A native of Wheeling, West Virginia, Cowen received a B.A. in 1942 and L.L.B. from the University of Virginia in the 1947, where he was editor-in-chief of the Law Review. He also served in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Cowen entered law practice in Ohio but returned to UVA as Associate Professor of Law in 1951, eventually becoming Associate Dean from 1960-1964. He earned an LL.M. from Harvard in 1959. He taught such courses as Federal Procedure and Equitable Remedies. He was selected as editor of the annual supplement to Moore’s Federal Practice. He wrote on federal judicial jurisdiction and state court proceedings for the North Carolina Law Review and the Georgetown Law Journal. He became assistant dean in 1952 and associate dean in 1962. In 1964 Cowen left the University of Virginia to assume the office of Dean of the University of Georgia School of Law. He was later dean of Case Western Reserve University Law School from 1972 to 1982, and died in 1995. Upon his departure from UVA, Hardy Dillard described Cowen as “a loyal co-worker and a trusted friend,” and called Cowen the “inside man capable of making the Law School tick.”
The Annual Survey of Virginia Law: Domestic Relations, 42 Va. L. Rev. 1005-1008 (1956); 43 Va. L. Rev. 962-964 (1957); 44 Va. L. Rev. 1192-1195 (1958); 47 Va. L. Rev. 1467-1470 (1961).
Federal Jurisdiction Amended, 44 Va. L. Rev. 971-978 (1958).
Student Participation in Law School Administration, 13 J. Legal Educ. 214-229 (1960).
What Is Left of the Tenth Amendment?, 39 N.C. L. Rev. 154-183 (1961).
Federal Judicial “Interference” with the Finality of State Court Proceedings, 50 Geo. L.J. 733-754 (1962).
Review of Millar, Civil Procedure of the Trial Court in Historical Perspective, 39 Va. L. Rev. 724-727 (1952).
Review of Blaustein & Porter, The American Lawyer, 40 Va. L. Rev. 1113-1115 (1954).
Review of Vanderbilt, The Challenge of Law Reform, 11 Reading Guide 14-16 (1956).
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