At Cozen O’Connor, we strive to continually deliver value, innovate, provide thought leadership, and maintain a solutions-oriented focus. This mindset is woven into the very fabric of our firm and is a cornerstone of the culture that we nurture and protect as the firm continues to grow. Our culture of intellectual rigor combined with creative thinking and unflinching tenacity contributes to our clients’ success every day.
Cozen O’Connor is committed to equal employment opportunities for all of its employees. As a firm, our goals are to recruit professionals from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences, maximize the unique potential of each employee, and build a welcoming and supportive environment for all. To pursue this important mission, the firm focuses on three key areas: Recruitment & Hiring, Retention & Professional Development, and Community Engagement.
Cozen O’Connor has long been known as an entrepreneurial firm that attracts lawyers with a competitive zeal and willingness to break new ground. We seek creative and tenacious attorneys who thrive on working collaboratively with colleagues across the firm. We believe that breadth of perspectives among our attorneys and staff contributes to the richness of experience we value as a firm. Our attorneys come from a wide range of backgrounds, and we recruit our entry-level associates from law schools across the country and in Canada. Cozen O’Connor is — and always has been — an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, color, gender, gender identity, national origin or ancestry, religion, age, disability, citizenship, marital status, military or veteran status, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited basis. This policy extends to all aspects of the employment relationship, including recruitment, hiring, and advancement.
We understand that recruitment and hiring is only half of the picture. Real attention must also be paid to helping all firm attorneys and business professionals remain with the firm and succeed. Cozen O’Connor prides itself on our ability to retain our employees. We achieve this through our culture of collegiality and collaboration, and we promote career-long professional development. Notably, while some attrition is inevitable, our attorneys rarely leave us to join other law firms.
The firm has a strong sense of self — built on a culture of collaboration, meritocracy, and an unquenchable desire for excellence. For this reason, Cozen O’Connor eschews the lock-step model embraced by many other firms in favor of one that challenges attorneys and business professionals at all levels to be their best in a supportive, open-door environment that provides ample opportunity for early and continual professional growth. We recognize and reward individual excellence, and we believe that empowering our attorneys and staff to become their very best is part of our duty as a firm.
A key part of our efforts to empower our attorneys to advance their careers at Cozen O’Connor is our robust attorney training program. These efforts are driven by the firm’s full-time Director of Career Development, who is responsible for firmwide attorney training and professional development initiatives, including orientation and integration, and continuing education and development programming for all of our lawyers.
Further, Cozen O'Connor is committed to cultivating career growth for our business professionals. When our staff succeeds, our firm succeeds. By giving all firm employees greater access to professional development, we create an overarching environment of growth and continued engagement.
Both as a firm and as individuals, we are deeply engaged with the communities where we work and live.
The firm operates a multimillion dollar grantmaking entity called the Cozen O’Connor Charitable Foundation. Formally incorporated in the early 2000s, the mission of the foundation is to promote charitable giving in a wide range of areas. It is important to note that our foundation guidelines require that requests for money come from a Cozen O’Connor lawyer who is “closely” involved with the organization, meaning they serve as a board member, event chair, or longtime adviser. As such, foundation donations reflect not only a firmwide monetary commitment but also a time commitment by individual attorneys. Indeed, on an individual basis Cozen O’Connor attorneys are active in a range of bar associations and bar programs.
Cozen O’Connor attorneys also provide a wide range of pro bono services under the direction of our full-time director of Pro Bono Engagement. For example, we routinely represent immigrants and refugees through the complicated and often byzantine process of acquiring status that will permit them to live and work in the United States. We protect the rights of military personnel and veterans, assisting them to get the benefits they need and deserve, and representing them in family law, consumer protection, landlord-tenant, and other matters to ensure their rights are protected while they are on active duty. And we represent people with disabilities to ensure that they receive appropriate accommodations in their housing.