Dedicated Board Member of 30 Years, Bob Kaufman ’57, Dies at Age 94

Robert M. Kaufman ’57, who had served on Brooklyn Law School’s Board of Trustees since 1994 and who had a wealth of experience in the public and private sectors, including the Department of Justice, the U.S. Senate, and 60 years of private practice at Proskauer Rose LLP, died on Monday, April 8. He was 94.

Kaufman is something of a legend among his peers and the legal community at large. A past president of the City Bar Association, he joined Proskauer in 1961, bringing with him a broad public policy perspective that helped to change the face of health and hospital law. He was responsible for the restructuring of New York not-for-profit hospital groups and for the legislative development of the New York hospital reimbursement system. 

“Bob was an extraordinary person in every respect. He was devoted and generous in his support of Brooklyn Law School and our students and faculty and unstinting in his service on the Board,” said David D. Meyer, President and Joseph Crea Dean of Brooklyn Law School. “I was deeply touched and buoyed by his encouragement and counsel over the past nine months, and I know he has played the same role for many others.”

A Holocaust survivor, Kaufman left his native Vienna at the age of eight on the rescue train to England known as the Kindertransport. His older sister followed, and his parents joined them. They arrived in America in December 1939. This story and many more are recounted in Kaufman’s memoir, Paying Back: A Refugee Kid’s Thank You to America, published in 2013.

Kaufman received a master’s degree in economics from New York University after attending Brooklyn College. He then studied at Brooklyn Law School in the evening and graduated first in his class in 1957. In a 2013 Brooklyn Law Notes profile of Kaufman, he explained that he was the Decisions Editor of the Brooklyn Law Review and a somewhat reluctant member of the Moot Court Team. “Lucy Jurow was the librarian,” he recalled. “She said, ‘This year’s case is on antitrust, and you’re an economist. We need you.’ That week, every professor kept me after class and told me to be on Moot Court. Finally, I threw up my hands.” One of the judges of the Moot Court competition was impressed with Kaufman’s skill and connected him with the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, where he assumed a position after graduation. One year later, he was recruited by U.S. Senator Jacob Javits and represented Javits on the Banking and Currency Committee and the Joint Economic Committee, among others.

Kaufman built a reputation as one of the City’s foremost lawyers in health law, not-for-profit organizations, and election law. He was a prominent civic leader, serving on more than 20 nonprofit boards and government advisory committees. He was a member of six bar associations and held over two dozen government positions, including working on the Defense Department Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, the Chief of Staff’s Special Commission on the Honor Code (West Point), and the NYC Age-Friendly Commission.

As well as a sought-after advocate and powerful lawyer, Kaufman was also an amateur farmer, tending to his Vermont garden for nearly four decades. He was known to load up litigation bags with his 47 varieties of tomatoes and 26 varieties of potatoes to share with his Proskauer colleagues!

Looking back on his life’s work for the Law Notes story, Kaufman said, “Everything I have done has been about paying back. I was a refugee who came to this country, and I was given tremendous opportunity. I have to give back, and I have had a great time doing it.”