Felix Cohen, the lawyer who wrote the Handbook of Federal Indian Law (1942), was enormously influential in American Indian policy making. Yet histories of the Indian New Deal neglect Cohen and focus on John Collier, commissioner of Indian affairs within the Department of the Interior (DOI). Alice Beck Kehoe examines why Cohen, who as DOI assistant solicitor wrote the legislation for the Indian Reorganization Act (1934) and Indian Claims Commission Act (1946), has received less attention.