An S&C Without Rodge? Cohen Being Vetted for Role at Treasury

[WSJ_law_blog]

The news shook us like a thunderclap: banking-lawyer-extraordinaire H. Rodgin Cohen is being considered for a high-ranking role in the Treasury Department. A move would likely mean a departure — at least for now — from Sullivan & Cromwell, where the legendary Cohen has hung his hat for nearly 40 years.

According to this WSJ story today, which looks at Tim Geithner’s efforts to staff the Treasury department, Cohen is being wooed to join Geithner’s team, possibly as a deputy secretary.

Reports WSJ: “Treasury has identified and is vetting other people for top slots, including H. Rodgin Cohen, chairman of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP and advisor to virtually every firm on Wall Street, for the deputy secretary position, two people familiar with the matter said.”

We placed a call to Cohen, but have yet to hear back.

As noted in this WSJ profile of Cohen last year, he spent one stretch of the fall — “five weeks in hell,” as he put it — advising Fannie Mae, Lehman Brothers., Wachovia, Barclays, AIG, J.P. Morgan and Goldman in a “blitz of mergers, rescues and cash infusions.” Largely for this, he was awarded a, um, highly-coveted slot as one of the LB’s newsmakers of the year.

In any event, it’s hard to conceive of S&C sans Rodge, who has chaired the firm since 2000, all the while making torrential, Biblical, amounts of rain.

Cohen hails from Charleston, West Virginia. In a 2007 Law Blog post on the uncanny number of law-firm leaders hailing from the Mountain State, Cohen told us that his pops ran a chain of drug stores, while his mother “ran every philanthropic organization in” Charleston.

He left town in 1968 to serve in the army and later moved to New York, having never visited before. For many professionals, he explains, “New York is the mecca.”