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Jonathan Cohen


Jonathan Cohen was born in upstate New York and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. While successfully managing to avoid developing a southern accent or an affinity for country music, this son of a ventriloquist-turned-CPA and school librarian learned the unrelated arts of entertaining others and staying organized.

Following in his father’s footsteps, Jonathan also appeared on television at an early age. Unlike his father, who entertained crowds using a wooden dummy, Jonathan’s on-screen debut came via a news special about children with high cholesterol.

Having had a taste of the spotlight, Jonathan spent his formative years getting classmates into trouble by making them laugh. Jonathan thought he was destined to be a comedian and filled notebooks with his ideas and jokes.

Having recently stumbled upon these notebooks, Jonathan can now confirm that his jokes were not at all funny, and he was wise not to pursue a career in comedy. Luckily, Jonathan had other artistic talents to fall back on, including painting, watercolor, drawing, sculpture, photography, and graphic design. While in high school, Jonathan was selected to attend the Tennessee Governor’s School for the Arts.

In 1992, Jonathan headed to Hoosier country, where he initially intended to pursue an art degree, but then decided to focus on journalism. He earned a B.A. in Journalism from Indiana University at Bloomington while working as an advertising designer for the school newspaper and playing drums in various basement bands.

Jonathan then relocated to Chicago and worked in marketing as a graphic designer and project manager, promoting everything from the cardboard sleeve you slip over your Starbucks cup to credit cards, gasoline, and salty snacks. Putting all of his marketing skills to the test, Jonathan successfully marketed himself as “husband material” to a co-worker, who is now his wife.

After hours, Jonathan moonlighted as a drummer with the underwhelming indie rock band Melochrome, with whom he fulfilled a lifelong dream of making an album with his name on it. Then in 2002, Jonathan decided to make a more significant contribution to society and applied to law school. [Insert laughter here]. At law school, Jonathan took (and booked) a course on Consumer Protection and began his fascination with consumer issues and shady corporate conduct.

After interning for the Honorable Judge David A. Demers of the Sixth Judicial Circuit and the Economic Crime Unit of the State Attorney’s Office for the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit, Jonathan graduated from Stetson University College of Law in 2005. He has been working to pay off his student loans ever since.