Felix Solomon Cohen (1907-1953)

Felix Cohen was a lawyer and legal scholar who developed an interest and expertise in law concerning natural resources, statehood and economic development for American territories, Indian affairs, and immigration and minority problems.

Felix Cohen was born in Manhattan, New York in 1907 and grew up in Yonkers. Cohen attended the The City College of New York , and received an M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University in 1927 and 1929, respectively. Cohen entered Columbia Law School in 1928 and graduated in 1931.

Cohen worked in the Solicitor's Office of the Department of the Interior from 1933-1947. In 1939 he became Chief of the Indian Law Survey, which was an effort to compile the federal laws and treaties regarding American Indians. Cohen helped edit the survey that was eventually published as The Handbook of Federal Indian Law. For this work, Cohen received the department's Distinguished Service Award in 1948.

Cohen entered private legal practice in 1948, but concurrently taught legal philosophy at Yale Law School, The City College of New York, and Rutgers Law School . In 1951 Cohen published Readings in Jurisprudence and Legal Philosophy with his father, Professor Morris R. Cohen.