David Cohen wasn’t raised a New York Mets fan. but after nearly two decades with the team, seven of them as its top legal player, he’s now among their most passionate advocates. “I grew up in South Florida when there was no professional baseball team around,” Cohen says. “And becoming a fan isn’t like turning on a light switch.” Cohen started out as an intern in 1995, while earning his LL.M. at Columbia Law School. He was named the team’s executive vice president and general counsel roughly a decade later.
While with the Mets, Cohen has handled legal issues related to the building of a new stadium, the formation of a newly affiliated network, and assisting in the representation of the Mets and its owners in connection with claims filed against them by Irving Picard, the trustee for Bernard Madoff’s bankruptcy. The claims were ultimately settled for $162 million, to be offset by the value of claims held by the Mets entities and owners against the Madoff estate, and the trustee withdrew his allegation that the Mets owners had turned a blind eye to the Ponzi scheme Madoff was running. As the Mets celebrate their fiftieth anniversary and prepare to host the 2013 All-Star Game, we chatted with Cohen to get the score.
