You know what’s not a barrel of laughs?
Employment law.
It’s important work. It’s serious work. It’s dry. It can come across as scolding.
It is very rarely described as “inspirational.”
Unless Michael Cohen is doing your training. Cohen, a partner at law firm Duane Morris, does not stay in the same boring lanes occupied by most employment lawyers. He’s out on the edge, having moved past the professionals hyper-focused on trying to help companies stay out of trouble and instead focusing on creating an awareness of how to help people thrive at work—which can have an exponential impact on that company’s business.
And he leans heavily on his fictional buddy Ted Lasso to help him do it.
It’s not just marketing (the best marketing is never just marketing)—it’s an approach to business that has truly set him apart.
[Disclosure: Cohen is a friend and serves as an informal advisor to Scribewise.]
How did Cohen find his neon fingerprint—the unmistakable identifier that sets him apart from all the other employment lawyers?
Embracing the hard work of differentiation
The journey began more than 20 years ago, when Cohen was a mid-level associate at a large law firm and hating his life. Being an employment litigator was the job, billable hours were the demand, and the thought of 40 more years of grinding up that hill was not appealing.
He talked to his practice leader, who turned out to be a Ted Lasso-like mentor. He saw Cohen’s talent, and he saw a possible path forward. “He told me, ‘I want you to become a brand. I want you to become the person people think of when they think of certain things nationally,’” says Cohen.
What did that mean?
It meant focusing on training sessions billed at a fixed fee, less emphasis on billable hours—and flying anywhere in the country to anyone willing to listen to him so that he could establish himself as The Expert. “If some trade organization in a small town outside a small town outside Salt Lake City called and said ‘We want you to talk about some esoteric provision of OSHA,’ I was on the next plane out.”
For more than a decade, Cohen steadily grew his book of business. His initial focus was on LGBT issues. In 2017, the #MeToo movement took off and employers were clamoring for sexual harassment training.
His billings grew. His fees grew. Then, in the Covid pandemic of 2020, Cohen discovered Ted Lasso. Like a lot of us, he fell in love with the show. But he also realized this is the platform I’ve been waiting my whole career for.
Finding his neon fingerprint
He says he spent about 70 hours building the new training program; typically, it’s a 90-minute presentation. Rewatching the show and selecting clips to use was a ton of fun, but time-consuming. And then, after all that hard work behind the scenes, he rolled out “HR Leadership Is Life! Making Your Organization Better Through The Lessons Of Ted Lasso” and … not many people cared.
Despite the slow takeoff, he kept at it. “I was convinced this had legs.”
It did. It does.
Cohen’s marketing channels are simple—speaking at big conferences with thousands of HR professionals, and LinkedIn. “LinkedIn has been incredibly helpful,” he says. “I’ve gotten work from organizations when they see my posts on LinkedIn saying I’m presenting to other organizations.”
His LinkedIn posts—like his training sessions—are enthusiastic, often quirky … and very clearly not written by AI. “The one thing I have found to be almost an absolute, is when people get personal on LinkedIn but can tie it into a business purpose, it resonates. I was pretty timid about doing that at first, but it clearly brings people in. Eventually, people realize when you are true to your message when you’re just somebody trying to pedal an idea in which you were neither committed nor invested.”
Success from throwing away the script
Today, Cohen does about 200 trainings a year. Business is great. His speaking fee has continued to rise. He says that training accounts for roughly 70 percent of the total work he brings into the firm—which means he’s also generating plenty of additional work for other attorneys.
“This has become a platform that continues to be in growth mode now, to have conversations about topics that matter a lot to me and I think should matter a lot to other people.”
Most big firm attorneys follow a script. They play the part. And it works for them. They do great work for their clients and they make a wonderful living.
That was never going to work for Michael Cohen. He realized this, and was ready to quit and do something, anything else.
But then he found a different path—a scary path with no directions.
And it worked.
A couple lessons:
- You don’t have to follow the pack your entire career. In fact, the leader is the one that breaks off on their own path at some point.
- It won’t be easy. It won’t always go perfectly.
- You will be scared. As Ted Lasso says, “Taking on a challenge is a lot like riding a horse, isn’t it? If you’re comfortable while you’re doing it, you’re probably doing it wrong.”
- You’ll have to work hard; you will be fighting against the current.