Risa E. Kaufman is the executive director of the Human Rights
Institute (HRI) at Columbia Law School and a Lecturer-in-Law.At HRI, she works to develop and advance
international human rights norms and strategies in the United States through
research, advocacy, network building, and training.Her advocacy and research focus on state and
local implementation of human rights, access to justice, and economic, social
and cultural rights.She also teaches a
seminar on domestic human rights advocacy and oversees the overall functioning
of the Institute.
Ms. Kaufman has extensive experience in public interest litigation,
advocacy and legal education with a special focus on women’s rights, poverty
law, and access to justice. Prior to joining HRI, she engaged in impact
litigation and policy initiatives as associate counsel at the Community Service
Society of New York, as a Gibbons Fellow in Public Interest and Constitutional
Law at the law firm of firm of
Gibbons, P.C., and as a Skadden Fellow at NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund
(now Legal Momentum).Ms. Kaufman has
taught at Fordham Law School, Seton Hall Law School and New York University
School of Law, where, immediately prior to joining Columbia, she was an acting
assistant professor in the Lawyering program.
She holds a J.D. from New York
University School of Law, where she was a Root-Tilden-Snow Scholar, clerked for
Judge Ira DeMent in the U.S. District Court in Montgomery, Alabama, and holds a
B.A. from Tulane University. Ms.
Kaufman’s publications on domestic human rights implementation, access to
justice and poverty include: “By Some
Other Means”: Considering the Executive’s Role in Subnational Human Rights
Implementation, 33 Cardozo L. Rev.
(forthcoming 2012); Framing Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights at the U.N., 4 Northeastern
U. L. J. (forthcoming 2012); State and Local Commissions as Sites for Domestic Human Rights
Implementation, inHuman Rights
in the United States: Beyond Exceptionalism 89 (Shareen Hertel &
Kathryn Libal eds., 2011); Access to
the Courts as a Privilege or Immunity of National Citizenship, 40 CONN. L. REV.1477 (2008); Bridging the Federalism
Gap: Procedural Due Process and Race Discrimination in a Devolved Welfare
System, 3 HASTINGS RACE & POVERTY L. J. 1 (2005); Preserving Aliens’
and Migrant Workers’ Access to Civil Legal Services: Constitutional and Policy
Considerations, 5 U. PA. J. OF CONST. L. 491 (2003) (with Laura K. Abel); State
ERAs in the New Era: Securing Poor Women’s Equality by Eliminating
Reproductive-Based Discrimination, 24 HARV. WOMEN’S L.J. 190 (2001); and Seeking
Redress for Gender-Based Bias Crimes: Charting New Ground in Familiar Legal
Territory, 6 MICH. JOURNAL OF RACE & LAW 265 (2001) (with Julie
Goldscheid).
