Legal Experience That Stands Out
The Honorable Bruce W. Kauffman is a Senior Shareholder, Co-Chairman of the Firm’s Executive Committee. Judge Kauffman has 50 years of frontline trial and appellate experience in a wide variety of complex commercial and corporate matters in State and Federal Courts in Pennsylvania and throughout the United States. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, and graduate of Yale Law School, Order of the Coif, Judge Kauffman has earned national recognition for his corporate counseling and trial advocacy. An experienced arbitrator and mediator, his practice includes representation of major corporations, boards of directors, fiduciaries, entrepreneurs and individuals, in commercial disputes, internal and governmental investigations, anti-trust, unfair competition, business torts and federal claims.
Judge Kauffman served as a Justice of the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from 1980 to 1982, and as a Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania from 1998-July 2009.
He also served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Chairman of the Board of a bank, and Chairman of the Pennsylvania Judicial Inquiry and Review Board. His professional appointments testify to his wide-ranging skills and interest in the Trial Bar and the Philadelphia community including: Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and International Academy of Trial Lawyers; President of the Philadelphia Bar Foundation; Life Member of the American Law Institute; Member of the Board of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia; Member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association Judicial Selection Reform Committee and House of Delegates; Chairman of the Mayor’s Task Force on Minority Employment in the Philadelphia Police Department; Member of the Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission (MOVE Commission); Delegate to the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention and Co-Chairman of the Subcommittee on Selection of Judges; Member of the Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights; Chairman of the Lower Merion Township Civil Service Commission and Montgomery County Government Study Commission; Life Member of the Navy League of the United States; President of the Merion Park Civic Association; Member of the Pennsylvania Society and Fellow of the Phi Beta Kappa Society; Past Vice President of the Yale Law School Association; and, Past President of the Yale Law School Association of the Philadelphia Area.
Judge Kauffman has been honored in every aspect of his career, including receiving: The Philadelphia Bar Association’s Justice for All CLS Champion Award; The Judge Learned Hand Human Relations Award; Shomrin Service Award; The Torch of Learning Award from the American Friends of the Hebrew University and the Anti Defamation League of B’nai B’rith; and The Tree of Life Award for the Jewish National Fund. He served as a Member of the Federal Judges Association, the Lawyers Club, the Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Bar Associations and the New Jersey Bar Association. His scholarly articles have been published in the Villanova Law Review, the Delaware Journal of Corporate Law and the Temple Law Quarterly.
Judge Kauffman, the proud father of five children, resides in Montgomery County with his wife, Carol.
