Portia Cohen

Portia Cohen is a practitioner of public policy leadership and advocacy for various private, nonprofit and civic interests.  She is an attorney-at-law, and currently a Council Member for the City of Manhattan Beach, California. Councilmember Cohen is the official liaison to the city’s business, environmental and school communities, and serves as chair or member to ten different state, regional and local committees and organizations.  Ms. Cohen has also served as a city Planning Commissioner, Parks & Recreation Commissioner, and Program Director for Leadership Manhattan Beach.

In addition to Cohen’s work with the City of Manhattan Beach, Cohen worked for the Environment Now Foundation, Santa Monica, California, where she led the Petroleum Litigation Project, a campaign focused on transitioning to clean, renewable energy sources through the demonstration of human and environmental harms caused by the petroleum cycle.  She also worked on land-use issues in the Los Angeles area.

Cohen also was Corporate Counsel for Gensler Architecture & Design Worldwide, in New York and Los Angeles, and Corporate Counsel and Board Director for the international power production engineering firm Burns & Roe Enterprises, Inc.  In addition, Cohen was a litigation associate and judicial clerk following law school, and was managing editor of an economic and legal publication for the U.S. Small Business Administration in Washington, DC.

Cohen earned her Bachelor’s Degree in political science from Rutgers University, and her Juris Doctor degree from Widener University.  She earned membership on the Law Review, where her article on corporate governance is published.  She is also recipient of the American Jurisprudence Award in Contracts.  Cohen is licensed to practice law in Washington DC, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. 

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