Andrew L. Kaufman
Andrew L. Kaufman
Charles Stebbins Fairchild Professor of Law
Biography
Professor Kaufman joined the Harvard Law School faculty in 1965. Since then he has taught in the fields of the legal profession, judicial ethics, constitutional law, and commercial law. His biography of Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo was published by Harvard University Press in 1998. He has published, lectured and consulted on a variety of subjects in the legal profession field and is the co-author (with David Wilkins) of Problems in Professional Responsibility (5th ed. 2009).
He has been chair of the Massachusetts Bar Association’s Committee on Professional Ethics since 1982. He has served on many committees appointed by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. In particular, he has been a member of that court’s Standing Committee on the Rules of Professional Conduct since 1995. He also served for fourteen years on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics and was a member of the committees that redrafted the Massachusetts Code of Judicial Conduct and the Rules of Professional Conduct. In 2000, Professor Kaufman was awarded the American Bar Association’s Michael B. Franck Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Professional Responsibility.
Professor Kaufman is currently the Charles Stebbins Fairchild Professor of Law. He served as Associate Dean of Harvard Law School between 1986 and 1989 and as Vice Dean for Academics between 2005 and 2013.
Professor Kaufman is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where he served as President of the Harvard Law Review. Prior to joining the faculty of Harvard Law School, he served as law clerk for Justice Felix Frankfurter of the Supreme Court of the United States for two years and also practiced law as a partner in the firm of Kaufman, Kaufman & Kaufman in Newark, New Jersey.
Areas of Interest
- Commercial Law
- Constitutional Law
- Legal Profession: Legal Ethics
- U.S. Supreme Court
- Legal Profession: Judicial Ethics
Andrew L. Kaufman, Representing a Minor: A Shared Dilemma in Ontario and Massachusetts, 46 Osgoode Hall L.J. 159 (2008).
Categories:
Legal Profession
, Family Law
Sub-Categories:
Children's Law & Welfare
, Professional Responsibility
Abstract
This commentary considers what lawyers should do when confidential information from their minor clients indicates that the minor's instructions either present a substantial risk of harm to the minor or are irrational. The commentary then asks readers to decide whether and how their personal resolution should be generalized into the law of professional responsibility. The author compares current Ontario and Massachusetts law with a new Massachusetts proposal. The author strongly criticizes the proposal as violating the tenuous compromise between "client-directed" and "best- interests" or "substituted judgment" theories that appear to govern in both jurisdictions in favour of a rule that would direct lawyers to follow client instructions in most cases, no matter how harmful to the minor client.
Andrew L. Kaufman, Cardozo (Harv. Univ. Press 1998).
Categories:
Government & Politics
, Legal Profession
Sub-Categories:
Judges & Jurisprudence
, Biography & Tribute
Abstract
Benjamin Nathan Cardozo, unarguably one of the most outstanding judges of the twentieth century, is a man whose name remains prominent and whose contributions to the law remain relevant. This first complete biography of the longtime member and chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals and Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States during the turbulent years of the New Deal is a monumental achievement by a distinguished interpreter of constitutional law.
Cardozo was a progressive judge who understood and defended the proposition that judge-made law must be adapted to modern conditions. He also preached and practiced the doctrine that respect for precedent, history, and all branches of government limited what a judge could and should do. Thus, he did not modernize law at every opportunity.
In this book, Andrew Kaufman interweaves the personal and professional lives of this remarkable man to yield a multidimensional whole. Cardozo’s family ties to the Jewish community were a particularly significant factor in shaping his life, as was his father’s scandalous career—and ultimate disgrace—as a lawyer and judge. Kaufman concentrates, however, on Cardozo’s own distinguished career, including twenty-three years in private practice as a tough-minded and skillful lawyer and his classic lectures and writings on the judicial process. From this biography emerges an estimable figure holding to concepts of duty and responsibility, but a person not without frailties and prejudice.
Andrew L. Kaufman, David B. Wilkins, Eli Wald & Keith Swisher, Problems in Professional Responsibility for a Changing Profession (Carolina Acad. Press 6th ed. 2017).
