Kenneth A. Cohen

Ken Cohen is a retired partner in Goodwin's Litigation department, concentrates his practice on products liability litigation and complex civil litigation. Ken has particular experience in products liability class action issues, including “limited issue” class questions, class definition issues, constitutional limitations on class certification, and medical monitoring issues.

Ken has handled products liability litigation, especially involving prescription pharmaceutical drugs, for over 20 years. His work has included national counsel positions and arguments on behalf of large groups of defendants in mass tort situations. For example, Goodwin was counsel for Eli Lilly in litigation involving the synthetic estrogen DES. Ken briefed and argued oppositions to class action certification in a number of jurisdictions in that litigation on behalf of Lilly and other pharmaceutical companies. He also briefed and argued in a number of jurisdictions, including the Eleventh Circuit, DC Circuit and several state supreme courts, the question of whether particular state law should include the “market share” theory of liability. Roger, together with California counsel, tried the only two market share cases ever tried on the merits – two consolidated California DES cases. In market share litigation involving all DES claims filed in the New York state courts, Ken was co-liaison counsel for over 40 defendant pharmaceutical companies.

Ken has more recently been national counsel for CVS Pharmacy in Fen-Phen litigation. He argued on behalf of CVS and other pharmacies brought into the litigation the issue of pharmacists’ liability for allegedly defective drugs, in courts in New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. In New York Fen-Phen litigation, Kenacted as liaison counsel for all pharmacies.

In the asbestos property damage cases, Ken represented W.R. Grace in the national school asbestos class in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He argued for all defendants in that litigation in the Third Circuit, and in addition was head of the committee of defense counsel that developed facts and legal arguments to decertify that class. He also briefed class issues in proposed national hospital class actions and university class actions in the asbestos property litigation.

Ken is a former associate professor at Boston University School of Law, where he taught, among other courses, Federal Courts and courses dealing with class actions.

He served as a law clerk for Judge Bailey Aldrich on the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

Ken was a member of the Harvard Law Review while at Harvard Law School.