Marsha Cohen

Bio

Professor Marsha Cohen came to California to clerk for the late Associate Justice Raymond L. Sullivan, then of the California Supreme Court. Thereafter she joined the public interest law office of Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, in Washington, D.C., practicing primarily in the areas of federal food and drug and product safety law. She came to UC Law SF after a short stint at UC Davis. Professor Cohen has served on various government and National Academy of Sciences panels on a variety of topics, most notably on food safety and sodium. For almost eight years she was a member of the California State Board of Pharmacy, and was its first non-pharmacist president.

During her years at UC Law SF, Professor Cohen most regularly taught Torts, Administrative Law, and Consumer Protection, and for many years she was the faculty supervisor of the Judicial Externship Program. Her area of narrowest specialty is food and drug law, and she is the coauthor of Pharmacy Law for California Pharmacists, now in its 7th edition.

Professor Cohen is the Founding Executive Director of Lawyers for America, which provides an exciting alternative path in legal education and helps legal nonprofits and government to meet the overwhelming need for public interest lawyering.

Professor Cohen has founded, served on the boards of, and raised money for, a variety of nonprofits (including Friends of the Company, the Cutting Ball Theater, San Francisco Day School, and Smith College). She urges theater-lovers to check out the exciting and unusual theater offered near UC Law SF by the Cutting Ball Theater (www.cuttingball.com) and to support the youth of San Francisco performing with the Young People’s Teen Musical Theatre Company by attending its shows (www.yptmtc.org).

Education

• Harvard Law School
  J.D., cum laude, Law

• Smith College
  B.A., cum laude, English

Selected Scholarship

• Teaching While Pregnant: The History of Faculty Maternity at UC Law SF
  Harvard Women's Law Journal 2019

• Can We Talk? About Food and Drug Regulation and the First Amendment
  Food and Drug Law Journal 2003

• California Administrative Law
  California Administrative Law 2002

• Breaking The Federal-State Impasse Over Medical Marijuana: A Proposal
  Hastings Women's Law Journal 2000