Categories:
Legal Profession
Sub-Categories:
Legal Services
, Professional Responsibility
, Legal Ethics
Abstract
The longest running professional responsibility book on the market, Problems in Professional Responsibility for a Changing Profession has been thoroughly updated by its current and two new authors. It has retained its original problem-oriented focus on practical issues faced by lawyers in everyday practice, current issues faced by the profession, and its unique section examining the demographics, structure, and organization of the legal profession. The need of our profession to take account of our changing world is apparent in every chapter of the new edition.
Andrew L. Kaufman & David B. Wilkins, Problems in Professional Responsibility for a Changing Profession (Carolina Acad. Press 5th ed. 2009).
Categories:
Legal Profession
Sub-Categories:
Legal Education
, Professional Responsibility
Abstract
Kaufman and Wilkins mark the 20th anniversary of Problems in Professional Responsibility for a Changing Profession with a new 5th edition. Their new edition covers judicial, legislative, and executive developments in the traditional fields of conflicting interests and confidentiality, specialty fields of corporate and government representation as well as representation of those with impaired capacity. It also deals with the problems created by the increasing nationalization and internationalization of law practice, including the basic problem of trying to determine whose professional responsibility law governs the activity of lawyers when they engage in activity beyond their home jurisdictions. Various efforts to reform the profession here and abroad to meet the legal needs of clients and would-be clients are also presented. The authors have added substantial new material dealing with the demographics and institutions of law practice and their effect on professional identity.
Andrew L. Kaufman, In Memoriam: Clark Byse, 121 Harv. L. Rev. 457 (2007).
Categories:
Legal Profession
Sub-Categories:
Biography & Tribute
Andrew L. Kaufman, In Memoriam: James Vorenberg, 114 Harv. L. Rev. 13 (2000).
Categories:
Legal Profession
Sub-Categories:
Biography & Tribute
Andrew L. Kaufman, In Memoriam: Vern Countryman, 113 Harv. L. Rev. 1071 (2000).
Categories:
Legal Profession
Sub-Categories:
Biography & Tribute
Andrew L. Kaufman, Ken Gormley's Archibald Cox: Conscience of a Nation, 71 New Eng. Q. 306 (1998) (book review).
Categories:
Legal Profession
Sub-Categories:
Biography & Tribute
Abstract
A review of Archibald Cox: Conscience of a Nation, a biography about the public career of Archibald Cox, written by Ken Gormley.
Andrew L. Kaufman, In Memoriam: Phillip E. Areeda, 109 Harv. L. Rev. 900 (1996).
Categories:
Legal Profession
Sub-Categories:
Biography & Tribute
Andrew L. Kaufman, Judicial Ethics - The Less-Often Asked Questions, 64 Wash. L. Rev. 851 (1989).
Categories:
Legal Profession
, Government & Politics
Sub-Categories:
Judges & Jurisprudence
, Legal Ethics
Abstract
Judicial ethics is a topic of increasing interest to the public, the bar, and the judiciary; only recently has the body of substantive law regarding judicial behavior begun to take shape. This essay explores the less developed issues of exparte communication by judges, activities of judges' spouses, the obligation of judges to report attorney disciplinary
violations, and extrajudicial comments by judges about legal matters. The Author analyzes the positions on these issues of the ABA Code of Judicial Conduct, the Judicial Conference of the United States' Code of Conduct for United States Judges, and the Discussion Draft of Draft Revisions to the ABA Code of Judicial Conduct, and offers his own
view of the appropriate standards for each.
Andrew L. Kaufman, Judges or Scholars: To Whom Shall We Look for Our Constitutional Law, 37 J. Legal Educ. 184 (1987).
Categories:
Legal Profession
, Government & Politics
, Constitutional Law
Sub-Categories:
Judges & Jurisprudence
, Legal Scholarship
Abstract
Article adapted from an oral presentation at a colloquium on Sept. 4, 1986 at the 350th anniversary of Harvard University, regarding the difference between the way legal scholarship and academia address the common-law approach to constitutional law, versus the practice of judges.
Andrew L. Kaufman, A Commentary on Pepper's "The Lawyer's Amoral Ethical Role", 1986 Am. Bar Found. Res. J. 651 (1986).
