Alan D. Cohn

Alan D. Cohn is an American lawyer and former government official who served as Assistant Secretary for Strategy, Planning, Analysis & Risk in the United States Department of Homeland Security Office of Policy from 2012 to 2015.

Biography Cohn received his A.B. in history and political science from Columbia University in 1993 and a J.D. degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1997.

From 1990 to 1994, he was an emergency medical technician in New York City. As a student at Columbia, he was a volunteer for Columbia Area Volunteer Ambulance (CAVA, now CUEMS), a student-operated volunteer ambulance corps that provides pre-hospital emergency medical care to residents in Columbia-owned buildings on its Morningside Heights campus. Cohn was also a per-diem EMT with the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center (now NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, one of the NYC 911 system voluntary ambulance providers) from 1991-1994, and responded to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in that capacity. Cohn was a FEMA Disaster Assistance Employee from 1995 to 2006, and a Planning Officer on the Fairfax County Urban Search & Rescue Task Force from 1998 to 2006.

From 1997 to 1999, he worked at Littler Mendelson as an associate. He was an associate and of counsel at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld from 2000 to 2006.

Cohn authored the legal casebook, "Domestic Preparedness: Law, Policy, and National Security" (Carolina Academic Press 2012), as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center.

In 2015, Cohn joined Steptoe LLP, becoming partner and co-chair of the firm's blockchain and cryptocurrency practice.