About

George M. Cohen is the Brokaw Professor of Corporate Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. He joined the faculty in 1993 as an associate professor after a one-year visit to the law school and became a full professor in 1995. Cohen teaches courses in contracts, professional responsibility, agency, and partnership, and has also taught antitrust and law and economics. His academic background includes a B.A. from Yale University, where he graduated summa cum laude and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, as well as a J.D. and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania. During law school, he served as articles editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. Cohen has clerked for Judge Walter K. Stapleton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and has served as an ethics consultant and expert for several law firms. His scholarly work includes books, textbooks, book chapters, articles, and reports focusing on legal ethics, law and economics, agency law, and contract law, with notable contributions to the understanding of legal and ethical issues faced by lawyers in practice.

Research topics

• Law
• Political science
• Business
• Law and economics
• Economics

Selected publications

• The Objective Theories Of Contract And The Role Of Fault

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Uncertainty of Sun Printing

  Touro law review · 2018-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Judges march at times to pitiless conclusions under the prod of a remorseless logic which is supposed to leave them no alternative.They deplore the sacrificial rite.They perform it, none the less, with averted gaze, convinced as they plunge the knife that they obey the bidding of their office.The victim is offered up to the gods of jurisprudence.

  PublisherOA PDF

• Law and Economics of Agency and Partnership

  2017-04-13 · 2 citations

  reference-entry1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter attempts to explain how agency and partnership bridge the gap between contract and the firm. Both agency and partnership facilitate contracting, the first by enabling contractual intermediation and the second by enabling the pooling of resources in the joint pursuit of an enterprise. The main concern of agency and partnership law, however, is to address the problems caused by moving from the two-party contractual relations to three-party relationships, which creates the potential for any two parties to collude against the interests of the third. Partnership differs from agency in that it involves multiple owners who have the right and ability to exercise control over shared partnership property. That fact creates a need for partnership law to address additional collusive possibilities involving partners, whether acting on behalf of the partnership in dealing with third parties or acting against the interest of the partnership by misappropriating the partnership property.

  PublisherDOI

• The Laws of Agency Lawyering

  eYLS (Yale Law School) · 2016-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The great variety of agency rules governing lawyers raises interesting questions that are worth exploring. This Article begins that exploration. Part I lays the groundwork by briefly examining how the ABA Model Rules treat regulatory lawyering to raise the question of what regulatory gaps the agency rules might be expected to fill. Part II sets forth several possible theories of agency rule variation. Part III compares agency rules along a number of dimensions, examines some similarities and differences across agencies as well as between the agency rules and the Model Rules, and offers speculations about what may be driving the differences that exist.

  PublisherOA PDF

• Teaching Interpretation and Structure of the Revised Uniform Partnership Act: Moren Ex Rel. Moren v. Jax Restaurant and the Duty of Indemnification

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2015-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• An Evaluation of Hogaan iyo Nabad: A Community Driven Governance Programme in Somalia/Somaliland

  Durham Research Online (Durham University) · 2015-09-01 · 7 citations

  articleOpen access

  The report presents the results of an evaluation of Hogaan iyo Nabad, a Community
\nDriven Reconstruction (CDR) programme in Somaliland and Somalia.The programme
\nwas funded by DFID and implemented by CARE, DRC and IRC, and aimed at strengthening local governance in rural and rather remote districts in Somaliland (Erigabo) and
\nPuntland (Galkayo and Burtinle). To work towards making local government more responsive, accountable and effective, the programme aimed to achieve two outcomes:
\nOutcome 1: Citizens’ participation in decision-making and conflict management is enhanced.
\nOutcome 2: Village-level institutions have improved their ability to plan, manage and
\nadvocate for community priorities.

  Publisher

• The State Of Lawyer Knowledge Under The Model Rules Of Professional Conduct

  American University Business Law Review · 2013-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The actual knowledge standard pervades the Model Rules of Professional Conduct and applies to lawyers in all areas of practice, whether transactional, litigation, or criminal. Yet the state of lawyers’ ethical “knowledge” is poor. The Model Rules and the authorities interpreting them do an inadequate job of defining knowledge; of explaining or justifying the use of the knowledge standard in the rules; and of relating the knowledge requirement to, and reconciling it with, other ethical and legal requirements. Drafters of ethics codes are apparently unwilling to do anything about this problem, because lawyers often view the knowledge standard as an important means of limiting lawyer responsibility. The knowledge standard may not provide as much protection as lawyers think, however.I argue in this Article that given the importance of the actual knowledge standard, the Model Rule drafters need to provide better guidance to lawyers about the meaning of, and reasons for, the knowledge under the Model Rules. First, the Model Rules should expressly incorporate recklessness, or willful blindness, into the definition of “knowledge” or its comment. Second, the rules and comments should make clear that the knowledge requirement does not negate or limit any duty to investigate or communicate that otherwise exists in the ethics rules or other law, and that the deliberate breach of these duties can be evidence of willful blindness and therefore knowledge. Finally, the drafters should further clarify where a duty to investigate or communicate otherwise exists in comments to rules including a knowledge requirement.

  Publisher

• Beyond the No-Contact Rule: Ex Parte Contact by Lawyers with Nonclients

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2013-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The ethics rules governing lawyers include a number of rules banning contact between lawyers and nonclients. These “no-contact” rules are rarely studied as a group. This Article examines and compares four no-contact provisions contained in the ethics rules. Although protecting vulnerable nonclients from lawyer overreaching plays an important role in justifying these rules, the rules also often aim to protect absent lawyers or clients as much as the contacted parties. This alternative purpose may better explain some features of the no-contact rules.

  Publisher

• Foundations of the Law and Ethics of Lawyering

  eYLS (Yale Law School) · 2012-01-25

  book1st authorCorresponding

  This work is a collection of articles that explore the tension between the law governing the conduct of lawyers and the complex ethics of lawyering that pulls against that law and competes with it. This collection emphasizes the regulatory framework that has developed to govern the conduct of lawyers and draws heavily on the work of law and economics scholars.

  Publisher

• The Financial Crisis and the Forgotten Law of Contracts

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2011-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Susan P. Koniak

  9 shared

• David A. Dana

  3 shared

• Thomas W. Ross

  University of British Columbia

  2 shared

• Helmut Hungerland

  2 shared

• George M. Cohan

  2 shared

• Holcombe M. Austin

  2 shared

• Roger C. Cramton

  Cornell University

  2 shared

• John A. Alford

  2 shared