Breaking: Cohen Vaughan LLP Opens With 75 Attorneys...

Cohen Vaughan LLP Opens with 75 Attorneys, 18 Offices in Seven States

New firm brings together well-known names in litigation around shared vision for culture, collaboration, and growth

(Philadelphia​)一The law firm ​Cohen Vaughan LLP today opened its doors with 75 attorneys at 18 locations in seven states spanning the eastern seaboard. The firm’s nine founding partners are familiar names in litigation: Richard J. Cohen, Jeffrey J. Cunningham, John A. DeRose, Joshua T. Higgins, and Christopher F. Lyon of Cohen Cunningham DeRose Higgins Lyon LLP; Joseph E. Vaughan and Tracey A. McLean of Vaughan McLean LLC; and Francis J. Deasey and Gerald J. Valentini of Deasey, Mahoney & Valentini, Ltd.

Cohen Vaughan is a dynamic partnership bringing together established lawyers and administrators from leadership roles at seven different firms, ranging from large, multistate law firms to an esteemed trial boutique. The firm, which will be based in Philadelphia but with much of its administrative nerve center in Buffalo, New York, was born from conversations among the founding partners about how to build a well-rounded trial and litigation firm with the scale and resources to serve large corporations and insurers, along with an emphasis on culture and a long-term vision to ensure growth and stability well into the future. Cohen Vaughan will handle civil litigation and trials catering to a wide variety of industries, with particular focus on construction and crane litigation, professional liability, directors and officers liability, employment counseling and litigation, government liability, commercial and business litigation, product liability, environmental and toxic torts, transportation, retail and hospitality, food and beverage, financial services and accounting, general casualty defense, workers compensation defense, OSHA matters, defense of institutional abuse claims, and insurance coverage.

“Our composition uniquely positions us to break the mold of the traditional law firm, improving upon the positives and curing the negatives that we all individually and collectively have experienced at firms large and small,” said Richard J. Cohen, Chairman and Chief Development Officer of Cohen Vaughan.

“We’ve all had the pleasure of working with clients who are sophisticated, open to creative solutions, and responsible with their legal budgets. That kind of client is going to love Cohen Vaughan,” said Joseph E. Vaughan, President of Cohen Vaughan. “We’re excited to reintroduce ourselves to our combined client community as one firm with a shared vision and greater reach and resources than any of us had individually.”

Long-term relationships power new firm

Cohen Vaughan’s cohesion comes from the long-term relationships and respect among its founding partners and their clients.

“We were careful and deliberate in conversations leading up to this moment, not only to ensure we were doing what was right for our clients today, but that we were building something sustainable based on shared beliefs and values,” said Jeffrey J. Cunningham, another Cohen Vaughan founder who will serve as the firm’s General Counsel.

​​At the center of those conversations was Cohen, renowned law firm founder, litigator, and leader in the legal and insurance communities. Cohen is best known for founding the law firm Goldberg Segalla in 2001 and growing it from a group of seven partners in Buffalo, New York to more than 400 attorneys in 20 offices covering seven states, reaching an AmLaw 200 ranking of No. 171 in 2020一without ever pursuing a merger. Cohen stepped down from his position as Managing Partner at Goldberg Segalla in June of 2020 to focus on his family一at the time including nine children, six under the age of ten. In July of 2021, Cohen left the firm he founded to join his longtime friends at the South Carolina-based McAngus, Goudelock & Courie, where he served the multistate firm as Chief Strategic and Business Development Officer.​

Cohen’s characteristic approach to building teams person-by-person also shaped the development of Cohen Vaughan. It started with the formation of Cohen Cunningham DeRose Higgins Lyon LLP, reuniting Cohen with four attorneys that he personally worked to recruit to Goldberg Segalla years prior: Jeffrey Cunningham, most recently a partner at McAngus Goudelock & Courie based in Garden City, New York and Stamford, Connecticut; John DeRose, a partner at Clark Hill based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Joshua T. Higgins, a partner at Kelley Kronenberg based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; and Christopher F. Lyon, a partner at Goldberg Segalla based in Manhattan.

