Penn Law Journal - Spring 2003

A new age of cross-disciplinary studies has dawned at the law school with the Levy Scholars Program. Established by Board of Overseers Chairman Paul Levy L’72 and his wife, Karen, the program enables students to broaden their law education by deepening their knowledge of law-related areas such as business, medicine, engineering and communications. What students choose to study is only limited by their creativity and imagination.

Levy scholars will come from the top ranks of incoming law students. The first group of up to twenty students will begin the program in the fall. They will receive a grant for full tuition the first year and half tuition the second and third years. Among the opportunities, Levy scholars will receive academic counseling to guide them through the many interdisciplinary choices available at the university; mentoring from alumni in their field of interest; and invitations to special faculty and research seminars. This innovative program will help Penn Law develop a new generation of leaders who are “multidimensional professionals” well-prepared for novel careers in established and burgeoning fields.

Levy is the founding partner and senior managing director of the New York investment firm JLL Partners. Founded in 1988, JLL is a private equity firm that specializes in restructuring troubled companies.

Levy and his wife, Karen, a graduate of NYU Law School, also funded the renovation of Sharswood Hall and the creation of the Levy Conference Center on the second floor of historic Silverman Hall.

Cohen, founder and chairman of New York-based Morrison Cohen Singer & Weinstein and counsel to Julie Roy in the landmark case of Roy v. Hartogs, is one of the leading family law attorneys in the United States and the father of first-year law student, Nicholas Cohen. Among his significant achievements, in the 1976 Roy v. Hartogs case he represented the plaintiff, a patient who claimed her psychiatrist seduced her under the guise of therapy. The court awarded Julie Roy significant damages and established important criteria for psychiatrists on boundary violations. The case became the subject of a book and was made into the 1978 movie “Betrayal.” He has represented many of our country’s leading business people, entertainers and professionals. In 2002, he was featured in a New York Times profile.

Voted one of the Outstanding Young Men of America” in 1968, Cohen is on the faculty of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law and has been a consistent lecturer and writer for various professional publications. He is also author of Reconcilable Differences: 7 Essential Tips to Remaining Together from a Top Matrimonial Lawyer (published in 2002 by Pocket Books).