Risa Kaufman

Lecturer-in-Law

Office: Jerome Greene Hall 922
Tel: (212) 854-0706
Email: risa.kaufman@law.columbia.edu

Assistant Info

Name: Greta Moseson
Phone: 212-854-3138
Email: greta.moseson@law.columbia.edu

Risa E. Kaufman is the executive director of the Human Rights Institute and a Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia Law School.  At HRI, Risa works to advance international human rights norms and strategies in the United States by developing legal theories and advocacy strategies using international human rights standards and mechanisms to address economic justice in the United States; directing the Institute’s treaty implementation initiative; coordinating the Bringing Human Rights Home Lawyers’ Network; developing human rights training programs for practicing attorneys; and overseeing the day-to-day operations of the Institute.  She also serves on the steering committee of the Campaign for a New Domestic Human Rights Agenda, which seeks to build a stronger federal and local infrastructure for human rights monitoring and enforcement in the United States. 

 

Risa 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, policy initiatives, direct services, and public education focusing on welfare, housing rights, racial profiling, domestic violence, access to legal services, rights of incarcerated persons, and voting rights. She served as associate counsel for the Community Service Society of New York, as a Gibbons Fellow in Public Interest and Constitutional Law at the law firm of Gibbons, P.C., and as a Skadden Fellow at NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund (now Legal Momentum).  Risa 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. 

 

Kaufman holds a J.D. from New York University School of Law, where she was a Root-Tilden-Snow Scholar, and clerked for Judge Ira DeMent in the U.S. District Court in Montgomery, Alabama. She holds a B.A. from Tulane University. She has published articles on access to justice and poverty, including 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); 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).