Thank you!
Your support is sustaining the future of local news in our communities.

Trailblazing divorce attorney Harriet Newman Cohen to speak at Norfolk Library

Trailblazing divorce attorney Harriet Newman Cohen to speak at Norfolk Library

Harriet Newman Cohen

Provided

Harriet Newman Cohen weathered many storms in her five-decade-long journey to become one of the nation’s most celebrated divorce attorneys. Voted one of the top 100 attorneys in New York for many years, Cohen served as president of the New York Women’s Bar Association and has been a champion of divorce reform. She and her co-author, journalist David Feinberg, will give a book talk about her memoir, “Passion and Power: A Life in Three Worlds,” at the Norfolk Library on Sunday, March 22 at 2 p.m.

What began as a personal record of her life, intended for her family, grew into a memoir that journalist Carl Bernstein describes in his endorsement as “wise and riveting.” Born in 1932 in Providence, Rhode Island, to parents who immigrated in 1920 from Ukraine and Poland, Cohen traces the arc of her life and the challenges she faced entering a legal profession that was overwhelmingly male at the time, leading to her success as a maverick divorce attorney fighting for women’s rights and equity in the law. She received her Juris Doctor, cum laude, from Brooklyn Law School in 1974, one year after Roe v. Wade was decided. She is a founding partner of Cohen Stine Kapoor LLP in New York City, a family and matrimonial law firm she formed in 2021, at age 88, with her daughter Martha Cohen Stine and Ankit Kapoor.

Provided

Cohen writes fearlessly, with a good dose of wry humor, about her own struggles balancing marriage and divorce, raising four daughters, entering Brooklyn Law School in 1971 at age 38, and her ensuing legal career. According to Bernstein, “Passion and Power” is as much about the reshaping of American cultural norms as it is about one remarkable woman’s role at the forefront of legal and social transformation.

Cohen’s work in the legal profession has been pivotal to social change. A 2021 HBO documentary, “Nuclear Family,” directed by Ry Russo-Young, chronicles the landmark custody struggle of Russo-Young’s parents, a queer couple who hired Cohen as their lawyer.

Cohen is an honest storyteller, unflinching in admitting her mistakes and rightly proud of her accomplishments. Her story ranges from tales of her father’s fortune made producing the Hula-Hoop to her memory of schoolmate Kiki Bader — Ruth Bader Ginsburg — as a cheerleader waving pom-poms in Brooklyn. She also writes of her deep love of family, the stultifying suburban life of her first marriage, mentorship by legal icon Louis Nizer and riding the wave of social revolution that buoyed her career.

Norfolk author Gillian Linden writes of her step-grandmother, “Harriet Newman Cohen is a funny, edifying guide — precise, curious, warm. Entirely unsentimental. Marriage and its many paths is rich territory. This book is filled with the strange, glamorous, desperate and sadistic characters you hope to meet in the very best novels.”

For details, visit norfolklibrary.org

Latest News

Motorcycle crash near Route 7 prompts Life Star landing at HVRHS

Motorcycle crash near Route 7 prompts Life Star landing at HVRHS

A Life Star helicopter lands on the front lawn of Housatonic Valley Regional High School on Saturday, May 16, to transport a motorcycle crash victim to a hospital.

Aly Morrissey

LIME ROCK — A motorcycle crash involving a car temporarily shut down a section of Route 112 near the intersection with Route 7 on Saturday afternoon, drawing a large emergency response and prompting a Life Star helicopter landing at Housatonic Valley Regional High School.

Emergency responders at the scene confirmed the incident involved a motorcycle and passenger vehicle. Route 7 was closed from Dugway Road to the intersection of Routes 7 and 112 while crews responded.

Keep ReadingShow less
Van strikes utility pole, closes Route 112 for hours

Traffic was diverted near Wells Hill Road after a crash closed part of Route 112 Friday afternoon.

By James H. Clark

A van crashed into a utility pole on Route 112 near Wells Hill Road Friday afternoon, leaving the driver hospitalized in serious condition and forcing the highway to close for several hours.

The crash was reported at approximately 3:20 p.m., according to Connecticut State Police Troop B.

Keep ReadingShow less
Voices from our Salisbury community about the housing we need for a healthy, economically vibrant future

Renee Wilcox

If you’ve ever wandered through Paley’s Farm Market, you probably know Renee Wilcox. For thirty years, she has been greeting you with unmistakable warmth—always ready with a smile. Renee grew up in Millerton, but it was in Salisbury that her family found something they’d never had before: a true sense of home. In 2003, she and her husband Bill were living in Millerton, but Bill—a volunteer with the Lakeville Hose Company—was already part of Salisbury life. When the Salisbury Housing Trust finished eight new homes on East Main Street (Dunham Drive), Renee and Bill were the first to sign on.

The story of those houses is really a story about the best parts of our community. Richard Dunham and his wife, Inge, along with the Housing Trust board, poured years of energy and hope into the project. Renee can’t help but light up when she talks about the people who helped her family settle in. Digby Brown came by to install appliances and bathroom cabinets; Barbara Niles spent hours painting; Carl Williams assembled bunk beds for the kids. Rick Cantele, at Salisbury Bank, helped them with their finances so they could qualify for a mortgage, while neighbors arrived at their door with fruit baskets and welcoming words.

Keep ReadingShow less
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

Trade Secrets: a glamorous garden event with a deeper mission

Heavy stone garden ornaments, a specialty of Judy Milne Antiques from Kingston, at Trade Secrets 2025.

Christine Bates

Tucked away on Porter Street in downtown Lakeville, Project SAGE is an unassuming building from a street view. But cross the threshold a week before Trade Secrets — one of the region’s biggest gardening events, long associated with Martha Stewart and glamorous plants of all varieties — and you’ll find a bustling world of employees and volunteers getting ready for the organization’s most important event of the year.

“It’s not usually like this,’ laughed Project SAGE director Kristen van Ginhoven. “But with Trade Secrets just around the corner, it’s definitely like this.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Two artists, two Hartford stages, one shared life

Caroline Kinsolving and Gary Capozzielo at home in Salisbury with their dogs, Petruchio and Beatrice

Provided
"He played his violin, I worked on my lines, we walked the dog, and suddenly we were circling each other perfectly."
Caroline Kinsolving

Actor Caroline Kinsolving and violinist Gary Capozziello enjoy their quiet life with their two dogs in Salisbury, yet are often pulled apart to perform on distant stages in far-flung cities. Currently, the planets have aligned, and both are working in Hartford, across Bushnell Park from one another. Bridgewater native Kinsolving is starring in “Circus Fire,” the current production of TheaterWorks Hartford, while Capozziello is a violinist and assistant concertmaster of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. While Kinsolving hates being away from home, she feels the distance nourishes their relationship.

“We are guardians of each other’s confidence and self-esteem,” she said.

Keep ReadingShow less
Local filmmaker turns spotlight back on Hollywood’s Mermaid

Esther Williams in “Million Dollar Mermaid” (1952).

Provided

For decades, Esther Williams was one of Hollywood’s brightest stars, but the swimming sensation of the silver screen has largely faded from public memory — a disappearance that intrigued Millerton filmmaker Brian Gersten and inspired him to revisit her legacy.

As a millennial, Gersten grew up largely unaware of Williams’ influential career. His teen years in Chicago were spent with friends who obsessed over movies, spending hours at their local independent video store,and watching anything that caught their eye. Somehow, though, they never ventured into the glossy world of synchronized-swimming musicals of the 1940s and ‘50s.

Keep ReadingShow less
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.