Congratulations to Mrs. Janet Jaffin on Her 100th Birthday

 

The entire Columbia Law School community congratulates Mrs. Janet Jaffin, who will reach the milestone age of 100 on May 21. The Law School is deeply indebted to Janet and her late husband, George, a Law School alumnus from the class of 1926, for their friendship and care for the Law School community and for their extremely generous philanthropy over the years.

 

The Jaffin family has long been an ardent supporter of public interest law. In 1981, George and Janet established the George M. Jaffin Professorship in Law and Social Responsibility, along with a related lecture series. A few years later their granddaughter, Daniella Levine Cava, who was studying at Columbia Law School, informed them that few of her peers were choosing to work in the public interest.

 

Janet and George believed that young lawyers were hesitant to pursue this career path because of debt incurred over the cost of their education. This spurred the Jaffins to consolidate their gifts to Columbia Law School to create the George M. Jaffin Program in Law and Social Responsibility.  The centerpiece of this program was the Law School’s Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP), which forgives the loans of graduates who practice law in the public interest and funds 12 named student scholarships. The Jaffin Program became one of the first large-scale law school loan-forgiveness programs in the country.

 

Married to George for more than 70 years until his passing in 1999, Janet Jaffin has continued the couple’s philanthropic tradition at the Law School. The endowment they established in the early 1980s, with an initial gift of $1.5 million, continues to subsidize loan repayments for generations of graduates who devote a good part of their career to practicing law in the public interest.

 

George, also a 1924 graduate of Columbia College, was a successful real estate developer and lawyer with the New York firm of Jaffin, Conrad & Finkelstein. He was the recipient of numerous honors, including the Medal for Conspicuous Alumni Service from the Alumni Federation of Columbia University.

 

Janet (nee Guzy) married George, brother to her close childhood friend, Sylvia, in 1928. Janet was a loyal supporter of his work and charitable endeavors throughout his life. They raised three devoted children, David of Germany, and two daughters, Doris Greenberg of Chappaqua, N.Y., and Lois Levine of Brooklyn. Janet resides in Scarsdale, N.Y., where she has lived for more than 60 years.

 

Members of the Jaffin family have been loyal supporters and friends of the Law School for more than half of a century. George’s sister, the late Judge Sylvia Jaffin Liese, graduated in 1945 from this law school, as did Janet and George’s granddaughter, Daniella Levine Cava ’83, who continues her grandparents’ legacy of helping others as the executive director of the Human Services Coalition of Dade County, Fla.

 

Columbia Law School thanks Janet and the Jaffin family for their steadfast generosity and care and wishes her continued health and happiness on reaching her centennial birthday.