John C. Coffee Explained

Birth Date:15 November 1944
Birth Place:Albany, New York
Nationality:American
Fields:Business law, Tax law
Workplaces:Columbia Law School
Alma Mater:N.Y.U. School of Law
Yale Law School
Amherst College

John C. Coffee Jr. (born November 15, 1944) is the Adolf A. Berle Professor of Law and director of the Center on Corporate Governance at Columbia Law School.

Education

Coffee grew up in Manhasset, New York. He is of Irish descent. He attended Manhasset High School where he was in the National Honor Society. After graduation, he attended Amherst College with his high school friend and classmate, actor Ken Howard. He received his B.A. from Amherst College in 1966, his LL.B. from Yale Law School in 1969 and later an LL.M. (in taxation) from New York University School of Law.[1]

Career

Following graduation from law school, Coffee was a Reginald Heber Smith fellow for one year, doing poverty law litigation in New York City. He entered private practice as an attorney at Cravath, Swaine & Moore from 1970 to 1976. He has also served as Reporter for the American Bar Association for its Model Standards on Sentencing Alternatives and Procedures and for the American Law Institute's Principles of Corporate Governance. From 1976 to 1980, he was a professor at Georgetown University Law Center before coming to Columbia. He was also a visiting professor at Harvard Law School (2001), Stanford University Law School (1988), the University of Virginia Law School (1978), and the University of Michigan Law School (1979).

Coffee has been listed by the National Law Journal as one of the "100 Most Influential Lawyers in the United States." He is often quoted by The New York Times,[2] The Wall Street Journal[3] and other major media outlets, such as Fox News and CNN, in their corporate and securities reporting. He has also written one of the best known casebooks on U.S. securities regulation, as well as another on corporations. He is considered one of the foremost legal scholars in that area of securities law. Coffee is the most cited law professor in law reviews in the combined corporate, commercial, and business law field.[4]

Personal life

Coffee lives in New Jersey. His wife, Jane, who was a professor of Mathematics at the College of Staten Island, died in 2022. [5] [6] They have one daughter, who is a physician.

On August 10, 2011, Coffee was a guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.[7]

Publications

Books
Articles

Notes and References

  1. Web site: John Coffee, Jr.. Columbia Law School. November 26, 2019.
  2. News: Bonuses for Bad Performance. The New York Times. January 29, 2009. November 26, 2019.
  3. News: Efrati, Amir. Nobody . . . Is Ever Going to Plead Guilty Again. The Wall Street Journal. June 29, 2009. November 26, 2019.
  4. Web site: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. John C. Coffee. November 26, 2019.
  5. Web site: Staten Island obituaries for Sept. 29, 2022: Jane Coffee, CSI math professor, educational innovator, inspiring teacher, remembered . 29 September 2022 .
  6. Web site: Life Stories: A math prodigy, she overcame gender discrimination and created a math/Science teacher academy at CSI. Jane Coffee dies at 78 . 13 October 2022 .
  7. http://www.thedailyshow.com/guests List of Daily Show guests