Jennifer M. Novotny

Jennifer is an award-winning journalist who joined Cohen & Grigsby as an Associate in the Business Group in 2008. She provides general business advice to individuals and businesses and represents individual investors, closely held companies and start-up businesses in various commercial transactions.

Representative Matters

• Representation of clients in various commercial transactions including mergers, acquisitions and dispositions
• Representation of clients in entity formation, employment and noncompetition agreements, shareholder and partnership agreements and confidentiality agreements
• Representation of clients in residential and commercial real estate matters including the purchase, sale and lease of real property and zoning and land use matters
• Representation of businesses and individuals in tax assessment appeals

Additional Experience

Prior to joining Cohen & Grigsby as an Associate, Jennifer was a summer associate at Cohen & Grigsby in 2007 and a legal clerk at MacDonald, Illig, Jones & Britton in Erie, Pa., in 2006. Before attending law school, Jennifer was a freelance reporter for The Erie Times-News in 2004-2005. She wrote feature and news articles, published a weekly column and photographed events for the Crawford County Neighbors section.

Jennifer served as a congressional intern in the Erie County offices of Representative Phil English and Senator Arlen Specter in 2002 and 2004 respectively. While working at each office, she addressed the needs of constituents, attended regional meetings and events, and wrote grant support and constituent contact letters on behalf of the Congressmen.

While attending Ohio University as an undergraduate, Jennifer was a Region Four winner and a national finalist for the Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Awards in the category of in-depth writing, and she received 12th place honors in the William Randolph Hurst National Journalism Awards for in-depth writing for writing the six-part series, "Cancer in Crawford County, Pennsylvania." She wrote the series as part of her internship at The Meadville Tribune in 2003.

She has intermediate proficiency in French.