Felix S. Cohen

Felix Solomon Cohen (July 3, 1907 – October 19, 1953) was an American lawyer and scholar who made a lasting mark on legal philosophy and fundamentally shaped federal Indian law and policy. Felix S. Cohen was born in Manhattan, New York in 1907 and grew up in Yonkers. Cohen attended the City College of New York, and received an M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University in 1927 and 1929, respectively. Cohen entered Columbia Law School in 1928 and graduated in 1931. He was the legislation and book review editor of the Columbia Law Review, serving under Editor-in-Chief Herbert Wechsler. Cohen became a leading figure in Legal Realism, a legal movement that challenged the Formalist idea that legal principles could be discerned in...