Barry Cohen brings clients in the electric and natural gas industries more than 30 years of experience with public utility regulation and energy and telecommunications law. His work centers around ensuring that the interests of publicly owned electric utilities are protected in rulemakings and other dockets involving the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s efforts to facilitate competitive wholesale electricity markets and the growth of Regional Transmission Organizations, in matters pertaining to transmission rate setting, and in matters concerning electric system reliability.
From 1988 through 2002, Barry led a wide variety of efforts for the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, the statutory representative of the residential consumers of Ohio’s investor-owned utilities. He assisted with utility applications for rate increases of hundreds of millions of dollars and supervised other attorneys in litigating such cases. As Assistant Legal Director, he shared responsibility for the operation of the Legal Division, which included thirteen attorneys and a total of twenty employees. In 1993, the Governing Board of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel appointed him as Interim Consumers’ Counsel, responsible for managing all of the Office of the Consumers’ Counsel’s operations.
