*Professor Jerome Cohen speaking on Jan. 30, 2025 at the NYU School of Law. Photos by Richard Herzfelder*.

The U.S.-Asia Law Institute celebrated the forthcoming publication of Professor Emeritus Jerome Cohen’s memoirs with a book talk and reception on Jan. 30, 2025. Dozens of colleagues, students, and mentees from across his lengthy career, along with several generations of family members, gathered in the faculty library at the NYU School of Law to hear the accomplished raconteur spin tales about his work on behalf of political prisoners in several countries of East Asia, promoting the study of Chinese law at Harvard and NYU, negotiating foreign direct investment transactions in China in the early 1980s, and an unexpected encounter with H.R. Haldeman in Beijing. While voicing criticism of China’s human rights abuses, Professor Cohen repeated his consistent position that the US must continue to engage with China and that Americans need to study China and its legal system.

Cohen, 94, paused several times during the program to scan the room and comment that he could probably tell a story about almost everyone present. His memoirs, Eastward, Westward: A Life in Law, will be released in a few weeks by Columbia University Press. Cohen will give a public book talk at the Asia Society in New York on Feb. 19.

NYU Law School Dean Troy McKenzie opens the discussion.

Colleagues, students, and mentees from across his lengthy career, along with several generations of family members, gathered in the faculty library.

Professor Jerome Cohen and Professor Jose Alvarez, current faculty director of the U.S.-Asia Law Institute, share a story.

Hualing Fu, dean of the law faculty at the University of Hong Kong and the inaugural Jerome A. Cohen Visiting Professor during the spring 2025 semester, joins Professor Cohen for a brief Q&A session.

Professor Cohen and former students.