[3] Upon graduation from Yale Law, Cotton served as a law clerk to Judge J. Skelly Wright on United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit during 1969–1970 and then to Justice William J. Brennan Jr. on Supreme Court of the United States during 1970–1971.
He served as NBCUniversal's general counsel and New York governor Andrew Cuomo's "transportation czar" prior to becoming the Port Authority's executive director.
[3] Prior to joining the Port Authority, Cotton served as New York State's Special Counsellor to the Governor for Interagency Initiatives, focused on the State's major downstate infrastructure projects such as LaGuardia and JFK Airports, the Moynihan Train Hall and Penn-Farley Complex, the new Tappan Zee Bridge, the expansion of the Javits Center, and the MTA's Second Avenue Subway project.
[6] Cotton married Elizabeth W. Smith, the Assistant Commissioner of New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, in 2011.
[2] On March 9, 2020, New York governor Andrew Cuomo announced that Cotton had been infected by SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019.