Bart D. Cohen

Bart Cohen has over 30 years of experience in class actions and other complex litigation, with an emphasis on federal antitrust litigation earlier in his career, and with an emphasis on consumer litigation since joining Bailey Glasser.

Bart has been appointed as co-lead counsel in data breach litigation including Barletti v. Connexin Software Inc., No. 2:22-cv-04676 (E.D. Pa.) (representing proposed class of over 2.9 million), Goss v. Performance Health Technology, Ltd., No. 23CV34744 (Multnomah Cty. Circuit Ct.) (proposed class of over 1.7 million), and In re Community Health Systems, Inc. Data Security Litigation, No. 3:23-cv-00285 (M.D. Tenn.) (proposed class of over 1.1 million). The Connexin court approved a settlement worth $4 million in July 2024.

In Your Towne Builders, Inc. v. Manheim Township, Bart was one of two co-lead counsel for a certified class of real estate developers who were overcharged for connecting new construction to a municipal water system. After a bench trial and an appeal to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, the case settled for $4 million, over 80 percent of class-wide damages. See Your Towne Builders, Inc. v. Manheim Twp. , 303 A.3d 1126 (Pa. Commw. Ct. 2023).

Bart’s proficiency in managing both practical and substantive information technology is a result of his degree in computer science as well as his experience in professional software development. Bart is a second-generation attorney, first inspired to become a lawyer by his father (who practiced for over 60 years), and now inspired by pursuing truth and justice on behalf of his clients.

Bart is a frequent contributor to legal publications, including Law360, The Legal Intelligencer, and several publications of the American and Philadelphia Bar Associations. He has been identified as “a very strong litigator” by the Legal 500 (2009 and 2010), and was designated a “Pennsylvania Super Lawyer,” a distinction awarded to only five percent of the attorneys in the state, for over a decade.

Bart is a graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center. He also graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with two bachelor’s degrees, from the Wharton School and the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Representative Matters

• Barletti v. Connexin Software Inc., No. 2:22-cv-04676 (E.D. Pa.): After prevailing on a contested lead counsel motion, Bart is one of two co-lead counsel responsible for prosecuting this proposed class action on behalf of over 2.2 million class members, many of whom are children, whose sensitive data was exposed by the breach of an information technology services provider that serves pediatric practices nationwide.
• In re Community Health Systems, Inc. Data Security Litigation, No. 3:23-cv-00285 (M.D. Tenn.): Bart is co-lead counsel in this proposed class action on behalf of over 1.1 million class members, whose sensitive data was exposed by the breach of a vendor serving Community Health Systems, Inc., which operates nearly 80 hospitals in 15 states.
• In re Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation, No. 05-md-1720 (E.D.N.Y.): Bart played a key role in earning his prior firm a lead counsel position representing an injunctive relief class of over seven million merchants who accept Visa and Mastercard payment cards, based on his substantial earlier work on the case, and by drafting the firm’s briefs in support of a hotly-contested lead counsel motion. Bart subsequently filled a role immediately below that of co-lead counsel, taking responsibility for formulating settlement positions (which involved complex payment network rules) and managing certain dispositive briefs. We got the class certified, based in part on his advocacy related to rarely litigated issues raised by Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(2).
• In re Wawa, Inc. Data Security Litigation, 2:19-cv-06019 (E.D. Pa.): Bart played a key role in earning his prior New York-based firm a lead counsel position, by getting a complaint on file promptly after news of the Wawa data breach became public, and by virtue of his knowledge of the Philadelphia firms with whom they were in competition. Bart was responsible for the firm’s day-to-day role in the case, in which a settlement for up to $9 million was approved.

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