Categories:
Legal Profession
Sub-Categories:
Legal Ethics
, Professional Responsibility
Abstract
This comment was prepared for delivery in oral form on January 5, 1986, at the special session of the Association of American Law School's annual meeting held to honor Professor Pepper's prize-winning essay entitled "The Lawyer's Amoral Ethical Role."
Andrew L. Kaufman, Alan H. Goldman's The Moral Foundations of Professional Ethics, 94 Harv. L. Rev. 1504 (1981) (book review).
Categories:
Legal Profession
Sub-Categories:
Legal Ethics
Abstract
A review of The Moral Foundations of Professional Ethics, written by Alan H. Goldman, analyzing from an ethical perspective, whether special rules are necessary for the legal profession.
Academic Appointment and Employment History
- Associate, Bilder, Bilder & Kaufman (1954 - 1955)
Newark, New Jersey, United States - law clerk, Justice Felix Frankfurter (1955 - 1957)
Washington, District of Columbia, United States - Partner, Kaufman, Kaufman & Kaufman (1957 - 1965)
Newark, New Jersey, United States - Lecturer on Law, Harvard Law School (1965 - 1966)
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States - Professor of Law, Harvard Law School (1966 - 1980)
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States - Charles Stebbins Fairchild Professor of Law, Harvard Law School (1980 - 2013)
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Clerkships
- Justice Felix Frankfurter, Supreme Court of the United States, 1955 - 1957
Education History
- LL.B. Harvard Law School, 1954
- A.B. History Harvard College, 1951
Honors and Awards
- Michael Franck Award from ABA (Awards)
For contributions in the professional responsibility field, 2000 - CARDOZO (Book Awards)
Griswold Prize of the Supreme Court Historical Society, 1998 - CARDOZO (Book Awards)
Scribes Book Award, Am. Soc'y Writers on Legal Subjects, 1999 - CARDOZO (Book Awards)
Archives Award, N.Y. Board of Regents and N.Y. State Archives, 1999 - CARDOZO (Book Awards)
New York Times Notable Book, 1998 - CAROZO (Book Awards)
Choice, outstanding academic book, 1998
Pro Bono Activity
- Massachusetts Bar Association, Boston, Massachusetts, United States (1978 - Present)
Member, Committee on Professional Ethics - Massachusetts Bar Association, Boston, Massachusetts, United States (1982 - Present)
Chair, Committee on Professional Ethics - Supreme Judicial Court, Boston, Massachusetts, United States (1984 - 1986)
Member, Committee on Lawyer Solicitation - Supreme Judicial Court, Boston, Massachusetts, United States (1988 - 2002)
Member, Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics - Supreme Judicial Court, Boston, Massachusetts, United States (1991 - 1992)
Member, Committee on Certification of Lawyer Specialization - Supreme Judicial Court, Boston, Massachusetts, United States (1995 - 1997)
Member, Committee on the Model Rules of Professional Conduct - Supreme Judicial Court, Boston, Massachusetts, United States (1997 - Present)
Member, Standing Advisory Committee on the Model Rules of Professional Conduct - Supreme Judicial Court, Boston, Massachusetts, United States (1998 - 2002)
Member, Committee on the Code of Judicial Conduct - Supreme Judicial Court, Boston, Massachusetts, United States (2008 - 2008)
Member, Advisory Committee to Study Judicial Conduct Rule 3B(9) - Shady Hill School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States (1969 - 1976)
Treasurer and Member, Executive Committee - Hillel Foundation of Cambridge, Inc., Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States (1977 - 1986)
Treasurer - Hillel Foundation of Cambridge, Inc., Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States (1977 - 1990)
Member, Executive Committee - Hillel Foundation of Cambridge, Inc., Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States (1977 - 2000)
Member, Board of Directors, and Board of Trustees - Senator Warren's Advisory Committee, Boston/Springfield, Massachusetts, United States (2013 - Present)
Advisory Committee on Massachusetts judicial nominations
Current Courses
- Commercial Law: Secured Transactions, Fall 2017
- Legal Profession, Fall 2017
- Legal Profession, Spring 2018