When Professor Andrew Kaufman started at Maine Law in 2016, he brought with him over 40 decades of experience in private practice, a decade’s worth of pedagogical knowledge, and a deep understanding of transactional and business law.
Kaufman also has a long history of drafting legal opinions, serving as President of the Working Group on Legal Opinions Foundation (WGLO) from 2014- 2021 and today serves as its Director. WGLO is a national organization whose members include approximately 110 of the country’s largest law firms and some 50 national, state, and local bar associations and practice affinity groups, and it focuses on education, practice, and procedure in the context of transactional legal opinions. In particular, WGLO provides a national forum for the discussion of important issues relating to transactional closing opinions.
The organization also presents the James J. Fuld Award annually to “individual or entity that has made a significant contribution to the field of legal opinions in business transactions.” In 2024, that individual was Kaufman.
“In our little corner of the world that the legal opinion practitioners occupy, this is a really big deal,” Kaufman said modestly. He received the honor in New York City on October 29, 2024.
The award is named in recognition of James J. Fuld Award (1916 – 2008), a renowned corporate lawyer who practiced with the New York firm of Proskauer Rose LLP. His widely read article, “Legal Opinions in Business Transactions – An Attempt to Bring Some Order Out of Some Chaos”, is the canonical article on the topic of legal opinions.
James J. Rosenhauer, a senior member of the same working group, said in recognition of Kaufman’s win, “Indeed, you are one of the great heroes of our profession. … Now you have been elevated to the pantheon of the opinion gods – what a success story!”
