Laurie Cohen: The Amicable Attorney
Laurie Cohen sits attentively behind her desk in her office at Village Hall in Wellington, FL. Though not originally from the Sunshine State, Mrs. Cohen has been a Wellington resident since 1998, and has held her current position of Village Attorney for the last 6 years.
Laurie Stilwell Cohen was born in 1961 in Springfield, Illinois. The daughter of an ordained minister, Cohen moved frequently while her father completed seminary school. Cohen’s family traveled to Colorado and then North Carolina before eventually settling in Maryland.
Thanks to her father’s influence, she grew up being very involved with her church. This, Cohen says, set her on the right path at an early age.
“I think that any sort of religious upbringing is a good grounding for life,” she says.
Cohen graduated from the University of Maryland in 1983 with a degree in kinesiology. For the next ten years, she worked for several banking and auto finance companies in various accounting roles. But in 1992, she returned to school to pursue her dream of practicing law.
“I came from a family of professionals,” Cohen says. “And I had it in my head that I wanted to be a professional.”
Cohen graduated from the Shepard Broad College of Law at Nova Southeastern University in 1995. From there she immediately accepted a job as an assistant state’s attorney in Lake City, FL, where she found the work to be adequate but not completely satisfying.
After trying criminal cases for less than a year, Cohen was asked for a change in scenery by her husband Irwin, who found that he could not get used to the rustic, rural area they resided in.
Cohen moved with her husband to Palm Beach County in 1996, and they lived in Boynton Beach for two years while she established her own practice in Ft. Lauderdale. By the time they moved to Wellington in 1998, their first child, Stuart, was one year old. The family welcomed their second child, Eric, in the year 2000.
During this time, Cohen found plenty of work in commercial litigation for law firms specializing in construction law and became an expert in business, contract, and maritime disputes.
Her experience and stellar work record led her to run for the Village Council, a position she was elected to in 2003. She served for five years in this capacity before returning to the private sector. Cohen truly valued her time as a council member and credits the experience with helping to further her career afterwards.
“I really enjoyed being an elected official, and I especially enjoyed the land use disputes,” she says.
In 2013, while working once again in her own practice, Cohen heard about an unexpected opportunity. The council members of the Village of Wellington were looking to shift their legal counsel from a private firm to a group employed directly by the Village.
With nearly 15-years-experience as a practicing lawyer, Cohen threw her hat into the ring. She won the position of Village Attorney by a council majority vote, following an extensive application process.
Since then, the village council has renewed her contract twice, owing to her outstanding work and rapport of the community.
“Anyone who’s been through two successful renewals as city attorney is an asset,” says Craig Clermont, 42, of Binks Forest. “Her track record speaks for itself.”
But it is her own ability to speak effectively that Cohen says allows her to do her job most efficiently. She is able to keep her own emotions in check and instead rely on her instincts and principles to guide her decision-making.
“I don’t take things personally,” she says. “I can go into court, have an argument with someone and take completely different positions, and then come out and still be friends.”
Cohen and her team deal with new challenges on a daily basis, and this is one of the things she enjoys most about her job.
“You really don’t know from one day to the next what issue will present itself,” she says. “Sometimes they can crop up pretty quickly, and you just have to respond.”
In her time outside of work, Cohen currently serves as President of the Wellington Historical Society, of which she is also a founding member. The not-for-profit organization works to preserve the unique history of the village through fundraising and campaigning. Their most recent project involves working with local elementary schools to incorporate the history of Wellington into the 4th grade social studies curriculum.
Her daily schedules are filled with legal proceedings and there are plenty of hectic times while facing a considerable workload, but Cohen is quick to credit her team at the Village for their efforts and ability to get the job done.
“I am extremely fortunate to have such a high caliber of people working here,” she says.
“I just love working with these people.”
