Richard M. Kohn

Richard Kohn is one of the founders of Goldberg Kohn and is a senior principal of the firm. He is a member of the firm's Commercial Finance Group, recognized as having one of the strongest and most diversified commercial finance practices in the country, which he founded in 1978. Selected by Chambers Global 2012 as one of the leading lawyers in Banking & Finance in the United States, Mr. Kohn also heads up the firm's practice in cross-border asset-based lending, a field in which he is widely recognized as a pioneer.

Since January 2002, Mr. Kohn has served as Co-General Counsel of the Commercial Finance Association (CFA), which is the principal U.S. trade association for the commercial finance industry. On the international front, he has represented CFA in proceedings before the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) relating to the development of the Convention on the Assignment of Receivables in International Trade (approved by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2001) and the development of  UNCITRAL's 550-page Legislative Guide on Secured Transactions (for which he also served on the Expert Group and as a consultant). He also spearheaded an initiative on behalf of CFA, and co-sponsored by the U.S. State Department and the Mexican Government, to promote secured transactions in Mexico, and was a member of a 7-person delegation sent by CFA to Shanghai, China at the request of the Chinese Central Bank and the International Finance Corporation (of the World Bank) to teach asset-based lending to over 150 Chinese commercial bankers. 

Mr. Kohn is a frequent speaker and writer on international finance topics, with recent (2011) speaking engagements including the American Bar Association, ALI-ABA, the New York City Bar Association and the World Bank. He is also co-organizer of the CFA International Lending Conference, now in its sixth year. Mr. Kohn is a Fellow of the American College of Commercial Finance Lawyers and is a member of the Founders Leadership Council of the CFA Education Foundation, the Association of Commercial Finance Attorneys and the American Bankruptcy Institute. He  is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Brain Research Foundation.

Mr. Kohn is admitted to practice in Illinois. He received his law degree, cum laude, in 1969 and his B.A., with distinction, in English in 1966 from the University of Michigan.