Whistleblower Lawyer Stephen Kohn Named to Forbes Top Lawyers List for Second Time
Forbes has recognized Stephen M. Kohn as one of America’s Top Lawyers for a second time. A founding partner of the whistleblower law firm Kohn, Kohn and Colapinto, LLP, Kohn has 38 years of experience, was peer-reviewed rated by the National Law Journal as one of the 50 Top Plaintiff’s Lawyers in the United States, the only whistleblower rights lawyer to achieve this distinction.
Forbes’ annual list of America’s Top Lawyers “recognizes the nation’s attorneys who are leaders in their fields, have made the biggest impacts, and are most respected by their peers.” According to Forbes, “The selection process is based on a rigorous, multi-stage process of journalistic research and evaluation.” Kohn was selected from more than 2,000 candidates and was recognized as “a pioneer in whistleblower law.”
As a founding partner of KKC and Chairman of the Board of the National Whistleblower Center, he works to advance whistleblower protections worldwide. Some of his notable achievements, as recognized by Forbes in 2024 and 2025, include representing the Danske Bank whistleblower who exposed a $230 billion Russian money-laundering scandal. Kohn also “helped draft key whistleblower legislation and regulation, including those incorporated into the Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank acts.”
“Fearless, brilliant, relentless, Steve Kohn knows the law; knows right from wrong; and pursues justice as no other attorney I have known,” said FBI whistleblower member of NWC Board, Fred Whitehurst, whose lawsuit drove President Clinton to issue the first presidential directive mandating whistleblower protections for all FBI whistleblowers.
Kohn is also the most published author on whistleblower law. In 1985, he wrote the first-ever legal treatise on whistleblower law. His eighth book, Rules for Whistleblowers: A Handbook for Doing What’s Right, has received rave reviews from critics.
