dallas cowboys
Around Dallas Cowboys offices, Jason Cohen is known simply as the counselor. When team owner Jerry Jones has another of his grand ideas, the cry goes out to run it by the counselor.
Asked if his job is mainly trying to rein Jones in and warn him of the risks of his ideas, Cohen laughed, and replied, “You nailed it.” Asked how many times Jones has ignored his advice and gone forward, Cohen laughed again, and said, seemingly half-jokingly, “How about all of them.”
His candor, and humor, is what sets him apart from so many other lawyers, said John Tatum, the founder of sports marketing firm Genesco and who is close with the team and Jones. “He has got the best personality of any lawyer I have ever known,” Tatum said.
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Cohen knew coming out of Rutgers law school that he wanted to work for a team. He landed an internship with the Oakland Raiders after writing, in his words, “a goofy letter” to the club comparing the precision of legal work to field goal kicking.
Around that time the Wilf family, who hailed from Cohen’s New Jersey hometown, bought the Vikings. He worked every connection he could to land an interview.
He got the job, but left after several years to join his girlfriend, who later became his wife, in San Francisco, where he worked for the ill-fated Women’s Professional Soccer. The league folded in 2012.
He then landed at NASCAR, where he knew so little about racing that he once referred to “Dale Gordon,” merging the names of the sport’s biggest stars, Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon. He was cold-called on the Cowboys opportunity, and has been running with the Joneses ever since. He has a finger in almost every aspect of the Jones empire, whether it’s AT&T Stadium, the new practice facility in Frisco, Texas, or the family’s oil and gas business.
“The biggest challenge I have,” he said, “is I am counsel for someone who made his career on being a risk-taker.”
— Daniel Kaplan
jason cohen
dallas cowboys | general counsel
Age: 37
Where born: Livingston, N.J.
Education: Brandeis University (B.A., double major, American studies and history); Rutgers School of Law (J.D.)
Family: Wife, Karen; children, Jackson and Charlotte (twins, 2 1/2)
What do you know now that you wish you’d known at age 20? Every opportunity presents a chance to learn more and that it will all come in
handy one day.
Profession other than your own you’d most like to attempt: Front line combat surgeon — save lives in real time, serious adrenaline rush.
2018 will be a good year if … : The Cowboys win the Super Bowl and we get the doors open at the Star’s retail and commercial projects.
Most thrilling/adventurous thing I’ve done: Lived in Zambia, Africa.
You’d be surprised to know that I … : Still regularly drink chocolate milk.
