{{Short description|American politician}} {{BLP sources|date=September 2025}} {{Infobox officeholder | honorific_prefix = | name = Fred Cowan | honorific_suffix = | image = | alt = | caption = | office = 45th Attorney General of Kentucky | governor = Wallace Wilkinson<br />Brereton C. Jones | term_start = January 4, 1988 | term_end = January 6, 1992 | predecessor = David L. Armstrong | successor = Chris Gorman | state_house1 = Kentucky | district1 = 32nd | term_start1 = January 1, 1982 | term_end1 = November 2, 1987 | predecessor1 = E. Bruce Blythe | successor1 = Anne Northup | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1945|10|11}} | birth_place = New York City, U.S. | education = Dartmouth College (BA)<br>Harvard University (JD) | party = Democratic }}
'''Frederic Joseph Cowan Jr.''' (born October 11, 1945) is a Kentucky politician. He served as a Kentucky Circuit Judge of the 30th judicial circuit in Louisville from 2007 to 2015. He is a former Kentucky Attorney General (1988–1992) and former member of the Kentucky State House of Representatives for the 32nd district (1982–1987).<ref>{{cite book |title=The Kentucky legislature: two decades of change |last=Jewell |first=Malcolm Edwin |author2=Penny M. Miller |pages=31, 60 |year=1988 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |isbn=978-0-8131-1668-6 }}</ref> Cowan is one of the few Kentuckians who has been elected to all three branches of Kentuckian State Government.
== Early life and education == Cowan was born on October 11, 1945, in New York City to Mary Virginia Wesley of Union County, Kentucky, and Frederic Sr., also of New York City. At age 8 he moved to Sturgis, Kentucky and a year later moved to Louisville where he attended Bloom Elementary, Highland Middle, and Atherton High School. In 1963, Cowan applied to multiple schools and was accepted in to all of them. Eventually it came down between Dartmouth and Harvard. Harvard didn't offer him any money, so he attended Dartmouth, which he graduated from in 1967. He served in the Peace Corps in Dessie, Ethiopia (1967–1969). While in Ethiopia, he taught English at Woizero Siheen High School and became fluent in Amharic.
Once he returned to the US, he taught 5th grade in North Carolina before moving to Little Rock, Arkansas where he was a copy editor at the Arkansas Democrat and then started a grassroots consumer organization. In Little Rock, he met and married Linda Marshall Scholle, granddaughter of Lenore Marshall and great-granddaughter of Louis Marshall. Fred and Linda moved to Massachusetts for Fred to attend Harvard Law School where he graduated in 1978.
== Political career == Cowan moved to Louisville and worked for the campaign of Harvey Sloane for Governor of Kentucky in 1978–1979. After the unsuccessful campaign, Cowan practiced law with former Brown, Todd and Heyburn (Frost Brown Todd) and ran for State Representative, defeating a ten-term Republican incumbent. In the 1987 election he ran for Attorney General of Kentucky and defeated Todd Hollenbach in the Democratic primary. As Attorney General he successfully argued Stanford v. Kentucky before the United States Supreme Court in 1989. In 2005, the case was reversed by Roper v. Simmons.
In 1991, Cowan unsuccessfully ran for lieutenant governor. In 1998, Cowan unsuccessfully ran for Judge/Executive of Jefferson County.
Before being elected Judge in 2006, he practiced law from 1992 to 2006 with Lynch, Cox, Gillman and Mayhan (now Lynch, Cox, Gillman and Goodman).
== Personal life== {{BLP unsourced section|date=September 2025}} Cowan is the younger brother of author Roberta Bondi, older brother of History Detective and Antiques Roadshow appraiser Wes Cowan and first cousin of actress and singer Kassie Wesley DePaiva. He and Linda have three daughters.
==References== {{reflist}}
{{s-start}} {{s-ppo}} {{s-bef | before = David L. Armstrong}} {{s-ttl | title = {{nowrap|Democratic nominee for Attorney General of Kentucky}} | years = 1987}} {{s-aft | after = Chris Gorman}} {{s-legal}} {{succession box | title=Attorney General of Kentucky | before=David L. Armstrong | after=Chris Gorman| years= 1988–1992 }} {{s-end}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cowan, Fred}} Category:Living people Category:Kentucky state court judges Category:1945 births Category:Politicians from Louisville, Kentucky Category:Atherton High School alumni Category:Dartmouth College alumni Category:Democratic Party members of the Kentucky House of Representatives Category:20th-century members of the Kentucky General Assembly Category:Kentucky attorneys general Category:Harvard Law School alumni