Cohen, aides to form consulting firm

When he leaves the government, outgoing Defense Secretary Cohen and two of his top Pentagon aides plan to launch a new international consulting firm which will be housed and affiliated with the Washington office of McDermott Will & Emery, a Chicago-based law firm, according to sources familiar with the arrangement. The new company, which is tentatively titled The Cohen Group, is expected do a variety of business consulting and some transactional work. The firm, which will help U.S. companies seeking to expand overseas with recommendations about market entry and merger and acquisition opportunities, is loosely modeled after Kissinger McLarty Associates and The Scowcroft Group. As part of Cohen's affiliation with McDermott Will & Emery, it is expected that there will be some sharing of clients and business and the law firm is likely to handle the legal work on transactions. Cohen's new venture, which will include Bob Tyrer, his chief of staff, and James Bodner, a top policy aide at the Defense department, has been under discussion for some time and about six other Washington law and lobbying firms--including Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson & Hand--sought to work out an affiliation with the outgoing Pentagon team. Tyrer and Bodner have both worked with Cohen for more than 20 years in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill, where Cohen was a senator from Maine.