About Heidi T.
Heidi T. Cochrane earned a J.D. from Albany Law School in 2003 after a steady course through several liberal arts and education programs. She received a B.A. in English from Smith College in 1993, followed by an M.S. in Secondary Education from the College of Saint Rose in 1996. Two years later she completed graduate work in Educational Psychology at the State University of New York at Albany.
Her professional life began in the classroom. In 1999 she taught secondary English in public high schools in New York State and Massachusetts. The shift to law came after Albany Law School, where she worked as a lawyering teaching assistant in 2004 and undertook several internships. In 2004 she interned with the Federal Public Defender and served in the New York Attorney General’s Bureau of Real Property. She spent the summer of 2005 as a judicial intern for the Hon. Randolph F. Treece in the Northern District of New York. By 2006 she was a criminal defense associate at Kindlon Shanks & Associates and taught as an adjunct professor of law at Sage College.
Cochrane opened her own practice in 2007, forming the Law Offices of Heidi T. Cochrane. That same year she took on a role as an assistant county lawyer in Greene County, balancing private practice with public service. Later she served as an assistant county lawyer in Columbia County in 2018. Those positions required courtroom work and advisory duties for local government clients. Her résumé reflects steady movement between defense work, municipal representation and legal education.
She is admitted to practice in New York and before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Her background includes trial-level criminal defense, internships in federal public defense and experience handling real property matters for the state attorney general’s office. She has also supervised and taught law students, bringing classroom observation into practical case work.
Cochrane maintains a private practice through the Law Offices of Heidi T. Cochrane. She handles criminal cases, represents municipal clients and advises on property-related matters. Her practice concentrates on criminal defense, municipal law and real property matters.
