Topic: Jed S. Rakoff

Jed Saul Rakoff is a United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York.

Rakoff was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (born 1943). He was confirmed by the United States Senate on December 29, 1995, and was appointed on January 4, 1996, and entered on duty on March 1, 1996 to a seat vacated by David N. Edelstein. Rakoff graduated with honors in English literature from Swarthmore College (B.A. 1964), earned his M. Phil. from Balliol College at Oxford University (1966). He received a J.D.,cum laude, from Harvard Law School (1969). He has received honorary degrees from Saint Francis University and from Swarthmore.

After serving as law clerk to the late Honorable Abraham Freedman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Rakoff spent two years in private practice at Debevoise & Plimpton before joining the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. He spent seven years with the Office, the last two as Chief of the Business and Securities Fraud Prosecutions Unit. He then returned to private practice where he was a partner first with Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander & Ferdon, and then with Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson. He headed both firms' criminal defense and civil RICO sections.