Jerry H. Goldfeder

Fordham Law Faculty
Adjunct Professor of Law

Senior Counsel | Cozen O'Connor
3 WTC, 175 Greenwich Street 55th Floor
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917-680-3132

 

Jerry has been teaching at Fordham Law School for over twenty years, and has been voted Adjunct Professor of the Year twice, in 2015 and 2019.  During this time he also taught at Penn Law for ten years.

He is the newly appointed Chair of the American Bar Association’s Election Law Committee; and recently served on the ABA’s Task Force for Democracy.  He previously served as Chair of the New York City Bar Association’s Election Law Committee and the New York State Bar Association’s Voting Rights and Democracy Task Force.  He also served as Chair of the NYC Bar’s Municipal Affairs Committee.

For the last several years, Jerry has been the Director of the Fordham Law School’s Voting Rights and Democracy Project, which has sponsored multiple academic programs, visits from a variety of public officials and public figures, and meetings with Supreme Court Justices, United States Senators and Congressmembers, and heads of several federal agencies. 

Jerry has practiced election and campaign finance law for 45 years, representing various high-profile candidates and elected officials, including mayors, governors, and several candidates for president of the United States. He has also provided legal counsel to members of the U.S. Congress, the New York State Legislature, New York's City Council, judiciary members, unions, not-for-profits, and various groups on local, state, and federal campaign finance law, lobbying compliance, and governmental procedures.

A prolific writer, he is the author and editor of the treatise Goldfeder's Modern Election Law, now in its 7th Edition, and the regular columnist for the New York Law Journal column, Election and Political Law. He has also published regularly in various media outlets and appears regularly on TV and radio as a commentator on election-related issues. He has also written for the Fordham Law Review, Fordham’s Urban Law Journal, and Fordham’s Voting Rights and Democracy Forum.

Since 2023, Jerry has been Senior Counsel at Cozen O'Connor. 

Jerry earned his J.D. in the first class of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, where he served on the Cardozo Law Review. Before pursuing a legal career, Jerry obtained his master's in political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he served as a teaching assistant and president of the local teaching and research assistants union. Jerry also taught American politics as an adjunct professor at Brooklyn College, where he had earned his bachelor's degree.

Jerry has won recognition for his work from many quarters, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the New York Law Journal, the Burton Award for Excellence in Legal Writing, and the Tzedek Award from the Metropolitan Conference on Jewish Poverty, and the Law Power 100 Award from City and State.

Mailing Address

Fordham University School of Law
Legal Writing Program
150 West 62nd Street, Room 8-133
New York, NY 10023
    • "How Cuomo Can Tame N.Y.," Albany Times Union, November 4, 2010
    • "Look to New York City for Reform," Albany Times Union, July 26, 2010
    • "Election Law Developments," New York State Bar Association Journal, July/August 2010
    • "First Reform, Then the Economy," Albany Times Union, June 3, 2010
    • "Monserrate and the Question Of Pink Slips for Elected Officials, " New York Law Journal, January 20, 2010
    • "Let Gov. Deval Patrick Fill Ted Kennedy's Senate Seat," New York Daily News, September 1, 2009
    • Goldfeder’s Modern Election Law (Second Edition), New York Legal Publishing Co., August 2009
    • "New York State of Mindlessness [Let's Follow the 25th Amendment]," New York Times, June 10, 2009
    • "The 17th Amendment and Vacant Senate Seats," New York Law Journal, February 27, 2009
    • "Needed Now: Campaign Finance Reform," Albany Times Union, December 26, 2008 (co-author with Robert Abrams and Joel Cohen)
    • "In Case of Election Crisis, Congress Needs to Be Prepared," US News and World Report, October 15, 2008
    • "Governor Spitzer’s Dilemma [The Comptroller Problem]," New York Law Journal, December 19, 2006
    • "Could Terrorists Derail a Presidential Election?" Fordham Urban Law Journal, May 2005
    • "No More Mr. Nice Guy: Kicking Nader Off the Ballot," New York Sun, June 3, 2004
    • Columnist, "Democracy Watch," www.PoliticsNY.com, 2002-2004
    • "How to Get on the Ballot...and Stay on the Ballot!" The Center for Excellence in New York City Governance, Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, NYU, May 2001 (Monograph)
    • "Silenced Majority [A Referendum on Rent Control]," New York Times, June 2, 1997
    • "Is This North Korea? [Let's Try to Democratize New York's Primary]", New York Times, November 18, 1995
    • "Time for City to Clean Up Our Act [Environmental Reform]," Newsday, July 30, 1991

  • Chair, Association of the Bar of the City of New York Special Committee on Election Law

    • Speaker, “Should New York City's Campaign Finance System Be a Model for the State?,” The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, University at Albany, December 2010
    • Lecturer, "How to Decide an Election Case," Annual Seminar for the Justices and Law Secretaries of the Appellate Division, Second Department, 2006-present
    • Speaker, Voter Participation Hearing of the New York City Charter Revision Commission, June 2, 2010
    • Featured Speaker, "How to Get on the Ballot ... and Stay on the Ballot!" Fordham Law School Joint Bar Association Symposium, June 1, 2010
    • Speaker, "The Price of Democracy - Corporate Money in Politics," New York University School of Law, April 2010
    • Moderator, "Helping America Vote," NYU Journal of Legislation and Public Policy Symposium, March 2010
    • Guest Speaker, "The Future of New York City Charter Reform," Association of the Bar of the City of New York (Municipal Affairs Committee), September 2009
    • CLE Faculty, "Post-Election Litigation Strategies," New York State Bar Association, May 2008
    • CLE Faculty, "Judicial Ethics," Association of the Bar of the City of New York, March 2008
    • CLE Faculty, "Using the Courts to Win the Presidency," Fordham Law School, November 2006
    • Moderator, "Is Free Speech a Victim of Campaign Finance Reform?" Smith Family Foundation Forum, October 2006
    • CLE Faculty, "The Ethics of Election Law," Democratic Lawyers Council, October 2006
    • CLE Faculty, "McCain-Feingold: Is it Promoting or Destroying Democracy?" Fordham Law School, February 2004
    • CLE Faculty, "The Ethics of Ballot Access Litigation," Association of the Bar of the City of New York, May 2003

  • BA, Brooklyn College, CUNY (1968); MA, Political Science, UCLA (1972);

    ABD, Political Science, UCLA (1974); JD, Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University (1979).