Meet Judge Dale Cohen
Judge Cohen is a Circuit Court Judge for the 17th Judicial Circuit, Broward County, Florida. He was appointed to the bench in 2006 and has been re-elected twice without opposition in 2008 and in 2014. Currently he serves in the Family Court division and is the most senior judge in that division. He is Broward County’s only Family Court Collaborative Judge. Recently, the Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court appointed Judge Cohen to serve on the state grievance committee for mediators where he will preside over alleged ethical violations of mediators. Additionally, he serves as the judicial representative for Broward’s Online Dispute Resolution Panel.
In his 14-year tenure as a Broward County judge, he has served as a jurist in the felony criminal division, the dependency division and the family division. As a dependency judge, Judge Cohen was tasked with ensuring that children who were abused, abandoned or neglected were placed in a safe environment and received proper services. Judge Cohen required parents to undergo training or therapy to deal with the fundamental causes of their poor parenting skills. In the criminal division Judge Cohen often had to strike a balance between an accused person’s liberty and the safety of the community. In the family division, Judge Cohen has presided over hundreds of adoptions, dissolution of marriage and paternity cases.

Cohen has lectured regularly to the legal community. He has spoken several times to both the Family Law Section of the bar, as well as at the Raising the Bar annual event, presented by the Broward County Bar Association.
Prior to taking the bench in May 2006 Judge Cohen practiced law in Broward, Dade and Palm Beach County as well as in federal court. He served as a Broward County Assistant State Attorney and a specially appointed Public Defender. For almost 20 years Judge Cohen was in private practice handling criminal cases, family cases and personal injury cases.
As a lawyer Judge Cohen achieved the highest level of recognition in competence and ethics. He was a Board Certified criminal trial lawyer, an AV rated lawyer by Martindale Hubbell and was recognized as a Super Lawyer, by Super Lawyer rating and peer review recognition service.
Judge Cohen is a graduate of the University of Florida College of Law. He has been married for 33 years to Mardi Levey Cohen whom he met in law school. They have two adult children, Lawrence and Rachel. Lawrence is an online retailer and business entrepreneur. Rachel and her new husband, Jordan Lande, are lawyers practicing in Broward County. Dale and Mardi also have two beautiful dogs, Summer (a Labrador retriever) and Cooper (a crazy mini Golden doodle).