoys golf and is a loyal Eagles fan.