Meanwhile, Vaughan, a Philadelphia-based veteran with more than four decades in the industry, had already begun what turned out to be a parallel track with the same vision and strategic plan of building a new style of law firm. Although his vision began in Philadelphia in 2011 with just three attorneys, he set his sights on identifying partners throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Florida who shared his passion and wanted to be part of his long-term plan. Vaughan went on to execute that plan by strategically adding attorneys, one-by-one, who contributed both unity and expertise to create the framework of the firm he envisioned. In doing so, Vaughan built his firm from 11 attorneys in 2021 to 43 attorneys in 2024, and created the foundation of what was to become Cohen Vaughan.

Vaughan’s sojourn into New York was the moment his and Cohen’s once-parallel paths began to converge. Vaughan’s entire New York team was comprised of partners formerly with Goldberg Segalla, all of whom Cohen had worked to recruit there. Tracey McLean, whom Cohen had helped recruit to Goldberg Segalla in 2015, and now a co-leader at Vaughan McLean, introduced Cohen and Vaughan in mid-2024. The pair hit it off immediately, realizing their shared vision and values could guide the creation of a new firm. McLean, who along with fellow partner Zachary H. Pratt, helped to guide and grow its workers’ compensation practice, and Vaughan, with his broad background in employment and professional liability, along with the multi-disciplinary, multi-jurisdictional team he had forged, complemented the core focus areas of the Cohen Cunningham group.

In addition, Cohen Vaughan includes the former Deasey, Mahoney & Valentini firm, an esteemed Philadelphia-based practice with an exceptional trial record and expertise in areas including construction and crane law and environmental and toxic torts. Founder Frank Deasey is an icon in the Philadelphia legal community, with a record including more than 100 successful jury trials, coordinating the joint defense in the Meridian Plaza Fire litigation, and serving as national coordinating counsel for major insurers for cranes, heavy equipment, and other aerial lift devices involved in catastrophic construction accidents. Jerry Valentini, who served as the managing partner of the Deasey firm, has over 35 years of experience handling product liability litigation and trials, mass torts, professional liability, institutional abuse claims, and insurance coverage and bad faith, along with serving as national coordinating or liaison counsel in multidistrict litigation.

As Deasey and Valentini sought to extend their firm’s more than 40-year history, setting up the next generation of leadership for continued success, they found synergies and common vision with Cohen, Vaughan, and the other founders. Following months of discussions, the attorneys, and staff at Deasey, Mahoney & Valentini joined Vaughan McLean, which combined with Cohen Cunningham to create the partnership Cohen Vaughan.

“This partnership offers the scale and breadth of services that our large national insurance and self-insured clients increasingly want, along with a bigger platform for our exceptional trial attorneys to grow their practices,” said Deasey.

Leadership team sees near-term growth

Cohen Vaughan opens with offices in Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Manhattan, Long Island, Albany, Syracuse, and Buffalo, New York; Marlton, New Brunswick, and Atlantic City, New Jersey; Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, and Sarasota, Florida; Stamford, Connecticut; Baltimore, Maryland; and Wilmington, Delaware.

Joining the founding partners are four senior administrators: Chief Financial Officer Deirdre Leible continues in the role she held at Vaughan McLean; Chief Operating Officer Jennifer Majewski and Chief Human Resources and Culture Officer Amanda Spencer join from Chartwell Law; and Chief Business Relations and Culture Officer Anna Gilman joins from McAngus Goudelock & Courie.

“We were intentional about establishing a multigenerational leadership team to set the firm up for success in the near-term and long-term,” said McLean. “Six of our founders are well-established lawyers and leaders, each of whom have at least 30 years of experience; seven others, including three of our founding administrators, are a generation younger, all positioned to be leaders of the firm not only today, but well into the future, ensuring the continuation of our founding vision along with consistency and stability for our clients.”

The firm’s first priority is to begin integrating teams to serve clients seamlessly across its footprint, but the leaders also envision near-term growth, expecting to announce additional hires and offices in 2025.