J. Richard Cohen is an American attorney who was the president and chief executive officer of the Southern Poverty Law Center from 1986 to 2019.

His father ran an interior decorating firm and his mother was a legal secretary.

In 1986, at the urging of Morris Dees, he moved to Montgomery, Alabama and became the legal director of the SPLC.

[2] As general counsel, Cohen subsequently litigated against various white supremacist groups as well as lawsuits defending civil rights.

He was also a finalist for the national Trial Lawyer of the Year Award for his work on the Macedonia Baptist Church arson lawsuit.