Valerie Cohen is a counsel in O’Melveny’s New York office and a member of the Securities Litigation and Labor and Employment Practices. Valerie also has experience in White Collar Defense and Corporate Investigations and Antitrust matters.

Valerie’s work focuses on corporate governance litigation, representing companies and their directors and officers in securities fraud, breach of duty, derivative, and books and records inspection litigation, as well as investigating and advising boards of directors on shareholder demands. Valerie regularly defends foreign issuers and underwriters in shareholder securities class actions and derivative actions brought in United States federal and state courts, with an emphasis on Chinese companies.

Valerie frequently represents financial institutions before government regulators, including the Securities and Exchange Commission. She also successfully represented a large public company in an ERISA matter involving an alleged breach of a top-hat benefit plan. From March to August 2009, Valerie was seconded to a large financial firm to assist in-house counsel with regulatory investigations, securities class actions, derivative actions, and ERISA litigation.

Valerie’s pro bono experience includes a trial victory on behalf of an elderly and disabled client and representation of Holocaust survivors seeking reparations and pension payments for work performed in ghettos.