Joel Cohn retired from the partnership in 2018. While working in the firm’s Washington, D.C., office, he represented management in federal and state court in complex employment litigation.

Joel has substantial experience defending wage and hour and employment discrimination collective and class actions. His experience includes federal court jury trials and arguments in most of the U.S. courts of appeals. He represented national employers in the retail, food processing, financial services, manufacturing and restaurant industries.

Joel was a leader of the firm’s national wage and hour practice. He served for many years as a member of the board of editors of The Fair Labor Standards Act. He frequently participated in programs discussing wage and hour issues.

Joel joined Akin Gump in 1983 after serving as a staff attorney in the Appellate Litigation Division at the EEOC and earlier in the Office of Representation Appeals at the National Labor Relations Board.

Representative Work

Acted as strategic counsel for national retailer in series of wage and hour collective and class actions.
Served as national trial counsel for major retailer in all wage and hour collective and class actions.
Successfully tried Fair Labor Standards Act collective and Department of Labor actions before federal juries in Alabama and Pennsylvania.
Successfully represented California Highway Patrol in statewide Title VII promotion and assignment discrimination class action before a federal jury in Los Angeles. The jury verdict and judgment on parallel disparate impact claim were affirmed by the 9th Circuit.
Defeating class and collective action treatment in multiple lawsuits alleging wide range of wage and hour claims under federal and state law, including misclassification, off-the-clock work, unpaid overtime for preliminary and postliminary activities, missed or interrupted rest breaks and meal periods, failure to calculate correctly the regular rate, and failure to compensate for travel time.