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Jed S. Rakoff
Jed Saul Rakoff (born August 1, 1943) is an American lawyer and jurist serving as a senior United States district judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. He was appointed in 1996 by President Bill Clinton.
Rakoff is Jewish and was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on August 1, 1943. He grew up in the Germantown section of Philadelphia and attended Central High School of Philadelphia. Rakoff received his Bachelor of Arts in English literature from Swarthmore College in 1964, where he was student council president and editor-in-chief of the newspaper. He earned his Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) in Indian history in 1966 from Balliol College at Oxford University, and received a Juris Doctor, cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1969, where he was a member of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. He has received honorary degrees from Saint Francis University and from Swarthmore.
After graduating from law school, he served as a law clerk for Judge Abraham Lincoln Freedman of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 1969 to 1970. Then, Rakoff spent two years in private practice at Debevoise & Plimpton before spending seven years as a federal prosecutor with the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. For the last two of those years, he was Chief of the Business and Securities Fraud Prosecutions Unit. He then returned to private practice, as a partner with Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander & Ferdon (1980–90) and then with Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson (1990–96). He headed both firms' criminal defense and civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) sections.
On October 11, 1995, President Bill Clinton nominated Rakoff to fill a seat on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York vacated by David Norton Edelstein. He was confirmed by the Senate on December 29, 1995, received his commission on January 4, 1996, and entered on duty on March 1, 1996. On December 31, 2010, he assumed senior status, although he continues to take the full load of cases.
Rakoff has been a major feeder judge, sending more clerks to the Supreme Court than any other district court judge from 2011 to 2015 and numerous clerks thereafter.
Rakoff is adjunct professor of law at Columbia Law School. He has taught there since 1988, teaching the first-year class in Criminal Law and seminars on White-Collar Crime, the Interplay of Civil and Criminal Law, Class Actions, and Science and the Courts. He is an adjunct professor at NYU Law School, where he teaches seminars on Class Actions and on Science and the Courts, and also teaches annual one-week seminars at The University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and the University of Virginia School of Law. He previously served on the Board of Managers of Swarthmore College and on the Governing Board of the MacArthur Foundation's Law & Neuroscience Project. Rakoff was elected to the American Law Institute in 2009 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2013. He is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. Rakoff represented the federal judiciary on the National Commission on Forensic Science (2013–17) and co-chaired the National Academies of Science's Committee on Eyewitness Identification. He served on the New York City Bar Association's Executive Committee and was chair of the Association's Nomination, Honors, and Criminal Law Committees. He chaired the Second Circuit's Bankruptcy Committee and the Southern District of New York's Grievance Committee and Criminal Justice Advisory Board. He participated in the development of the third and fourth editions of the federal judiciary's Manual on Scientific Evidence and co-edited The Judge's Guide to Neuroscience. He has assisted the U.S. government in training foreign judges in Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Dubai, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, the Maldives, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Sir Lanka, Tunisia, and Turkey. He was a senior advisor to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology's Advisory Group on Forensic Science and served as an adviser on the ALI project to revise the sentencing provisions of the Model Penal Code.
Since 2009, Rakoff has been a trustee of the William Nelson Cromwell Foundation, which sponsors research in U.S. legal history. Since 2020, he has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Touro Synagogue Foundation.
Rakoff's younger brother, Todd, is a longtime professor at Harvard Law School.
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Jed S. Rakoff
Jed Saul Rakoff (born August 1, 1943) is an American lawyer and jurist serving as a senior United States district judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. He was appointed in 1996 by President Bill Clinton.
Rakoff is Jewish and was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on August 1, 1943. He grew up in the Germantown section of Philadelphia and attended Central High School of Philadelphia. Rakoff received his Bachelor of Arts in English literature from Swarthmore College in 1964, where he was student council president and editor-in-chief of the newspaper. He earned his Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) in Indian history in 1966 from Balliol College at Oxford University, and received a Juris Doctor, cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1969, where he was a member of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. He has received honorary degrees from Saint Francis University and from Swarthmore.
After graduating from law school, he served as a law clerk for Judge Abraham Lincoln Freedman of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 1969 to 1970. Then, Rakoff spent two years in private practice at Debevoise & Plimpton before spending seven years as a federal prosecutor with the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. For the last two of those years, he was Chief of the Business and Securities Fraud Prosecutions Unit. He then returned to private practice, as a partner with Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander & Ferdon (1980–90) and then with Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson (1990–96). He headed both firms' criminal defense and civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) sections.
On October 11, 1995, President Bill Clinton nominated Rakoff to fill a seat on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York vacated by David Norton Edelstein. He was confirmed by the Senate on December 29, 1995, received his commission on January 4, 1996, and entered on duty on March 1, 1996. On December 31, 2010, he assumed senior status, although he continues to take the full load of cases.
Rakoff has been a major feeder judge, sending more clerks to the Supreme Court than any other district court judge from 2011 to 2015 and numerous clerks thereafter.
Rakoff is adjunct professor of law at Columbia Law School. He has taught there since 1988, teaching the first-year class in Criminal Law and seminars on White-Collar Crime, the Interplay of Civil and Criminal Law, Class Actions, and Science and the Courts. He is an adjunct professor at NYU Law School, where he teaches seminars on Class Actions and on Science and the Courts, and also teaches annual one-week seminars at The University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and the University of Virginia School of Law. He previously served on the Board of Managers of Swarthmore College and on the Governing Board of the MacArthur Foundation's Law & Neuroscience Project. Rakoff was elected to the American Law Institute in 2009 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2013. He is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. Rakoff represented the federal judiciary on the National Commission on Forensic Science (2013–17) and co-chaired the National Academies of Science's Committee on Eyewitness Identification. He served on the New York City Bar Association's Executive Committee and was chair of the Association's Nomination, Honors, and Criminal Law Committees. He chaired the Second Circuit's Bankruptcy Committee and the Southern District of New York's Grievance Committee and Criminal Justice Advisory Board. He participated in the development of the third and fourth editions of the federal judiciary's Manual on Scientific Evidence and co-edited The Judge's Guide to Neuroscience. He has assisted the U.S. government in training foreign judges in Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Dubai, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, the Maldives, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Sir Lanka, Tunisia, and Turkey. He was a senior advisor to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology's Advisory Group on Forensic Science and served as an adviser on the ALI project to revise the sentencing provisions of the Model Penal Code.
Since 2009, Rakoff has been a trustee of the William Nelson Cromwell Foundation, which sponsors research in U.S. legal history. Since 2020, he has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Touro Synagogue Foundation.
Rakoff's younger brother, Todd, is a longtime professor at Harvard Law School.