Michelle W. Cohen

Michelle W. Cohen unfailing dedication to her clients is illustrated by this fact: her very first client – whom she represented over 25 years ago, as a first-year associate – remains an active client today. Throughout her career, she has established similarly strong, lasting client relationships by committing herself to understanding each client’s business goals, minimizing legal risk and delivering exceptional service.

At Ifrah Law, Michelle’s practice focuses on helping clients establish powerful and enduring relationships with their customers and prospects while remaining compliant with state and federal law governing privacy and advertising laws and regulations.

As Practice Group leader for the Firm’s Data Privacy & Cyber Security group, ­Michelle helps clients create compliant digital policies and practices for their online terms and conditions, sweepstakes and contests, social media, and customer communications through the use of various media, including telemarketing, texts and emails, and social media. She also handles state-level data regulations, including breach notifications, and assists clients with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance and notifications.

Michelle has extensive experience defending individual and class actions in the consumer protection context, including dozens of Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) cases, beginning from when the TCPA was first implemented. Her litigation experience helps clients avoid enforcement actions and minimize civil litigation by proactively implementing policies and procedures that demonstrate good faith compliance efforts. Her counsel is critical when those clients face enforcement proceedings by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), or state agencies. She draws on deep legal knowledge and a strong footing in the privacy community to resolve these issues expediently.

Some of Michelle’s representative matters include:

• Swiftly resolved a potential class action suit under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 when discovery established that the superior compliance protocols Michelle instituted on her client’s behalf fit within the “fax broadcaster defense” that protects fax broadcasters from TCPA liability.
• Represented a financial services company in numerous matters involving alleged violations of the TCPA in connection with debt servicing calls, and consistently negotiated satisfactory resolutions through arbitration and litigation.
• Obtained a highly unusual rescission of an FCC citation in an FCC TCPA enforcement matter.
• Led a full-scale review of a global client’s customer communications to ensure federal and state compliance, with a special focus on the TCPA and the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR); educated company leaders on TCPA requirements, wrote call center guidelines and controls, and helped the client launch a company-wide training program, well in advance of TCPA rule changes.
• Developed successful online promotions programs including a celebrity endorsement sweepstakes campaign for which she crafted sweepstakes rules and reviewed promotional materials to ensure compliance with state and federal sweepstakes laws, as well as social networks’ policies and requirements.
• Represented the seller in the acquisition of an affiliate marketing company by a publicly traded company in a deal valued at approximately $6.5 million.
• Resolved through settlement an FTC case against a corporate officer which involved personal privacy issues under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act.
• Defended an affiliate marketer in a lawsuit alleging unauthorized use of a celebrity’s image.
• As leader of Ifrah Law’s special GDPR Services, Michelle guides companies that collect, store, or utilize the personal data of European residents on compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

In her role as Firm Personnel Partner and VP of Legal Affairs for a national non-profit, Michelle’s matters have also included:

• Handling internal investigations involving allegations of workplace harassment, violations of company codes of conduct, and invocations of whistleblower protections.
• Drafting codes of ethics and behavior, in addition to counseling companies of all sizes on how to maintain harassment-free workplaces for all of their employees.
• Creating employment and consulting agreements, as well as separation agreements.
• Overseeing corporate governance and compliance matters, including adherence to by-laws and legal mandates prescribed by court orders.