Meet Our President

About Benjamin Y. Kaufman

A native of Brooklyn, first Flatbush then Boro Park, Mr. Kaufman attended local yeshiva day schools and high school. After spending a gap year in Israel, he attended Yeshiva University where he received a B.A. in European History and Jewish History. He was awarded the Harry Fischel Award for Excellence in Jewish History upon graduation. Mr. Kaufman then attended Cardozo School of Law as a member of its 1988 10th graduating class and was awarded merit scholarships as a Belkin Fellow, Belkin Scholar and was also served as a Staff Editor on to the Arts and Entertainment Law Journal.

Upon graduation from law school, Mr. Kaufman joined the Law Department at Supreme Court, New York County.  In 1990, he was hired out of the Law Department by Justice Herman Cahn as his Principal Court Attorney.  In 1995, when the Commercial Division was created, Justice Cahn became one of its founding judges. At the same time, Mr. Kaufman went back to school and to earn an MBA in Finance from NYU’s Stern School of Business which he completed in 1999.

In 1998, after ten years in New York’s court system, Mr. Kaufman entered private practice. He first became an associate and, after four years, a partner at was then known as Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach LLP.  In 2009, Justice Cahn joined Mr. Kaufman in private practice at Milberg Weiss when he retired from the bench. In 2013, Mr. Kaufman left Milberg Weiss to become a partner at Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP where he practices today. Mr. Kaufman specializes in shareholder class and derivative actions and complex commercial litigation.  He has appeared in federal and state courts throughout the United States.

Mr. Kaufman resides in Lawrence, New York with his wife Linda who is the Manager of the Pooled Trust Division at Ohel Family Services.  They have three sons, the oldest of whom is an associate at Proskauer.

In addition to his decades of involvement with the Jewish Lawyers Guild, Mr. Kaufman is a past member of the Board of the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and the Rockaways and currently serves on the Board of Trustees of Congregation Beth Sholom in Lawrence.